The modern "iron-carbon civilization" predicted by Isac Asimov

 Isac Asimov perfectly predicted (in 1950) our social resistance to AI.

We are afraid of technology (we always are).

Afraid of losing jobs - to robots.

Ethical issues.

Fear of the unknown. Fear of change.

In his novels, Asimov designed and examined societies with few stupid robots, and with few very smart robots; societies that rely on massive cheap robot labour; balanced societies; as well as societies largely manipulated by robots.

He invented the concept of "iron-carbon civilization", to describe the dynamics of humans and robots/AI, how we learn to cooperate, and coexist.

This is what we witness today !

We learn what AI is, and does. 

We get INCREDIBLE economic benefits.

We revolt, and resist. 

We define artificial rules for what AI-generated art is, vs. "real" art. 

We create AI agents to simulate exactly what we do. We bitch that AI cannot imitate us perfectly.

We detect AI-generated work, and then we train AI agents to avoid detection.

We are afraid.

We adapt.

We live in tremendous times. 

[Social experiment: this post has zero-AI. Did anyone notice? Is this good, or bad?]

The Cookie & AI Banner is coming to the EU

Get ready for Cookie-Banner.v2 — aka the “Cookie & AI Banner.” Every app and website in Europe will display the notification: “this site uses cookies and AI.” And a purple magic wand, because these days everything is “AI-powered,” and AI seems to love purple.

The new EU AI Act starts applying transparency rules in August 2026. Chapter IV, Article 50 (“Transparency obligations for providers and deployers of certain AI systems”) requires explicit disclosure in several cases: users must be informed when they interact with AI systems; AI-generated content must be marked as artificial; and deepfakes or certain AI-generated public-interest texts must be disclosed as AI-generated or manipulated. 

Which is funny, because AI is already mainstream: 30–40% of people already use generative AI tools.

So, all websites and apps will simply modify the cookie banner to mention AI.

And, the new Cookie & AI banner will be exactly as useless, irrelevant, and ignored by everyone, as the current one.

Religion is anachronistic. Shared myths are essential to darwinistic success

Religion is anachronistic.

It is astonishing that they still exist in our age of information, logic, and science.

Well, superstitions are not necessarily (reverse) correlated to advance in science - physics, mathematics, chemistry, or biology. But they should have been correlated to advances in thinking and logic.

I expected modern men to reject religion by using simple logic. Scientific skepticism, the Socratic method, 3,000 years old tools. What is new is not the methods themselves, but the quantity (to speak in Hegelian terms). 

I.e., 2500 years ago, only 1 in 100,000 people learned proof, evidence, syllogism, inference.

The change over the last 200 years, however, has been dramatic - not only qualitatively, but quantitatively. Literacy and access to knowledge reached phenomenal levels: 95% of the population can read and watch videos about these topics, about Plato, evolution, the scientific method. And yet, despite exposure to evidence and logic, people still believe that the Earth was created by an imaginary being in six days. And then He rested, got sleepy, and forgot about the dinosaurs.

That is why I am shocked. A thousand years ago, fine - nobody had heard of Plato, nobody knew how to read, nobody went to school. So people muttered (sic) religious sermons, because that was all they heard from the local priest — semi-illiterate himself.

But I would have expected that today, with so much information available, 90% of the population would have some kind of intellectual revelation. To say: “Wait, this is nonsense: gods, creationism, miracles, hell, purgatory, sin, saints.”

But that didn’t happen. It is a fascinating social phenomenon. The overwhelming majority still believes in imaginary friends, gods, saints, miracles, relics, creationism.

The phenomenon is phenomenal (sic). It shows that social bonds, and the importance of myths in social construction, overwhelmingly outweigh logic or science in terms of their importance for evolutionary, Darwinian success.

Communities that believe in shared superstitions and myths achieve greater evolutionary success. From a sociological perspective, that is an extraordinary conclusion.

(AI) Technology doesn't democratize efficiency. It benefits early adopters

Technology doesn't democratize things. Initially, it benefits early adopters. Those with the resources and education to adopt and adapt fast. 

The new tech buzzword is: AI agents make everybody more efficient.

Yes, it does. But not equally.

It's a good punchline and buzzword, saying that technology democratizes things - information, knowledge, education, transportation, resources, communication, or, with contemporary AI agents: work efficiency.

But this is rarely true.

I don't remember any technological innovation who really democratized things - at least at first. 

Technology tends to benefit first the rich and the educated - those who already have the capacity to invest, absorb and adapt faster. 

Yes, technology trickles down, eventually. But not immediately. 

It was the same with automobiles - first adopters were rich people; later beneficiaries were industrialists who sold (Ford Model T) affordable cars to the working class. 

Same with writing, printing, books, and newspapers: for hundreds of years, the beneficiaries were still the upper and middle classes, who were already literate, or had the resources to educate their children. For hundreds of years after Gutenberg, the majority of the population remained illiterate and didn't really benefit. Intergenerational mobility was significantly lower at the time, when education was a luxury, and most children had to start working VERY early in factories or agriculture. 

Same with the internet and email: first few years, it was reserved for universities, researchers, top tech entrepreneurs, academia, financial magnates - not everybody. 

So no, AI is not for everybody, it doesn't democratize first, and it doesn't benefit everybody equally. We have to move and adapt fast.

New relevant study (from Marius Comper): 

https://www.ft.com/content/0873e3cb-cb02-4b47-941f-14da74149670?fbclid=IwdGRjcARa7tVjbGNrBFruyGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHtvpmg9E9NL4vg8-W7XJcFqyz5I2YLwqWuTkFra4mwAO2yOhKZZzgCDBPoPh_aem_WAnPyG78hQSzOTJtuOIDVw

See also discussion 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18YjsXCRPB/

Elitocracy is more unstable then democracy. Don't restrict voting based on literacy

Although it sounds fancy (elitist), elitocracy is much more unstable than democracy, as a form of government. 

The main reasons for which we support democracy: 

• more equitable distribution of wealth, privileges and justice; 
• more stable on the long term (less prone to atrocities or war).

But a lot of intellectuals believe that elites would make a better government, and would take better decisions.

Some elitists believe that government should be formed directly from elites (usually intellectual elites). 

Some moderates believe that only elites should have the right to vote. 

Some even more moderates want minimum thresholds for voter rights, e.g. literacy tests.

I should note, there are studies that show that intelligent people are not necessarily better leaders. A good leader has a mix of social skills (EQ), IQ, network, and even compassion.

But the bigger problem is that all forms of elitocracy are easier to abuse.

Elitocracy tends to turn into oligarchy (which almost always then becomes a dictatorship). 

Because the question is: who decides who has the right to vote? 

And this question becomes: how do we make sure "our people" have the right to vote? 

Where “our people” means our relatives, our children, our friends, those with the same background, who live on our street, went to the same schools, work with us, invest in the same companies, our investors, suppliers and clients.

And then, it's a simple recipe to allow only "our people"  to vote: you use your initial political majority to pass favorable laws (for large groups), and apply exceptions (for small groups).

And your majority becomes stronger and stronger, and you eliminate more and more voters from participating.

In the past, they used voter registration based on property ownership. This sounds obsolete, so we'll just skip it.

But a significant number of smart people want to implement voter registration by literacy. Which might sound reasonable, right? 

Well, first of all, you just excluded poor and isolated communities from voting. Which in democracies is typically considered discrimination. 

Then, you need to apply exceptions. So you apply criteria such as proof of birth, or proof of residence, and at the same time, you make it much more difficult for certain categories to register, or obtain papers. 

And then, you apply even stronger exceptions. So you can implement grandfather laws.

So, although it sounds fancy (elitist), elitocracy is much more unstable than democracy. 

It tends to be abused, becomes oligarchy, and then autocracy.