For the benefit of many new subscribers, here is some background of what this serial is about:
Last August here on Substack I chronicled in real time my adventures in the realm of artificial intelligence i.e., I attended a convention in Las Vegas called Ai4, billed as the AI industry’s “most impactful event.”
What I did not report, needing time to digest the experience, was how I somehow got uploaded (or downloaded) into AI and got lost inside of it.
I finally managed to make sense of the experience and write down all that happened.
This adventure (or misadventure) will play out weekly here on Substack as Meltdown Monday Madness.
I begin by re-posting my coverage of Ai4’s convention as a lead-in to the real story of what happens when you get sucked into AI and then get lost within its virtual labyrinth.
The smooth 40-minute flight from Santa Barbara to Vegas is fraught with nothing and sure beats a five-and-a-half slog on wheels through the stagnation and apathy of Lancaster, Palmdale and Barstow as much as these meth-amphetamine hubs would have provided a surreal corridor to the city that never sleeps, where dreams are born, destinies rewritten and senses are overwhelmed (especially good sense), a land of decadence and desperation.
MGM Grand is not to be mistaken for grandeur but grand only in the sense of sheer expanse and cavernous interior (add prole—the snob in me—compared to Bellagio and Wynn), furnished with high-tech money-grabbing machinery in every direction accompanied by flashing lights and garish carpets created by psychologists to liberate speculators from their spondulicks.
Why a convention here and not Caesars Palace?
The answer is this: AI does not need a home; its domain is everywhere. And it never sleeps. (So to hell with AI’s human facilitators, they can slum it.)
I wish I’d brought a baguette to scatter breadcrumbs for finding the way from my spartan room back to the maze downstairs and eventually a return for sleep.
And perhaps that is the first tip-off regarding what AI is truly about: Soulless.
My fellow AI sleuth Oscar and I take refuge at International Smoke, a barbecue joint along the Grand’s restaurant row, a glass of chard and half-a Xanax to settle my frazzled nerves from stimuli overload.
Around us are the wizards of AI, recognizable by large, impressive entry passes hanging around their necks. (We arrived too late to claim ours, save registration for…
Next Morning
After a long restless night in room that hasn’t benefited from a breath of fresh air since it was sealed off 30 years ago, fighting off a relentless recurring dream about doing Q & A with a chatbot (has AI infiltrated my dreams?) and hydrating with a bottle of hotel room Smart Water whose name should be Stupid Me due to its outrageously exorbitant price tag, I descend eighteen floors in search of badly needed caffeination and some semblance of sanity.
And so has everyone else, it transpires, from countless floors and several other towers because Starbucks in the main lobby has a trillion people queueing for its time-to-wakeup juice. But out of nowhere Oscar comes to my rescue, having conducted some recon, and leads me to a secret Starbucks concealed behind hundreds of strobe-lit slots.
Had Hunter S. Thompson ventured to Vegas a half century later to pen fear & loathing he would not have needed hallucinatory drugs to experience psychedelics. Because after putting my hands on an oat vente latte the only place to sit is facing a fancy slot machine with flashing lights in a kaleidoscope of colors designed to seduce me. But I’m not a gambler, never have been. Casinos are like lotteries: A tax on people who don’t know arithmetic. Which is why some folk call this town Lost Wages.
So I’m already out of my comfort zone before 8 a.m., far from reality, immersed in a world too surreal for Salvador Dali—and that’s even before reaching the convention center a half-mile trek away to claim my official Ai4 pass and immerse myself into the amorphous world of artificial intelligence.
A free pass (admission is two grand for everyone else) was my first mission.
My second, here and now, is to sneak a pass for Oscar who is posing as my photographer but could not apply and be accepted in advance because the newspaper for which I’d been writing when I applied for my own pass has since gone belly-up.
Did I truly think I could outfox AI?
I did. And I did.
Even more audaciously, I muster my special powers of hypnosis (as taught me by legendary CIA spy-wizard Clair George), look deep into the eyes of the Operations & Marketing Director and, within seconds, she registers Oscar as… an “Orphan”—after which I waltz us both past a second threshold guardian into the Press Hospitality Room.
So far so good, aptly depicted by my new bot buddy and collaborator ChatGPT: “The moment of triumph held a certain irony—pitting human cunning against the very technology you hoped to comprehend.”
Thanks, bot.
It Begins
After what Vonnegut might have called Breakfast of Bots, the Opening Address commences and speedily morphs into a “General Session” of keynote speakers.
I’m not sure if these folks program AI or AI programs them. But I do know they speak a language or lingo I mostly don’t understand, which ChatGPT describes for my benefit as “an ethereal melody that evokes curiosity yet remains tantalizingly out of reach” while I “remain poised to grasp snippets of wisdom from a dialect that dances just beyond the fringes of my comprehension.”
Thanks again, bot.
But when Josh Browder takes the stage to represent his brainchild, Do Not Pay, billed as “Your AI Consumer Champion,” he addresses the assembled attendees in the king’s English. Josh grew up in Britain and, unlike most Americans, speaks simply with intellectual eloquence, a dialogue un-peppered with embolalia (“uhs” and “ums” and “likes” and “you knows”).
His premise (and company’s mission) is that the little guy—you—can play AI back on the big guy—them—to fight petty injustices. For a mere $18 a month, Do Not Pay transforms you from David to a bigger and better Goliath than whatever government Goliath (always somewhat obsolete) can throw at you.
For example: The parking ticket stuck to your windshield that was unfairly issued or written with inaccuracies? Do Not Pay’s AI will argue your case with local government’s AI—and quite likely prevail.
For example: Your cell phone is incessantly bombarded by intrusive robocalls? These calls are illegal and a financial penalty can be extracted from the violators. But only if you know who they are and how to notify them that they’ve been caught and must pay up.
This is how it works: Do Not Pay intercepts robocalls on your behalf. They accept the robocall offer and provide a credit card as requested. However, when processed, said credit card is declined. Instead, Do Not Pay is able to extract identifying data from the offending robot-caller, whose company is then notified of their violation and urged to pay a penalty or face prosecution.
“One of our subscribers is making a living out of collecting robocall penalties,” says Browder. “He just bought a house from his revenues.”
Broken
Later, ensconced in the Press Hospitality Room, British-born Browder tells me, “The reason we started our company in the United States is because this country is broken.”
I’d been wondering what the devil’s going on in this country but only the very bright Browder succinctly breaks it down into a single word: BROKEN.
The point here is that AI is vast, it is already all around us, everywhere, having permeated all aspects of society and culture, government and commerce, and the military.
Echoes ChatGPT: “AI is an omnipresent force, ubiquitous and inescapable, weaving itself seamlessly into every nook and cranny.”
Thanks, bot.
There is no stopping it. No turning back. And it is growing exponentially.
ChatGPT: “Halting its advance is a futile endeavor. Retreating to a former state is an illusion we must relinquish.”
Thanks, again, bot.
A good handful of Track Sessions delve into “ethics” and “compliance.”
But ethics and compliance are dumb jokes. In this world, every businessperson is out for him/herself and the leaders of every country are out for themselves. You think you’re going to get Russia and China to agree to an “ethical” and “compliant” use of AI?
Yeah, right. May I provide you with and invitation to join the Jane Fonda Fan Club?
Russia and China are racing ahead to manufacture killer robots and drones with money U.S. companies pays them to utilize slave labor.
It’s like climate control and pollution. We have a hard enough time in our country restricting the use of plastics and fumes even with government’s progressive/oppressive policies and widespread conscientiousness of the problem. But in China, Russia and India where half the world resides, do their governments, corporations or citizens struggling to survive abide or even care?
So, sorry for meandering, now back to my point. You’ve got two choices: 1) Find yourself a cabin back in the woods or 2) Harness AI to your own advantage and make the most of it before it makes the most of you.