Farmers are increasingly owned by their tech; the only sane response is ecological agriculture
I’m no longer a “young farmer.” I’ve seen a lot in my lifetime — oil embargoes, market crashes, the dollar disintegrating and the slow-motion collapse of industrial civilization disguised as progress. But nothing made my gut twist like hearing an interview recently with a panel of investment managers as they discussed autonomous weapons systems and the death spiral of AI-run warfare. It happened on the same day that I learned that all of my credit cards and personal banking information had been hacked, drained and frozen. I’m still working to recover from all of this.
These aren’t fringe ideas or rare occurrences anymore. I know of three others hit in the same attack. The Zombie Drone Apocalypse isn’t science fiction anymore — it is happening in Ukraine and could easily happen elsewhere. This is the way that geopolitics will unfold in the 21st century; this is also the future of profits — AI is the sector into which most of the money is gushing.
Those of you who are techno-utopians might as well forget the Disneyland dream of cute little robots helping to organize your garage. The industrialized nations are manufacturing “autonomous kill chains”: drone swarms guided by emotionless code — decision loops with no human conscience. Satellites have already surveilled every meter of the planet and continues to do so. In August, Space X announced the launch of a deadly disease propagation laboratory into space — all in the name of “peace,” “national security,” “health care research” and, of course, profits. AI’s real destiny may not be to flip burgers, or to work in manufacturing, or to weed California’s strawberry fields, or make our lives easier … but to flip the kill switch.
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