Dyslexic ass universe we live in . The 2020’s were supposed to be ‘the future’, an advanced post-scarcity world. We got a post-satire world instead
If you look at 70s SF you get closer to the real 2020s.
AI taking over the world: Colossus: The Forbin Project
An Infectious agent causing problems: The Andromeda Strain
Human pollution causing massive issues: Soylent Green
in science fiction the AI that takes over the world is sapient. usually as intelligent as a person if not more. reality is dumber. we’re just trying to surrender the world to a series of algorithms that can’t tell how many fingers there are in a hand or which way they bend, or what a fucking fire hydrant looks like.
That is in movies and books.
In the real world the turning test is not proof that an artificial system is sentient but only if/when a human thinks it is. It is not about the intelligence/sentience of the system but the intelligence of the human observing that means the test is passed.
Sadly, for large parts of humanity, text based LLMs have already passed the turning test…
This is what we get for over indulging on irony starting in the 90s.
Nothing has meaning anymore.
But maybe correlation isn’t causation…
I’ve become more and more aware of “Irony poisoning” in every facet of our culture, from movies to memes to every other human interaction.
Maybe because of social media influence, we’re so scared that holding any kind of sincerity will reveal a vulnerability that will be ruthlessly attacked…
We must be ready to say “No I don’t mean that seriously” and change our projection within a moment’s notice when the culture winds change again.
It’s so bad anymore that people now need to add “un-ironically” to explain that they genuinely feel anything at all…
… and sometimes that’s said ironically.
we’re so scared that holding any kind of sincerity will reveal a vulnerability that will be ruthlessly attacked…
Ian Bogost defines this sort of thing as ironoia in his book Play Anything. Holding the world at a distance through ironic engagement.
What you are pointing out is slightly different, but very much along the same lines.
I found the book helpful to illuminate how ironic culture was a bad force when growing up and going through vulnerable stages.
