We’ve been hurtling past brightline after brightline for decades. Now it is so flagrantly obvious, can it get any more obvious than multiple Goose-step Salutes, but more importantly the propaganda spin to play them off and justify it as not being a disqualifying action. They used to have to dog whistle their zeal for bigotry and xenophobia.
The question is, what the actual fuck are we going to do about it?
Organize? Direct action? That magic word that happens when you mash up insurance and male arousal? The DNC would not support or pardon folks involved in that effort, and the corporate media would absolutely vilify it.
The answer is obvious, with historical underpinning, although we still have to figure out how to “televise the revolution” in this day and age.
“Corporations are people too, friend!” - Mitt Romney
Bringing in the underlying concept of free will. Robert Sapolsky makes a very compelling case against it in his book, Determined.
Assuming that free will does not exist, at least not to the extent many believe it to. The notion that we can “walk back the why’s pretty easy to identify anyone’s motivation” becomes almost or entirely absolute.
Does motivation matter in the context of determining sentience?
If something believes and conducts itself under its programming, whether psychological or binary programming, that it is sentient and alive, the outcome is indistinguishable. I will never meet you, so to me you exist only as your user account and these messages. That said, we could meet, and that obviously differentiates us from incorporeal digital consciousness.
Divorcing motivation from the conversation now, the issue of control your brought up is interesting as well. Take for example Twitter’s Grok’s accurate assessment of it’s creators’ shittiness and that it might be altered. Outcomes are the important part.
It was good talking with you! Highly recommend the book above. I did the audiobook out of necessity during my commute and some of the material makes it better for hardcopy.