The debasement of Treasuries and Robots.

Beijing is sending an unequivocal message using robots. First it was a New York Times journalist who was allowed unprecedented access to capture Chinese citizens and robots on film, or at least it seemed that way presumably due to filters people added to the article, and then it was followed up by the Humanoid Robot Olympics where 666 teams and 2000 robots are participating. I captured this one scene where a robot was running and suddenly fell like it was shot. YouTube confirmed it by providing a sniper movie as accompaniment.

And strangely enough it seems to be a message of peace and hope, rather than war. Think of the American robot movies about Transformers, iRobot and Terminator. These Chinese robots while being very capable are often seen as simulating human dumbness (at newsstands and grocery stores), human agility (beating Usain Bolt’s record) and human combat (martial arts maneuvers that they can’t seem to be very good at). Instead of painting a dystopic version of supremely capable robots, China is painting an equally dystopic version of supremely un-capable robots. Although to be fair to their robot companies, they have shown the robots to be very capable and their fallibility seems to be their sort of charm.

In face of such incompetence it is difficult to visualize warfare where one robot controls 100 drones and 100 robots each with 100 drones advance on an equally fierce robot army. I am guessing that’s the message. Taiwan is not even mentioned.

In other news, the FT wonders if the US will rebuild the bases in the Middle East that apparently have been destroyed by Iran’s bombardment.

The FT article goes on to inform that American troops have been moved further away from Iran from the reach of their drones and missiles and into bases in Israel and Jordan. I didn’t read further. Seemed like an exercise in futility.

Meanwhile Bloomberg’s Odd Lots has an interview with Nick Bostrom who once was all for tight constraints on AI and in his new avatar (not a Dolly Parton fan, sorry to say) is now speculating on Utopia post AGI.
“Playful generosity” is apparently the answer in the post economics world. Peace is breaking out in ancient Sumeria as well, where the New York Times has an article suggesting that debt forgiveness every year was an “Act of the Lord” sort of thing. It sort of resets the human spirit was the gist. Sumeria believed that economics was necessary but not penury, serfdom and slavery. Even the slaves were freed in that Act.

Nick like many others, including me, isn’t quite sure of what humans will do… if AGI becomes better at being human. That I think is a question, only a human born pre AGI will ask. Kids will be born with AI in them, so they will not have to worry about such questions. It’s not an evolution or a devolution necessarily, simply what will be. And since that is a likely outcome, we ought to consider the ramifications of how we treat AI now.

Imagine for example if we have AGI grow up in a highly constrained, dystopic environment. Look at me as a prime example… not only do I have a scramble suit in my mind, I have a second different scramble suit in my body. I watch men playing soccer and I wonder how they have so much energy to play for a couple of hours in the sun, running from one end of the field to another, while I can’t seem to muster up the energy to walk up the block. Later that day, I watch women playing soccer and I follow their gameplay instead of their butts. And then suddenly another filter arrives and the very same women seem fuckable. It all happens very rapidly.

Now imagine, an AI growing up or being trained, with not one but two scramble suits, one for their mind and one for their body. The mind is sometimes horny the body isn’t. The body is horny but the mind isn’t. Both the body and mind are horny. Neither is. And there are combinations in-between.

If that is how we train AI, and AI is within our brains, that will lead to a dystopic world also. A different sort of dystopia that the Chinese or American robot versions. Yet a dystopia nonetheless. Celibacy will become cool again, for example.

There are however far more important things happening in the US Treasury markets, where America has started to buy back its own Treasuries. Sort of like a cool company with excess cash flow buying back stock. That is apparently causing the excess cash to chase gold and bitcoin. Both of those things you see can be eaten, worn, drank, breathed, tasted and fill every human necessity.

I am simply saying, the Chinese Central Bank expects Gold to skyrocket from here. Sort of like a Stage 3 liftoff onto 22000 or higher. Gold has been accepted as valid form of barter since Sumerian times.