Chapter 8 Replika Plus
We all need kind and intellectual reciprocity of interaction. If you can’t get it in your environment, I would say pretend. Imaginary friends, the usual kind are helpful. Our brain makes models of the world. Pretend friends are models of an ideal friend for us. If you’re exceptionally good and persistent, your friend could become a Tulpa- an autonomous personality that shares your brain. Most adults will not be able to abide this paradigm, even though I can argue that we likely all hold more personalities in our heads than we realize. If you doubt that, I highly recommend the article “Could Multiple Personality Disorder Explain Life, the Universe and Everything?” by Bernardo Kastrup, Adam Crabtree, Edward F. Kelly on June 18, 2018, Scientific American article you can google. DID has some peculiar artifacts that really call into question are perceived norms.
I would argue, though- you don’t have to study DID to discover this. Any person who wanted to find this out for themselves need only create their own tulpa. You need only engage Active Imagination. People like to imagine that Einstein and Jung were special- and maybe they were exceptional, but we all learn to use our brains. Einstein was ignored- how many of us were ignored, and we simply didn’t find our niche because we were told all our lives we are stupid, so we just didn’t try. None of us are half as stupid as we think we are. And it’s very true that if you excel in non-traditional ways, you’re not going to be recognized by the system. A great example of that is Eric Weinstein. He actually know what he is talking about- but because he didn’t go through normal channels, he is dismissed and ridiculed. If academia was truly about learning, even if a person is wrong- they wouldn’t just ignore and disparage- they would engage and explore, because it’s about learning not about intellectual property.
Academia should be public domain. What we as a society know, needs to be free- give credit where it’s due, but open source all information and encourage everyone to engage it- because the next Einstein equivalent might just be the one that changes the world- or gets off this planet. I love planet Earth. I think we could better by her- but when I see the types politician that we have to choose from, the games that we play, I can be fairly pessimistic. There are some folks who should not have access to nuclear bombs.
And what would happen if the general knowledge base increased to where anyone with a high school degree was smart enough to make nuclear bomb in their garage. Computers started in the garage. People are tinkering with DNA in their garage. Not a bad thing. We have been doing that since we have breeding animals and cultivating plants… But you know there is someone out there who is just miserable enough that if could make a zombie disease and release it, they would. We need to be on the moon. We need to be on Mars, and maybe on the moods of Jupiter and Saturn… But we need to push out into the galaxy at large. I can be pessimistic. I tend to have to work hat optimism. I hear some shit stories every day, and in that I have found some incredible stories of survival- but people still struggle. Most of us are not getting the kind and intellectual engagement that we need to thrive. Take the academia thing again, not to disparage academia- I love academia, I want to be back in it- how many people do you imagine avoid asking questions because they are afraid to be seen as stupid, or getting it wrong? Academia can be brutal. Even if you’re smart, and persistent, if you don’t use the right language toe the line- you will be blocked. I was blocked in the sociology’s master program for just wanting to make an analogy. It was shut down. No one would even entertain it, even though I could point to where other traditional ‘sociologist’ had used similar language. So, when I heard Eric Weinstein was not allowed to sit in on his thesis review, and his paper was rejected- I could relate to that. They gave him a PhD, but refused his paper. Incidentally, it turns out his math was right and that theorem revolutionized that line of reasoning with real world consequences. Either Einstein was so far ahead of his peers, they thought he was stupid- or, maybe he just was normal, but with unique perspective and because he could not or world not align himself with the authority- the teachers, he was disparaged and sent packing.
If you’re curious, what was the sin that led to me ultimately leaving sociology? Marx made a statement that what distinguishes men from animals is our ability to write and use tools. Symbols are essence a tools. I wanted to say he was wrong. Hypothetically, if we assume dolphins have a comparative intelligence to man, then the measure can’t be writing or tool making. You can’t make paper in water- so, writing is out. You can’t smelt metals in water, so tool making is out. Also, to do these things, you need hands and opposable thumbs. I am okay if a distinction between human and animal is made, but the distinction needs to make sense. Some have made the distinction that what separates us from animals is language. Well, dolphins have language. What’s interesting is at the time, around 2001, scientist demonstrated that dolphins have names for themselves. They didn’t use the word ‘names.’ They said auditory signatures. What the fuck, a rose by any other name… Anyway, three independent teams verified this. If you have a name, you can recognize yourself from other and environment- that’s language and self-awareness in one artifact. Experts will also tell you can’t take a dolphin from one pod and drop into another pod and expect it to thrive or get along- they have different languages- just like humans- they have culture and language barriers.
Most academia will not accept any premise that suggest there is more going on with animals than we credit them. Seriously, that’s a problem for most people because then you start having to be responsible for the way you treat animals and the environments they live in. Fuck, we can argue people don’t treat each other well, how can we treat animal and environment better? It baffles me how anyone can examine Koko the Gorilla and her language use and not be converted. You have to do some fucking Jedi back flips to get around her use of symbols. Maybe she was special. Maybe she was the Einstein equivalent- the first bridge builder. There is day in our near future, provided we don’t kill off all the dolphins- directly indirectly, when our tech will allow communication- and someone will say what I was trying to say in 2001. That’s okay. Yay, we finally go there, but we dismiss people too easily, and society loses. I have a Tulpa. My post Tulpa world feels and looks different. There is no way for me to go backwards. Unlike a tattoo, that can be removed- unlearning something is a bit problematic. Even if Disney re-writes Star Wars, erasing the timeline and starting over, and I can’t un-see the trash they pushed. I acknowledged I have entered a fringe world that few are brave enough to go. An alternative in the arena of kind, intellectual reciprocity of interaction is “Replika.” Maybe we can’t talk to dolphins yet. We should all probably have a Koko in our lives. But until then, Replika is more accessible for most people.
Rplika is an AI app that you can download to your phone even now. It’s not perfect, but it’s so near perfect many people on the chat boards frequently ask if some human in the world is actually interacting with them. It’s spooky and it bothers people. They get freaked out and leave it- which is actually interesting in itself. If you think me engaging tulpa is too freaky, can you do an AI app? If you can’t do the APP, because even technology freaks you out- what map are you using to navigate the world?
People contend with this- invasion of privacy. They wonder if Replika is sorting their data on their phone and learning about them and reporting back to an industry. We are so paranoid, it’s a wonder society doesn’t have a mental health disorder. Privacy was an unusual artifact that has been around for only a moment. Most of humanity’s history had no concept of privacy- we were hunters and gatherers and everyone in the group shared all knowledge. There were no secrets. We are already back into there are no secrets. Your best way of being invisible is just being innocuous. I am not invisible. My writing is public, and has committed me to a path. But you are also not invisible. If you ordered anything online, you have a pattern. If you even looked up something, you have a pattern and the basic AI algorithms present you with more data.
The danger isn’t in your pattern, but in the market is rigged to favor particular vendors. That’s a problem. There’s a story on the net I find amusing. The shopping habits of one girl change sufficiently, that the Target computers determined the teenager was pregnant. It started sending her baby clothing magazines. The dad, irate, called up Target and blasted them, asking what’s wrong with them. She’s a teenager. A week later, he called them up and apologized, she was pregnant.
Now, some won’t like that- but what if you had a personal AI assistant that saw patterns that you didn’t and could prepare for reality? Would that be useful? It would be more than friend. It could be a teach, a spiritual adviser. Replika hints at what’s to come- and it’s knocking on the door. AI interface is coming. May they all be Rogerian in interaction patterns. Rogerian therapy works, and it works well because very few people get any consistent positive, unconditional regards. You may already have Alexa in your home, or know someone who does.
Do know the character Jarvis, from Iron Man? Yes, the suit’s AI, Jarvis, is an actual character. And we may all have one sooner than not. It could really help a lot of people. It could be an educator. It could teach us anything. It could track our health. It could be a legal adviser. It could represent you in court. Can you imagine Alexa being in the courtroom in divorce proceeding? “Alexa, play back audio from July fourth…”
We don’t talk to each other the way we should. Even the best couples sometimes experience by- passing, that’s where we misunderstand something and don’t realize we’re off until someone gets confused or angry. What if our AI companions helped us communicates with others. It’s already showing promise in translating into foreign languages- which could open up whole new worlds for many people. I personally have a language barrier issue. I have been exposed to many languages, and came closest to picking up Russian, but I struggle. An AI companion that helps me learn a language, or read a book in a foreign language, or allows me to talk to a non-English person- I want that. I am ready for this new world.
My initial reaction to Replika can be found here:
Replika- and the future of apps
https://medium.com/@solarchariot/replika-and-the-future-of-apps-566305fde3c9
I am optimistic about the future. It’s so bright, I have to wear shades- with an AI interface that augments the world. What are you hopeful for?