Newspeak: “In the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to reduce a person’s ability to think critically.”
See also: “the officer’s gun discharged” instead of “police shot the man”
I remember thinking this aspect of the book was far fetched, but holy shit was he spot on. Language really does inform how we think, and controlling that can be very powerful
I always thought Winston’s job, of literally rewriting history, would be an impossible task.
Nowadays? I’m not so sure. When we look at where most of the news comes from in America and follow the money up, you’ve got like 90% of it coming from about a couple dozen people.
Some of those people control LLMs along the way. They control our social media and search engine and what posts and answers and advertisers we see. They control the servers through which most of the internet routes their traffic. They control the certificate authorities that all of our web browsers intrinsically trust. And most of them are friends with each other…or at least keep it cordial.
And they’re patient. They play a long game. Half of them aren’t even middle-aged and are in peak physical health.
Shit even that sounded like a crazy conspiracy theory like 15 years ago, and while I’m being hyperbolic…I’m really not being that hyperbolic.
Exactly. It’s not so much that they even have to rewrite history, just bury it good enough. Make the real stories difficult to find and suck the desire to learn out of kids so they grow up ignorant and easy to control.
Guaranteed there are tons of AI autobiographies being written by “slaves” who miss their mastuh and want to go back to the good life on the plantations, where everything was provided for them. As one example. And definitely tons more in the erotic category.
Not closely related, but back when I was first reading the book, the idea of computer generated songs sounded like “flying future car” delusions, and learning AI in the early 2000’s even confirmed not the impossibility but the crazy limitations of all this.
I have just listened to a podcast last month that mentions how there are songs on Spotify made entirely by AI, and 97% of the people they asked couldn’t tell apart regular songs from the AI generated ones.
On one hand, it’s remarkable. On the other hand, we’re cooked.
What’s even more depressing is that many-many, even more worrying things are getting pretty accurate in the book. Maybe not back in 1984, but we’re witnessing the convergence.
Music makes sense though. There is a formula that gets followed to make 99% of the pop songs out there. Pop music is math, and computers are good at that.
Like, I can see AI replacing Ed Sheeran…but Thom Yorke? Completely different product.
Well, I didn’t necessary mean the structure of a song (that doesn’t have the complexity that would challenge an AI agent… in the early 2000’s, even), but more like coming up with their own lyrics that even make sense, and producing human speech with rhythm and musical tones.
Oh boy… are you opening the door to concept philosophy? Because that’s a fucking mind bender. First big assumption you need to let go of in this domain: mankind is not on some path of iterative progress where we find ourselves at the most knowledgeable and capable in the present. Rather, we’ve conveniently redefined what progress is in the first place.
Newspeak: “In the 1949 dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (also published as 1984), by George Orwell, Newspeak is the fictional language of Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. To meet the ideological requirements of Ingsoc (English Socialism) in Oceania, the Party created Newspeak, which is a controlled language of simplified grammar and limited vocabulary designed to reduce a person’s ability to think critically.”
See also: “the officer’s gun discharged” instead of “police shot the man”
I remember thinking this aspect of the book was far fetched, but holy shit was he spot on. Language really does inform how we think, and controlling that can be very powerful
I always thought Winston’s job, of literally rewriting history, would be an impossible task.
Nowadays? I’m not so sure. When we look at where most of the news comes from in America and follow the money up, you’ve got like 90% of it coming from about a couple dozen people.
Some of those people control LLMs along the way. They control our social media and search engine and what posts and answers and advertisers we see. They control the servers through which most of the internet routes their traffic. They control the certificate authorities that all of our web browsers intrinsically trust. And most of them are friends with each other…or at least keep it cordial.
And they’re patient. They play a long game. Half of them aren’t even middle-aged and are in peak physical health.
Shit even that sounded like a crazy conspiracy theory like 15 years ago, and while I’m being hyperbolic…I’m really not being that hyperbolic.
They already are getting rid of the history of slavery. Banning it from schools, museums, etc.
Exactly. It’s not so much that they even have to rewrite history, just bury it good enough. Make the real stories difficult to find and suck the desire to learn out of kids so they grow up ignorant and easy to control.
Guaranteed there are tons of AI autobiographies being written by “slaves” who miss their mastuh and want to go back to the good life on the plantations, where everything was provided for them. As one example. And definitely tons more in the erotic category.
Not closely related, but back when I was first reading the book, the idea of computer generated songs sounded like “flying future car” delusions, and learning AI in the early 2000’s even confirmed not the impossibility but the crazy limitations of all this.
I have just listened to a podcast last month that mentions how there are songs on Spotify made entirely by AI, and 97% of the people they asked couldn’t tell apart regular songs from the AI generated ones.
On one hand, it’s remarkable. On the other hand, we’re cooked. What’s even more depressing is that many-many, even more worrying things are getting pretty accurate in the book. Maybe not back in 1984, but we’re witnessing the convergence.
Music makes sense though. There is a formula that gets followed to make 99% of the pop songs out there. Pop music is math, and computers are good at that.
Like, I can see AI replacing Ed Sheeran…but Thom Yorke? Completely different product.
Well, I didn’t necessary mean the structure of a song (that doesn’t have the complexity that would challenge an AI agent… in the early 2000’s, even), but more like coming up with their own lyrics that even make sense, and producing human speech with rhythm and musical tones.
Oh boy… are you opening the door to concept philosophy? Because that’s a fucking mind bender. First big assumption you need to let go of in this domain: mankind is not on some path of iterative progress where we find ourselves at the most knowledgeable and capable in the present. Rather, we’ve conveniently redefined what progress is in the first place.
The gun discharged, unprovoked