Hey y’all, it’s Nick, and I’m Sick of this Shit. Getting right into it, we’re continuing on my theme from my last post on the threat I believe we’re under from these newly commissioned, training free Lt. Colonel’s in the US Army Reserve.
I want to expand on the idea of AI, social media, social engineering, and what I believe to be an incredibly complex issue—one with the potential for incredible good or evil, depending on who holds the reigns. What might be possible results?
Untold wealth, spread amongst all the participants in the system (yeah, that’s us). Where we all are valued, just for existing. This is the Star Trek style path.
Untold wealth, hoarded amongst a small group (not us). Where we are all manipulated into ever changing and shifting truths. This is the 1984 style path.
Right now, we’re bending towards the arc of 1984. So let’s break this issue down—we’re going to assess the threat, know what we are working towards, and how we don’t end in Judge Dredd or some other dystopian, techno fascist future.
Engineering Bias
Here’s the rub of it all—bias is built into the system. It’s all over the place. We just don’t see it, we choose to ignore it, or we encourage it. We enable it with cookies and webpage preferences. We share it with cross platform, cross service, and cross device connectivity. We use it every day in the “Internet of Things” to add convenience to our lives. We also expose ourselves to a ton of engineered bias along the way—every bit of data that can be collected is collected, every bit of data that can be aggregated is aggregated. What most don’t see, is what’s behind the curtain. Most don’t see the decision making that goes into building those systems—shortcuts made to get the “minimum viable product” out, always changing priorities without explanation or care, disregard for the people responsible for the product, bullying, theft of ideas, cultures of fake “meritocracy” or “performance driven”, and the abandonment of the most core belief—do good.
Most, up until recently, haven’t had to see or experience the tech bros who feel comfortable espousing the beliefs of Project 2025. It’s a rot within the tech community and it has become the norm—fear based management, pushing back on bad ideas gets you ostracized, and truth is subjective. Does it sound similar to something else? Exactly, it’s the “new right” ideology. The ideology that technology can be used to subvert the systems and train people using highly personalized, AI-driven social feeds. That ideology of control is being designed to align social, ethical, and moral views behind a narrow, exclusive idea that only some people deserve freedoms and rights. It’s the mark of JD Vance and Peter Thiel.
It’s Palantir contracting with Homeland Security to turn the Military’s threat assessment and data aggregation tooling into a tool for ICE to spy on and monitor America’s civilian population.
It’s the Government commissioning CTOs and CPOs from Palantir, Meta, and OpenAI directly into the US Army Reserves without any prior training or experience. Commissioned as Lt. Colonels, for a special “Executive Innovation Corps”, to integrate AI, robotics, and other civilian technologies into military capabilities.
This is where the bias is engineered into the system. This is where we see companies “strategically aligning” themselves with the Trump regime to get the kickbacks they were promised—data and no regulations. They get to access whatever data they want, whenever they want, and how ever they want. They get the aggregation and consolidation of all of our most sensitive and private data. They get to feed that data into their databases—building and training AI models. In the case of Palantir, they’re going to use that data to make sure ICE is as effective as possible. In the case of Meta, they’re going to sell the data and use it to manipulate and massage our social media feeds—engineering and conditioning social norms—based on the dictates of the Mark Zuckerberg’s of the world. In the case of OpenAI, they’re really private about what they really want to do; however, assuming the whistleblowers to be true they have cracked into something really dangerous or uncontrollable.
This is un-responsible, un-ethical AI and social manipulation.
Responsible and Ethical AI
While I just laid out what is on the precipice of happening, I don’t believe it has to be the result. I truly believe in the good that AI can provide. It has the potential for untold prosperity, freedoms, and societal improvements. It just requires responsible, ethical AI and those willing to enforce it.
So what does it mean to have responsible AI? Responsibility in AI defines not only how learning models receive their data and train on the data, but also on how the AI itself is intended for use. Meaning, we pre-evaluate what type of data is acceptable for modeling—determining if the data is accurate, relevant, and usable—then evaluating if the AI should be used. After everything is said and done. After all the hard work goes into creating the AI, generating a responsible models, formatting the data so it is usable, and testing the results. This is when the hardest questions must be asked—should it even be used, will it do more harm than good, are we able to tell if the AI is lying to or manipulating us, and can the AI be stopped once fully enabled? If there are hesitations in these answers then it’s not really responsible to use it.
Well, what about ethical AI? Ethical AI is also a 2-fold definition. It’s both the ethics of the people behind the creation and usage of the AI; while also being the ethics of the AI itself. This is where things get interesting. We don’t get to fully control part 2 of the AI, not if it’s truly learning and thinking. We do get to control part 1 though. We make the choice to answer the hard questions and know when not to use AI. We do not allow the tech companies to self-regulate themselves, hoping that they won’t do what we know they will do—advance at any cost.
One of the places we can make the most impact, while simultaneously removing the most biases, is by making the choice to remove AI and algorithmically generated media feeds. We make the choice to remove company and profit driven decisions in what we see and read as truth. We don’t remove AI, we just get it out of places it’s not needed. That’s the ethical and responsible choice.
Then, we focus on where AI and technology can help us the most. We harness it’s power and the knowledge it could produce to generate untold prosperity. Then we share it with everyone involved in the process. In our case, that means every US citizen would get a piece of that pie. AI is built on the backs of our labors and decades of public and private investments. We use the fruits of those labors to enrich our lives as kickbacks to us.
To Boldly Go
…where no one has gone before. So what’s it all really mean? It means we have a choice to make—do we go boldly into a future where we don’t just say people have value, we show it. We take a hard look at what is being embedded into our systems. We don’t shy away from asking the hard questions and acting with the necessary authority and conviction. Boldly going is an undertaking to purge algorithmically driven rage and social engineering from our social media—not to replace it with an engineered outcome, but correct the intake of information to time and our preferences. Boldly going is an undertaking to purge AI systems of the racial profiling and modeling biases—not to build bias of our own, but correct the flow of information towards a unified true. A truth that all people deserve freedom, justice, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Author’s Note: Thanks as always y’all. Thank you especially to my paid and free subscribers, y’all make this publication possible. I’ve recently opened the chat and will begin using it more frequently in the future. I’ve also opened it up for paid subscribers to start new conversations, please consider upgrading to help this space grow. I’m Nick, I’m Sick of this Shit. I’m ready for a better future—we can get there together.