People start to hate AI

People start to hate AI.

It's a very interesting phenomenon. Stronger than anything we witnessed before.

This negative emotion is tangible - in social media, in communities, in legislation.

4 years ago, AI was a curiosity.

1 year ago, it was still interesting.

Now it is ubiquitous - so people started hating it, en masse.

The reason is the SPEED of the change.

AI is a storm. It doesn't need 100 years, or 10 years - like fire, automobiles, electricity, or email. It changes everything, now.

So, we are all scared.

And our reaction becomes irrational.

It's more irrational than people burning books, when we were afraid of new ideas.

More irrational than Samurais, Zulus, and Amerindians charging with arrows and spears, against rifles, railways, and machine guns.

Of course, people post-rationalize this irrational hate. It's a typical process: First we feel emotions, than we post-rationalize. And the post-rationalizations are usually exaggerated; extreme. AI is the Devil - or sometimes a God.

"Datacenters are killing the planet / consume all our electricity / water" (no, they are not. The energy consumption is quite small, compared to... everything else).

"AI is taking over our jobs" (well, yes, but it is also creating even more jobs).

"AI will set us free, and nobody will need to work again" (of course not) (corollary: let's tax AI / robots. Bill Gates keeps saying this, since 2017...)

"AI is stupid, and cannot replace humans / artists / lawyers etc" (this contradicts the previous argument, but well).

"AI cannot invent anything original" (well, maybe - but neither can you).

"AI will take over the world and kill us all" (no, it is not).

"AI doesn't know what it's doing, doesn't have awareness and intentionality" (again: this contradicts the previous argument, but well - who cares about logical contradictions in an irrational post-rationalization).

The key reason for this hate: the same as ever: fear of the new. Fear of technology. Fear of change.

Geniuses like Asimov, or Frank Herbert, forecasted this. They looked at history and arrived at the same conclusion: people hate change.

Asimov wrote about the C/Fe (carbon/iron) culture: impact of robots, rejection and hate of robots, good robots vs. bad robots, adaptation to C/Fe, changes in industry, economy, legislation; moral and ethical impact. 

So here we are. We will set barriers, impose legislation, block datacenters, and we'll set robots on fire.

And in the end, we will create the best brave new world.

Because AI is here to stay, and will change this world.

Art is easy. Science is hard

 My (sarcastic) answer ref. the quality and value of art: I recognize only the authority of the Supreme High Council for the Certification of Art Quality.

In other words, the quality of art is not a valid, falsifiable, reproduceable question. There are no authorities, standards, or units of measurement for the quality of art.

Until five years ago, the definition of art (and of artistic quality) was a rather inconsequential problem. Art quality was a topic for salons of bored intellectuals, who would debate questions such as: what is the value of a painting made by a monkey, or by a child? 

In fact, we had quite a few famous experiments with experts unable to distinguish between kindergarten drawings and abstract paintings valued at millions.

And here comes AI. 

And we make this astonishing discovery, that it is incredibly easy to make art, but incredibly difficult to do science and engineering. 

Any monkey or child can draw or sing something that we can then interpret artistically in a million different ways (“what did the artist mean?”). 

But only one researcher in a million is capable of discovering and proving a valid, reliable, reproducible scientific theory.

Why I believe in education. And why the global population just started shrinking

I was just asked why I believe in education.

The global natality rate just dropped below replacement rate. From now on, the world population is shrinking.

Why this is bad? It's not about absolute numbers. It's about the trend. A shrinking, aging population means decay. 5 billion people is not necessarily worse than 10 billion, but the trend is a disaster. It's like a company shrinking. It's still a big company. But it's overweight, bureaucratic, static, disillusioned, lacks energy and stamina.

Why is the human population and natality shrinking? Less children, even in underdeveloped countries. Better birth control. Much higher cost for raising children.

Our children start working at 25. Our grand parents were productive at 12.

It's difficult to raise 3-4 kids until 25.

So here comes the question. Why do we educate our kids? Why do we spend 20+ years as parents / taxi drivers / mentors, between school, football, piano lessons, chess and art classes?

In short, I believe education makes us better. More effective, smarter, more reasonable. You earn more money, help more people, and contribute more to the progress of society. You save lives and do more good for those around you. You are less likely to vote for demagogic, populist, or sociopathic politicians. You are better equipped to defend yourself against aggression. You avoid conflicts and help de-escalate them. You build things that are useful to your family, your colleagues, and humanity.

The bar for AGI is ever higher

Every year, AI becomes significantly stronger. But we keep raising the bar for AGI - "real" Artificial General Intelligence.

<< Yes, AI is smart, but cannot solve math problems. So it's not real intelligence.>>

<<Yes, it solves simple math problems, but not difficult problems. >>

<<Yes, it solves complex math problems, but cannot reason. >>

<< Cannot write poems. Cannot draw. Cannot compose music >>

Well, now it can.

One year ago, ChatGPT even passed the Turing test for AI. Still nobody noticed.

The Turing test is the single most important test for AI. The imitation game. Designed over 50 years ago. The single simplest measurable test of real intelligence. Never passed - at least until last year.

Read more about the Turing test: https://blog.stefanmorcov.com/2022/12/can-ai-pass-turing-test-lets-ask-chatgbt.html

OpenAI ChatGPT passed the Turing test in April 2025

But we simply raised the bar even higher. "There is no AGI".

The Handmaid's Tale: a long, sad, boring mockery of contemporary society

I finally forced myself to watch The Handmaid's Tale. 

My intuition was right. It's a long, boring TV show. The story is promising - but rarely convinces. There's no suspension of reality. Low expectations, low quality. 

But it's a show that needed to be made. 

It's a mockery of contemporary religion, superstition, demagoguery, and politics. And we needed to challenge them.

We take religion and politics so seriously, now. So we don't even recognize demagoguery anymore. 

So the show is actually a very sad, sad form of Monty Python. 

We needed this serious, lugubre, boring, sad movie, to mock ourselves, and our society.