CHAT AND PERPLEXITY

I am perplexed by a number of things. I have been listening to Stewart Lee’s audio essay What Happened to Counter Culture on the Artworks program on Radio 4. Interesting stuff particularly as one was living through the period and a lot of one’s own evolution occurred during that time. I have also been reading an essay in Harper’s Magazine by Meghan O’Gieblyn under the banner Easy Chair entitled None the Wiser. It is essentially about the technological development and ramifications of Artificial Intelligence and where do we go from here? It is a perspective on what we define as knowledge and what we believe to be wisdom. Not at all the same thing. 

I have in past blogs commented on levels of education particularly as it concerns voters and representatives in both the United Kingdom and the United States. I can understand why the likes of Trump love the poorly educated, but I am perplexed how people with higher education, law degrees and the like, can be taken in by this obviously distorted individual. To have a politically conservative approach to governing is one thing and a perfectly acceptable point of view, just as a more liberal stance, leaning towards greater welfare support,  is acceptable. That is not to say that conservatives have less concern for the welfare of the citizen, just a different approach to providing it. What is of concern is the extreme and more fanatical approach to government by decree or executive order. 

The rule of the state is founded on the rule of law which is a consensus of the citizens who have developed the laws by which we live. It is partly through legislation and partly through what became established common practice arrived at over years of interaction between peoples. “We hold these truths to be self evident….” begins the second paragraph of the declaration of independence. The idea that all are equal and have certain unalienable rights is paramount. “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organising its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” is what follows. That is the basis of the contract between the citizens and the representatives they have elected to organise and maintain the stability and existence of the state. 

None of this is too difficult to understand. It is counter extremist and quite clear that the consent of the governed is required to govern and no arbitrary decree, however dressed up to be ‘in the public interest’,  is acceptable. So I am concerned that individuals who profess to abide by the democratic constitutions of their countries, behave in ways that are completely outside the scope of their stated pledge to uphold the values of their constitutions and thereby their constituents. 
 

I come back to our history of counter culture and the current cultural move towards repression, isolation and nationalism,  and the concepts of Artificial Intelligence. Why is it that people such as Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump, who apparently, according to polls, are unpopular and disapproved of, are elected and re-elected to office? In my own wanderings about, I have rarely come across people who are in favour of these people as rulers of any kind. They put themselves forward as the saviours of democracy but are anything but that. Their actions are completely contrary to conservative concepts of small government. They seek to rule by decree and what they tell the people ‘What the people want’. How often has one heard the phrase “The British people are fed up with, etc.” or “The American people want, etc.” coming out the mouths of the likes of Nigel Farage, Margery Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Zia Yusuf to name but a few, without the slightest care about what the people actually want. 

As to the types of demonstrations we saw in the late 1960’s against the war in Vietnam, there have been protests against the Israeli Hamas conflict as well as Ukraine/Russia, but nothing like the fervour of 1968. On top of which we now have legislation brought in by a Tory government limiting  and criminalising political activity on the streets. The current labour government sees fit to let that legislation stand and organisations that are protesting against violence are being proscribed as terrorist organisations. What is that about?

As to AI I have learned new terms. Computer software programs such as Chat GPT, Perplexity AI and Canva have developed over the years, through the accumulation of data and the development of algorithms. These algorithms (a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer) use the now vast availability of data in order to spill out the desired solution, text or advice, based on the situation fed in by the user. There are however situations which are referred to as ‘edge cases’,  ‘a problem or situation that arises at the extreme or boundary of a system's normal operating parameters, often involving unexpected or rare inputs or conditions. These rare scenarios can expose critical weaknesses, and addressing them is crucial for ensuring the robustness, security, and overall reliability of software and other systems.’

I wonder  just what the continental congress would have made of ChatGPT. “On June 11, 1776, the Congress appointed the Committee of Five (John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R Livingston and Roger Sherman) to draft and present the Declaration of Independence”. Thomas Jefferson was the principle writer, but just what information would the committee have fed into the computer to produce that document at the time? What algorithm would have been deployed? Or would the situation have been classified as an edge case? And what about Magna Carta or the French Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789? Do these events exceed normal operating parameters?

So I remain perplexed. So far as I can see there are at present no normal operating parameters in government, not even of any kind. Would Trump. Netanyahu, Putin and the rest of the world's leaders be willing to sit down and use whatever necessary algorithm it might take to print out a permanent peaceful solution to the current case that is the violence being perpetrated round the world and in particular the Middle East and Middle Europe? They show no signs of even making an attempt beyond the photo opportunity. All the rest is just chat without the GPT.