AI, Authenticity and Automats

 "Turn the old; return to them.  Things do not change; we change.  Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts." 

~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden 

 

A new commercial keeps reappearing, just in the past week or so.  It shows a young woman utilizing a new AI "feature" to essentially trick people into thinking she is someone she is not.  There are a couple of variations of this advertisement I have seen, one in a personal setting and the other related to the workplace, and in both, after cleverly deceiving someone, she looks at the camera with a look of clandestine delight.  This is presented as a positive development for us all.

There are several obvious problems, if we are reflective and honest enough to consider them.  She is not being her authentic self, and were this to occur in "real and actual life", it would eventually be exposed she's not quite as clever as her deception has presented.  She would be caught without her crutch, eventually, sooner or later, and she would be set backwards on her path, all the worse for it.  The notion that is being presented here, in the workplace scenario for example, is it's better to "get ahead" than to be your actual self.  In the personal scenario, it's even worse, as what sort of a relationship would she expect to establish when she feels she isn't "good enough" to be who she is?

The lingering, repeating message is that we are "less" as our authentic selves and AI makes us "more".

As I was pondering writing this blog post, I was finishing re-watching a poignant documentary called The Automat.  It's about the history of a very special, innovative dining establishment that was once very successful, with owners who genuinely cared about the people they served and employed, who welcomed everyone through its doors.  In the case of the automat, innovation wasn't harming people.  It was actually helping.  How the automats ceased to exist is the poignant part, and we are led to reflect upon change.  I wish they still existed.  We could use these places today.  I was too young and never lived in the area of the country where they once were, but no doubt several of my family members (primarily on the "other side") who grew up in the New York City area (or arrived there as immigrants) experienced the wonder of this place. 

The documentary has a lot to say about change and human dignity - and about creativity as well.  The problem with AI is no matter how you feel about change as it was, change as it is today de-humanizes at a level well beyond any change before.  Will we see through it?

Treasure and nurture your innate creativity.  Treasure your beautiful vulnerability as a human being.  Don't let anybody tell you that you are "less".  You are "more" beyond imagining.  No artificial construct can approach what you are. The "supermind" they seek has existed forever, and it isn't what they think it is.  

 

 

Nature photo by Susan Larison Danz.

Authenticity Revisited

 Authenticity brings invisible people to life!

I had an experience at a local UFO Festival in Oregon a couple weeks ago that I really feel is worth reflecting upon.   Why was I at a UFO Festival?  Well, not necessarily because I choose to dwell on negative or frightening aspects of what has been reported.  I was there because I feel there is value in communicating Love-based, God-based, Higher Consciousness-based ways of looking at life among the stars.  And I had a wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts on the topic on a national radio program (old link: https://soundcloud. com/groundzeromedia/2014-05-16) broadcasting in front of a live audience at the Festival.  I was as real as real can be with regards to this topic, completely oblivious to any sort of judgment by listeners on the radio.

Susan Larison Danz and national talk show host Clyde Lewis.

It's what happened the next day which drove a point home.  You see, it's easier for me to talk about "fringe topics that really shouldn't be fringe" on the radio than to tell any number of people I know in my local town that I go on the radio at all.

I was sitting in the audience to see George Noory's event when I heard my name.  "Susan, Susan Danz, it IS you."  Apparently someone I know from occasional community meetings happened to hear a familiar voice on the street the night before, wondering "Is that Susan Danz talking about ETs?"  And sure enough, inside the open air broadcast tent, it WAS the person he thought it was.

So, caught in the act of authenticity, I had no choice but to be who I actually am.  "Yes, it really was me..."

We all circulate in various parts of our world in different ways.  There are many ways of being who we are.  But occasionally those worlds might intersect.  And when they do, are we self conscious or real?  Far too many times, I have defaulted to self conscious.  But this time, somehow, I found myself smiling into real... 

Mirror, Mirror

Love yourself enough to authentically BE who you truly are.

Somehow my morning posts transitioned to night, but I'm determined to do my best to keep writing even though it's late and I'm tired.  It seems the lesson to which I keep returning lately is simply Let It Be.

Tonight I find myself reflecting upon the topic of mirroring and authenticity.  I have a tendency to mirror people I'm talking with, and it's something that has been with me a very long time.

When in balance, I sense it's a form of empathy and understanding, a way of gravitating towards those things which mutually resonate, surfacing those aspects of yourself that genuinely overlap with another person.  They say when we imitate body language, for example, it can actually be a way of developing rapport.

I used to travel often to the Ozarks in Missouri, and before I knew it, I just couldn't seem to help taking on a bit of a twang in my voice when enjoying a conversation.

Yet how do we know when mirroring is out of balance?  How do we know when we are masking our authentic selves?

As I have been writing, I literally heard them say on the radio "You've got to love yourself."

That says it all.