Hello Harish,

I'm going to be extremely harsh now, because that's the easiest way for
me to communicate my reaction to what you write here. If you find
disrespect or impertinence in my writing, please know that I apologize
in advance. I do not write to attack you, but perhaps to attack certain
ideas you have expressed which I see as fallacious, and I do so lacking
better linguistic strategies. If you were pointing in a different
direction, I apologize; hopefully the remainder of my drunken rant has
some value greater than that of your time reading it.

-- extreme harshness begins --:

You say "we can't program consciousness". Sorry, but that statement is
False Bullshit Ignorance with a capital "FBI". It's completely fucking
wrong, and the evidence of that  is all around you.

Look, honestly, at what programs the most advanced "I"s we know today
(that's an "I" separated from "AI", which some people think is an
important disctinction) use to UTTERLY DOMINATE the consciousnesses of
their children, successors, heirs, fans, et cetera. Look, honestly, at
how much bullshit is fed to children, successors, heirs, fans and so on
in the form of superstitions, religions, national identities (David
Brin, you're looking sadly like a nationalist douche at the moment,
badly in need of an Uplift), race, tradition, tribe, family and so on.
We, the older people, whether by accident or design, systematically and,
largely without consideration, program, mercilessly and without regard
to truth, those unto whom we can communicate and over whom we can
exercise influence (and, preferably, dominance -- we are, after all,
filthy monkey shit-slinging jerks).

Each and every one of us programs consciousness every day, to one degree
or another. Hard introverts may program only themselves, but that
doesn't invalidate the statement. Strident extroverts program many, and
most of the time it doesn't matter what their message is or what mode of
comprehending reality they are attempting to empart, because far too few
humans are capable of a sound intellectual self-defense and critical
evaluation of the statements and exhortations of those around them.
Billions of people actually believe complete the nonsense that they see
on TV, the ridiculous bullshit they got told by some "holy" man was
written down in a 7000-year-old book, the risible self-serving horseshit
some modern holy man who looks good on TV and who writes down things in
law books as if his words created truth, and on and fucking on, and the
cowardly pigshit, rabbitshit, parakeetshit and chihuahuashit blabberings
of their dependents and hangers-on.

THOSE PEOPLE SUFFER BAD FILTERS. Interpreting reality is fucking hard.
There is a lot of signal, shit-tons of noise, and we have to deal with
our own hormonal responses right down to the level of skin-on-skin
between lovers in order to develop consistent views of the world that we
can proudly present to others as at least perhaps of better clarity than
those they currently hold.

Now, it seems, you'd like to speak about "artificial" "intelligence". I
put both words in scare quotes for concrete reasons. Let's trot off to
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and break those down, shall we?

First, MAXIMUM BRUTALITY: There is no such thing as "artificial
intelligence", and there never will be. Why? Because the word
"artificial", to most people, denotes or connotes something not
belonging to nature. It turns out that a lot of people have a very
deeply-held view about things "natural" versus "artificial". (An
"ANYTHINGartifical sweetener" might be immediately suspected of causing
cancer, while a "natural sweetener" is given a pass -- it's a pity that
so few people understand chemistry and physics.).

THERE IS NO SUCH DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOMETHING LABELED "ARTIFICIAL" AND
SOMETHING LABELED "NATURAL". Well, I mean, if you're talking about
something like a prospective intrusion of another m-brane upon the
reality we already suffer, that may be, but probably 98% of people or
more go around thinking things about "artifical flavor" or "natural
healing" or "artificial intelligence" or "natu...

---- MESSAGE INTERRUPTED. WAIT PLACIDLY FOR OMEGA CONTINGENCY PLAN TIME
CODE ----

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+++ATH0
ATDT14076463131







PS: Along with the "A" in "A"I, the "I" should be in bogoquotes, too, as
"A""I". This goes to the idea that in fact there is no evidence that any
intelligence exists (Decartes was a wanker), and that there is no
evidence that even if as few as one such intelligence exists that it is
deserving of moral consideration.