{"id":563,"date":"2023-12-05T12:27:02","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T17:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=563"},"modified":"2023-12-05T12:29:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T17:29:05","slug":"this-was-not-the-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/?p=563","title":{"rendered":"This Was Not The Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Riddle me this. When do science, AI, Republican politics, the Internet, and Frankenstein\u2019s monster cross the line from fascinating to fearsome, daring to dangerous, experimental to egomaniacal, compelling to cautionary?

Knitting together a number of seemingly random threads, sometimes results in a sweater \u2014 although often it\u2019s just a mis-sized sock with a bunched up toe. And mostly it just takes me down a rabbit hole that, while each side tunnel seems pretty promising at the time. . . So I just hold my Alice and jump into Wonderland.

I finished reading Our Hideous Progeny<\/em>, a well-spun modern novel set in Victorian England some three decades after the publication of Mary Shelley\u2019s Frankenstein<\/em>. Predicated on the \u2018truth\u2019 of Shelley\u2019s tale, it traces another ill-conceived attempt to \u2018animate from the inanimate\u2019 couched in the decidedly less tragic but equally misguided effort that ends (spoiler alert) with the bad guy getting his comeuppance, the ineffectual male fading into the woodwork, and the heroine \/ narrator finding lots of common ground with feminist scientists of the day. In short, a happy-ish ending with the \u2018monster\u2019 wending its way north where it presumably will reside contentedly thereafter.

Well, Alice, that\u2019s leaving me pretty much hanging fire. Unfinished business being what it is, I am transported six decades in the rear view to the two-foot high stack of novels beside my college dorm shelf (that serves as a desk) and constituting the reading list for a second year novels course. These are arranged, more or less in the order in which they will likely be \u2018read\u2019 (aka, thinest on top, thickest on the bottom, anchored by Don Quixote<\/em>). Weighing in at a mere 258 pages, Frankenstein<\/em> beckons \u2014 but evidently not sufficient to actually make the cut. For, on any number of shelves it subsequently sat, uncracked. . . til now.

Shelley\u2019s cautionary tale, prophetically subtitled A Modern Prometheus<\/em>, chronicles (as all, who were less distracted by beer and bridge in earlier times, will know) the high cost of hubris \u2014 not to mention the fate of those who would (not to put too fine a point on it) f____ with Mother Nature or Father Zeus. Ever the trickster, old Prom is also credited with being science\u2019s patriarch. (We may be inching our way toward the riddle\u2019s solution!)

Our less than loveable monster was not ever thus (i.e., unloveable). Before his rather abrupt disillusionment, the demon was hot into self-improvement, courtesy of his extended (and frankly voyeuristic) observational phase. But the penny was beginning to drop:

Was man at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base?<\/em>

Sadly, once the switch is flipped (\u2018polarities\u2019, actual and metaphoric being what they are), there is no middle ground \u2014 all virtue and good intention morph precipitously into evil and that, as they say, is that.

Which brings us to politics, AI, science, et al<\/em>. The conundrum facing young Victor was, being a bit reductionist about it, \u2018what do we do with a problem like a monster?\u2019 (The Hills, after all, were the Swiss Alps,!) Dr. F had, in his youthful zeal not fully factored in the morality<\/em> <\/strong>of his obsession. All well and good to build it. Now what, as the \u2018creation\u2019 by times, self-educates, becomes lonely, then gets a little pissed at being beaten and misunderstood \u2014 ultimately transforming into the consummate killing machine.

AI, for its part, has been hailed with equal parts worship and, increasingly, worry. Chatbots write great poetry, reproduce literature, make art, and, and, and. They also cheat on essay assignments, foster gender-bias, foment social media based hatred and misinformation, and, and, and. Delphi, a theoretically \u2018ethical\u2019 chatbot, when queried about the acceptability of smothering a baby with a pillow, responded that acting \u2018sweetly and gently\u2019 is acceptable (albeit condemning the actual, \u2018unqualified\u2019 act). Hmm.

The GOP\u2019s current challenges present a similar dilemma. \u2018Soooo\u2026 we built this monster in 2016. And now the f____er just won\u2019t go away. Going about killing our base and now has his crosshairs set on wiping out small \u2018d\u2019 democracy. This was not the plan!\u2019 Orange Jesus, indeed. Perhaps the more apt moniker: Orange Lazarus. Where\u2019s a good ice floe when you need one?

Ah yes, the riddle. The short answer would seem to be \u2018when there\u2019s no moral core\u2019<\/em><\/strong>. Truth be told, this was never a big ticket concern for most politicians. As with our Victor, \u2018doing it\u2019 was not the root issue. Living with it, the potential for misuse and ultimately abuse, is the issue. The Promethean legacy has apparently very popular \u2018sequels\u2019 \u2014 be it the dude who serves up his renewed liver on a regular basis, Shelley\u2019s monster, Oppenheimer (next up on the reading list, gulp, is the American Prometheus<\/em>), or OJ (that would be Orangeman!). No heart, no morality, no problem. . . until there is.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, an iconic figure of the 20th century, was a brilliant physicist who led efforts to build an atomic bomb but later confronted the moral consequences of scientific progress\u2026<\/em> (from a publisher\u2019s summary).

(And, after that Rachel Maddow\u2019s Prequel<\/em>.)<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Riddle me this. When do science, AI, Republican politics, the Internet, and Frankenstein\u2019s monster cross the line from fascinating to fearsome, daring to dangerous, experimental to egomaniacal, compelling to cautionary? Knitting together a number of seemingly random threads, sometimes results in a sweater \u2014 although often it\u2019s just a mis-sized sock with a bunched up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":567,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.davidhowardpsychologist.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}