Recent reporting about the USAF AI McGuffin immediately brought a recent documentary about De Beers, Nothing Lasts Forever, to mind. Let me explain.
Recent reporting about the USAF AI McGuffin immediately brought a recent documentary about De Beers, Nothing Lasts Forever, to mind. Let me explain.
The documentary’s central narrative device is that the lie, claiming “real” diamonds are special and precious gemstones, became so entrenched as accepted truth that a new lie, manufactured diamonds are not “real” diamonds, continues to skew industry calibrations. A duplicitous layer cake neatly analyzed and worth the watch time, mostly.
Contrast that with the USAF issuing statements denying that a simulation, in which a simulated pilot was successfully killed by a simulated drone, ever took place. WTF? One hopes many, many simulations are run in which many, many simulated deaths occur, so we can get a better understanding of the behaviours these machines may be capable of—WITHOUT ACTUALLY KILLING ANYONE.
Anyway, there’s a parallel in my mind here. A falsity becomes the scale, the substantiation, for the “real-ness” of another fake. It’s a pro level agency removal maneuver: pile fabrication, on fabrication, on fabrication, until it’s all fabric and no structure—no seams, no zippers, no buttons, no ties, just a pile of maybe.
And a pile of maybe is not information.
Information is what helps us sort out our own piles of maybe.