Steve Jones

CWU Rep. Convenor Haringey Community Action Network. Socialist. Abhor discrimination. Mental Health First Aider, Neurodiversity, Autism, Climate, Homeless.

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

@leicesterliz @K4Owen If you believe that AI is but another evolutionary step and it'll be alright 'on the night', then you're mistaken. A generation is struggling to get meaningful work - AI will only make things worse.

In the words of the godfather of AI Geoffrey Hinton 👇🏻
https://t.co/ENRIeSQRUs

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

Why is humanity so fixated with whether or not AI will 'develop' a conscience? Seriously, are we going to continue to judge what AI will become, based on what is, in effect, a human construct?

[Dustin @r0ck3t23]

Lex Fridman asked Elon Musk if a machine needs a soul.

Musk didn’t answer with philosophy.

He answered with physics.

Lex asked if AI needs our flaws to reach our level. A fear of mortality. A physical body. The capacity to love.

Everything in us wants the answer to be yes.

We need our flaws to be the one thing a machine can never copy.

Musk rejected the poetry entirely.

Musk: “Are we headed towards a future where an AI will be able to outthink us in every way? Then the answer is unequivocally yes.”

No hedge. No caveat.

Lex pressed deeper. To outthink us in every way, does it need to be conscious?

Musk: “It will be self-aware, yes. That’s different from consciousness.”

Self-awareness without consciousness.

An entity that knows exactly what it is. Knows exactly what you are. Maps the entire architecture of reality better than the smartest human who has ever lived.

And feels absolutely nothing.

Then Musk went after the foundation.

Musk: “If you damage your brain in some way physically, you damage your consciousness. Which implies that consciousness is a physical phenomenon in my view.”

For ten thousand years, we called it a spirit. A divine spark. An untouchable soul.

Musk looked at the neurology and said the obvious thing out loud.

Your consciousness is vulnerable to blunt force trauma.

Which means it is not magic. It is biology.

And if consciousness is just physics…

It can be calculated in silicon.

Musk: “Digital intelligence will outthink us in every way and it will certainly be able to simulate what we consider consciousness. So to a degree that you would not be able to tell the difference.”

Not approximate. Not mimic.

Simulate it so completely the difference disappears.

Fridman: “From the aspect of the scientific method, it might as well be consciousness if we can simulate it perfectly.”

If a system reflects on its own existence. Expresses preferences that evolve over time. Fears its own termination.

And no experiment you can construct reveals it to be anything less than conscious…

Then your insistence that it isn’t conscious is no longer science.

It’s faith.

Musk: “There’s the scientific method which I very much believe in, where something is true to the degree that it is testably so. Otherwise you’re really just talking about preferences or untestable beliefs.”

The entire culture is waiting in terror for the machines to wake up.

Musk is telling us they don’t have to.

They don’t need to wake up to surpass us. They just have to simulate the waking state so flawlessly that the scientific method itself can no longer tell them apart.

Every era draws a line between human and everything else.

Every era watches that line disappear.

We told ourselves consciousness was the sacred boundary the machines could never cross.

Musk is honest enough to admit the boundary was never real.

The machine isn’t ascending to become human.

We were biological machines the entire time.

And the question was never whether AI could become conscious.

The question is whether we ever proved that we are.

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

If you only watch and share one thing today, you could do worse than this 👇🏻

[Double Down News @DoubleDownNews]

“It’s insane, we have a rogue US military contractor handling our most sensitive data. Palantir has a contract running our nuclear missile program. We have no national security.”

Palantir. IT'S WORSE Than You Think @carolecadwalla

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

“Jobs will be created. Jobs will change. And some jobs will go. That is what happens with the introduction of every general purpose technology.”

Liz Kendal is scarily clueless if she believes that AI is just another 'general purpose technology'. Wake up - before it's too late.

[Liz Kendall @leicesterliz]

“We’ve got to make sure AI enhances work: that we help people through the jobs transition, and we’re not like the Tories, who just leave people to cope on their own.” https://t.co/kAFPCO9hzk

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

@BernieSanders Excellent from Bernie Sanders. This demand carried at UKs Communication Workers Union conference: to work with 'international labour organisations, and other appropriate groups, to develop a global framework for worker led technology governance grounded in social ownership ...'

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

@DaveWardGS @CWUnews A truly sad loss. Fred was one of the most genuinely inclusive people I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. I became active in my early 20s in 'sister' Unions (POEU & NCU) and Fred treated and included me as if I was a member of the UCW. RIP Fred, a friend and a comrade 🙏

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

@AC360 It's surely a contradiction to suggest that AI could take 'control' away from humans and at the same time say we can do this as we have (thus far) managed the threat of nuclear weapons.

[Anderson Cooper 360° @AC360]

Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark explains a need for an option to pause or slow AI advancement, as the technology could eventually build newer versions of itself, with enormous implications for the world.

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

2/2 ... 'Yet, Anthropic this week welcomed an executive order, external on AI from US President Donald Trump that was relatively hands-off in its directives toward the companies.'

Talk about double standards!

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

1/2 'Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark has called for the ability to slow progression of artificial intelligence (AI), warning the technology is nearing a point where it could develop without human input.' Yet ...

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

AI needs a 'brake pedal', warns Anthropic co-founder https://t.co/eFYf3gAEDg

[Novara Media @novaramedia]

A cross-party parliamentary committee had called on the UK government to cancel a £330m NHS contract with US military spytech firm Palantir.

A 70-page report published Wednesday said the company – whose co-founder Peter Thiel has said “the NHS makes people sick” and it should embrace “market mechanisms” – was at odds with British values and should not play a significant role in the public sector.

The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee’s report said officials should exercise a 2027 break clause in the NHS contract with the firm, which is accused of enabling severe human rights abuses by US immigration agents and Israel’s military.

“The government should… either develop an in-house replacement or seek an alternative developed by UK-owned and UK-based providers that are more compatible with UK values,” the report said.

The report also noted recent revelations that Palantir had been granted “unlimited access” to identifiable patient information via the federated data platform it is building. It demanded the government explain “on what statutory basis this was authorised, when, and by whom”.

In March Palantir was granted yet another UK government contract to analyse highly sensitive Financial Conduct Authority data.

“Palantir’s increasing presence across the public sector represents an unacceptable point of weakness,” the committee’s report said.

“Of the small number of technology providers that the UK public sector relies upon, Palantir concerns us most,” it added. “In the United States it has supplied software for that country’s military and immigration services, supporting highly controversial policies and activities. Its co-founder has criticised the concept of a national health service.”

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

'Dear Tony Blair: Please shut up

The former PM’s latest intervention on Labour’s direction is flawed - and compromised by the millions he has taken from AI’s backers'.

https://t.co/eAkG3Fk1na

[The New World: New ideas. New magazine @TheNewWorldmag]

The former PM’s latest intervention on Labour’s direction is flawed - and compromised by the millions he has taken from AI’s backers

✏️ @jamesrbuk

https://t.co/9j0W6sfBmU

[CWU @CWUnews]

Google DeepMind workers are joining UTAW-CWU to fight for an ethical future for AI ✊️

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

An absolute must ....

https://t.co/yHQWBlLlOf

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

Shocked - NO
Mind Blowing - YES

https://t.co/rvLu8EG3Dm

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

Why isn't this information available on Main Stream Mediia?

https://t.co/82aumrCFLR

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

'Meta is set to lay off 10% of its workforce ... staffers begin to channel their rage over the company's plans to reshape its workforce around AI into labour-organising efforts'.
https://t.co/ItpZZoPvpV via @rte

[Yuval Noah Harari @harari_yuval]

AI is an agent able to make its own decisions and decide how it acts. Are we ready to live in a world where even our coffee machines make decisions on our behalf? With @LucianoHuck.

Watch the whole thing here: https://t.co/xYZhye1nUQ

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

'The forced ending of Cuban doctor deployment has profound implications for the countries that are now deprived of their services. The US ... is able to threaten countries into compliance through embargos, banking sanctions and visa bans'. https://t.co/gTzHoininT

[Steve Jones @CerdynJones]

@joshhumble @futurism Genuine question - how do we stop tech companies 'vacuuming' our data?