We asked six cats what they think about AI going rogue and wiping out humanity. Here’s what they said.
The last few weeks have brought disturbing news about new AI models so potent they can’t be released to the public, algorithmic agents going rogue, and global citizens of unimpeachable repute, like Bill Gates, warning that billions could be killed as AI’s abilities increase exponentially.
What do you think about the possibility of artificial intelligence turning on humanity?
Imagine using a version of Google translate that can only translate every seventh or eighth word without context or tone. Would it be useful at all?
When my cat wants to play he faces me directly, at my level if possible, and leans forward, whiskers relaxed, before screeching at me at loud volume.
When he wants food he doesn’t bother with being level with me. He assumes an aggressive posture, follows me around and tries to get in my path, all before screeching at me at loud volume.
When yums are impending, he also screeches at loud volume, but his face and body language take on an anticipatory posture, and his tail pops straight up.
When he’s not feeling well, he screeches at loud volume and assumes a hunched stance, whiskers pulled back, ears at different angles, often with his tail wrapped protectively around his little body in a sort of uncomfortable version of the classic loaf.
The common element is the loud screeching. An AI-powered app would have a very difficult time telling the difference between a “Feed me now, human!” screech and a “I want to play wand toy hunting games now, human!” screech, and probably wouldn’t fare much better with the “I don’t feel so good” screech. (MeowTalk did, after all, try to convince me that Buddy was serenading me with sweet nothings when he was demanding food.)
Years ago I was bullish about AI’s ability to translate meows. Given enough data, I reasoned, AI could crack the code. But that was a human way of thinking, anthropomorphizing my Bud into a furry little human whose “language” was limited to vocalizations.
It’s not.
No cat limits their communication to meows, trills and chirps, not even a vocal little dude like my Buddy.
Cat communication is multi-modal, consisting of general body language, whisker position, ear position, tail position and movement, pupil expression, fur rigidity, gait, scent-marking, scent-sharing, and for our exclusive benefit, meows. The latter are essentially a second language to them, adopted out of necessity because they realize we respond to vocalizations but are mostly oblivious to everything their tails, whiskers, fur, ears, tails, pheromones and eyes are telling us.
Now who’s supposed to be the intelligent species?
The fact that feline communication is inherently multi-modal is the reason why talking boards and AI meow translation apps do not work. It’s like using a version of Google translate that only interprets every seventh or eighth word, stripped of all context and tone. Actually, it’s worse than that.
If you’ve spent any time on Facebook, TikTok or Youtube, chances are you’ve come across cat talking boards. They’re even more useless than the AI apps that claim to translate meows because they not only assume feline communication is a single-channel affair, they also place additional burdens on felines, like understanding human language syntax (something no animal has ever been able to do) and highly abstract concepts.
How does a cat know a question is a request for information?
How does a cat understand temporal concepts represented as abstract sounds with nothing that ties those sounds – and the buttons that correspond to them – to concepts like “yesterday,” “tomorrow” and “later”?
In one video I viewed, a woman convinced herself that her cat’s random slapping of talking board buttons meant he wanted to discuss an animal he’d possibly seen outside a window the night before. The number of assumptions and logical leaps required to arrive at that kind of conclusion is staggering.
I want to be clear that I’m not saying studying animal communication is a futile effort. On the contrary, everything we’ve learned indicates animals – especially our domesticated companion animals and the most cognitively gifted wild species – are not only conscious and cognitive, but have rich inner lives with their own thought processes, opinions, emotions, likes and dislikes.
But cracking those codes is a serious effort that will involve a concerted effort to negate our human bias as much as possible, attempts to see the world from an animal’s perspective, and multi-modal analysis that doesn’t just consider what we can see, hear and smell, but what our pals’ sensoriums can detect.
After all, we know that cats can hear in frequencies we cannot, that they possess a sense of smell as much as 20 times more sensitive than ours. There’s ongoing research into whether animals can detect magnetic fields, and differences in vision — such as perceiving different color tones and a drastically increased sensitivity to motion — mean a very intentional means of communicating by our cat may require the equivalent of a bullhorn for us to pick up on what they’re “saying.”
One day we may learn that they consider us the dim-witted ones who cannot see, hear or smell the obvious. We may get to that point, but not through half-hearted, unscientific efforts like labeled buttons and simple algorithms.
When people with nearly unlimited power and money want to reshape society in the image of fanciful fiction and they’re unable to separate fantasy from reality, that’s a problem for all of us.
More than a few times over the past few years I’ve read comments from the tech oligarchs — Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Jeff Bezos and company — and thought, “He’s definitely read [insert science fiction novel here.]”
Zuckerberg, for instance, was clearly besotted with Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash when he renamed his company Meta and poured a literal fortune into his watered down version of the metaverse imagined in the novel.
Snow Crash came out in 1992 before the vast majority of people had dial-up internet, let alone a concept of cyberspace or the always-on, interactive mobile internet of today. It’s hugely influential among tech enthusiasts, and it’s one reason Stephenson and other SF novelists were paid to be “idea guys” for tech companies.
Now Musk has name-dropped Iain Banks in a viral interview with The Economist this week, which ended with the wealthiest man in human history going into a full meltdown and throwing a tantrum over sensible, obvious questions. It’s remarkable that a man who built a peerless business empire has the emotional maturity of a toddler, although the closer you look at Musk’s businesses, the more it becomes obvious their valuations are not tethered to reality any more than he is.
The problem is that Musk, like the others, moves through life in a bubble surrounded by people who tell him he walks on water, and no one in his orbit would dream of suggesting he’s confused about something, let alone actually mistaken. Yes, Elon! That’s brilliant, Elon! You are a gift to all mankind, Elon!
When The Economist’s interviewer pressed Musk on his contradictory views about society and equality, Musk told her she should read Banks’ work. Unfortunately either he hasn’t read it either, or somehow managed to make it through those thick volumes without absorbing themes that may as well be emblazoned in neon.
Banks, for the uninitiated, was a Scottish science fiction writer of astonishing talent.
He was best known for writing a series of novels collectively known as The Culture, which portray a far future utopia, a post-scarcity human society. The Culture is run by ultra-benevolent, conscientious AIs called Minds who not only serve as the serene caretakers and shepherds of humanity, but oversee all the automation and logistics that transform society into the prosperous, fair and idyllic commonwealth the novels imagine. Machines, in other words, do all the work people don’t want to do.
When I read The Culture novels, I saw what almost everybody else sees: the work of an author who is uncomfortable with ideological extremes, views a blended socialist model as possible and even preferable in a situation where resources are no longer scarce, and is more than willing to kick the crap out of the society he imagined by showing its worst aspects, cognitive dissonances and potential pitfalls, perhaps as a warning not to take it too seriously. (And as a humble admission that he’s just making this stuff up, so really, don’t get carried away with it.)
All of it is rendered in gorgeous, shimmering prose, populated by characters who are a riot to spend time with, and garnished with dialog that reveals a rare gift for capturing the rhythms and beauty of the English language.
Banks, unfortunately, is no longer around. He died in 2013 after a diagnosis of incurable gall bladder cancer, and the literary world is significantly poorer for that loss.
But he made his political views known in interviews and his personal life in addition to his novels, which is why it’s hard to believe Musk thinks MAGA and Trumpism are atavistic forms of The Culture‘s utopian, fair society.
On the one hand, Musk claims we’re 10 years from the kind of post-scarcity society portrayed in science fiction novels, that we’ll all have endless resources and get to fill our days pursuing our personal interests because money won’t mean anything. It’s an aspirational if unrealistic claim.
On the other hand, as The Economist’s interviewer pointed out, Musk has been relentless in his hoarding of wealth, gives no money to charity, and seems to amuse himself primarily by pouring fuel on the culture war fires.
The tech CEO and world’s wealthiest man is remarkably committed to playing the heel online.
He constantly wades into arguments regardless of whether he knows anything about the subject matter. He delights in making incendiary comments about topics like Islam and immigration. And he is seemingly incapable of going one day without showing us his inner child.
“I literally challenged Vladimir Putin to one on one physical combat over Ukraine” he wrote on X last year before crediting himself and his Starlink service for the smaller country’s battlefield successes against Russia.
A few months later he bragged that he was the first “[A]merican druid in [D]iablo to clear abattoir of zir and ended that season as best in the USA,” which might be the second-most ridiculous thing a human being has written, surpassed only by his fantasy of the entire world cheering as he defeats Putin mano e mano. (Musk lied about his video game “accomplishments,” unsurprisingly. Gamers, who are not as credulous as Musk imagines, quickly figured out that moneybags paid a pro gamer to log into his account, play as him, and achieve the top ranking so the world could unite in awe at Elon Musk’s magnificent button-pushing skills. 1337, ladies and gentlemen.)
He cleared the Abattoir of Zir! Hand this man a Medal of Freedom, give him the powers that used to belong to congress and let him cook! And if he wants to cosplay as Achilles and Hector Vladimir Putin into surrendering, wonderful! It’ll save us billions in munitions and aid to Ukraine.
As The Economist’s interviewer continued asking follow-ups about Musk’s imaginary technological heaven, the trillionaire was “so agitated by facing real questions that he just resorted to whining about how awful the media can be. He seemed to think that his popularity on X, the platform he owns, was evidence that most people actually love him,” Gizmodo noted:
“A quarter billion people follow me,” Musk said, referring to his X followers, adding “I think a lot more people actually like me than don’t.” The billionaire then said that “a lot more people hate you and the media more than you realize.”
Beddoes acknowledged that many people hate journalists, but Musk kept going, repeating “they hate you, they hate you,” like an emotionally wounded child. Musk, flailing, tried to come up with some way to attack The Economist specifically.
“There are more people that die in Europe from heat deaths than people that die from gun deaths in America. Why aren’t you writing an article about air conditioning?” asked Musk.
“Well, we’ve done several on air conditioning, and we had on our cover last week a whole long piece about…” said Beddoes.
“Pro-air conditioning?” Musk asked sheepishly.
“Very pro-air conditioning,” she responded. “You should read us sometime.”
Musk and Zuckerberg aren’t the only ones.
Peter Thiel occupies a different realm. The man who runs the most comprehensive database on the personal details of Americans, whose company enjoys government contracts worth billions and has surpassed every federal agency as the avatar of Big Brother, not only named his business after a wizard’s magical device from The Lord of the Rings, but has spent the last year or two on a worldwide tour in which he lectures attendees on the anti-Christ.
Drawing on the work of Vladimir Solovyov (the 19th century Russian philosopher, not the Putin propagandist who dresses like the admiral of a galactic war fleet), and combining it with peculiar fringe Catholicism, Thiel likes to tell his audiences that the anti-Christ is inbound, he’ll be a technocrat who speaks often of peace and human rights, and he’ll be helped by evil villains like people advocating for AI safety and environmental stewardship.
Very convenient, that. In Thiel’s telling, the anti-Christ’s minions are precisely the same people who want guardrails on his businesses.
In addition to being an obvious fan of The Lord of the Rings, Thiel lists the aforementioned Stephenson as a major influence along with Atlas Shrugged and Dangerous by Milo Yiannopolous. I’m not even going to comment on that except to say what awful company for Stephenson.
These are windows into the world view of a paranoid man who now controls all of our data and wants us to be assured we’re very safe in the hands of Peter Thiel, who will safeguard our browsing habits and protect us from the anti-Christ and his minions.
Bezos, too, is a fan of Stephenson, Banks et al, and his public statements indicate he saw what he wanted to see in those stories regardless of what their authors intended.
Understanding the books that spark the imagination of men with so much power is, I’d argue, an essential element in understanding how they think, what they want, and where they believe they’re taking us as a species.
Because make no mistake, these men believe they will decide the future of humanity. What happens from here is impossible to predict, but we’d be negligent to dismiss the collective power and influence of the wealthiest individuals in the history of our species, men who can not only outright buy small countries but also own enormously influential media platforms, private spaceflight companies and communications networks. Amazon Web Services, for example, provides almost a third of all cloud services worldwide, while tens of millions use Starlink to access the internet in more than 160 countries.
In their view, the tech oligarchs will determine what happens from here. Not democratically elected politicians, not voters themselves, not people who have devoted their lives to studying how society works.
They don’t feel indebted to the rest of our species and don’t envision giving us a seat at the table. In an attempt to explain why he doesn’t donate money to charity and sits on an incomparable mountain of wealth like an autistic Smaug, Musk says his work itself is so valuable that no amount of charitable giving could match the gifts he already bestows on mankind. That’s also why he courts mates with a charming pick-up line (“Want to have my babies?“) and maintains a compound in Texas where his concubines raise his Little Musks, who have names like Æ 么-010011 Ʃrik Technomancer and ąƬh33ną Sŏmni-4ㆁ4.
Propagating his Muskian DNA, he believes, is the greatest gift he could give to humankind alongside the technology products produced by his companies.
Tech oligarchs think they’re destined to usher us into a glorious new era in which people live on Mars and Europa, our eyes collectively turn to interstellar colonization, the evil forces of evil (anyone skeptical of them) will be defeated along with the anti-Christ, and this society will be idyllic and judicious with everyone standing as “equals” save the immortal oligarchs, who will occupy permanent positions above humanity, their lives extended indefinitely by the medichines, nanobot-supplemented blood and cybernetic enhancements that exist in their favorite novels.
They, of course, will decide how resources are divided, where research money is diverted, which projects take priority. That’s a scary thought when you consider none of them have expressed much compassion for society’s least fortunate, and some of them have long records of hostility toward people at the bottom.
It’s bad enough that they are staunch in their conviction that their wealth makes them best-qualified to determine our collective future. If they can’t distinguish between fiction and reality, that’s very much our problem whether we like it or not.
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American news networks show us crowds chanting “Death to America!” but the majority of Iranians are just like us.
As our president threatens to erase civilizations, tells the Pope what Christianity is about, and shares AI images of himself as Jesus, it’s important to remember what’s happening in Iran is a real war with real victims, something easy to lose sight of amid all the absurdity.
A first-person account in al Jazeera reminds us of the human and animal suffering caused by war. Even when people aren’t physically impacted, the mental strain of living in a city under attack is considerable, and their poor animals have no idea what’s going on.
One thing you’ll rarely see on American networks is an acknowledgement that the vast majority of Iranians are just like us.
Before the war, they had open access to an uncensored internet. Despite the oppressive theocratic government, it’s easy for Iranians to get TV networks from outside their country. The Iranian regime was never as adept at controlling information as some of its contemporaries.
The people of Iran are overwhelmingly secular, fully aware of what’s happening, and they have long been sick of their government.
For them it must be a Farenheit 451 moment, watching footage of the bombing while explosions rumble around them. Survival is down to luck. The missile you see streaking toward your city on TV could be the one that hits your apartment building.
To remind us of what’s happening where the bombs are landing, here’s Sana, a 27-year-old woman from Tehran, describing the first night of the war:
“Seven or eight more explosions followed. They were bombing near Mehrabad airport, close to us. I genuinely thought I was going to die.
When I finally went back upstairs, my cat was hiding in the wardrobe, trembling. My family and boyfriend had been calling and texting, without response, for hours, watching the news reports about strikes near the airport and imagining the worst.“
I recommend reading the rest, if for nothing else than to be reminded that Sana is so normal, so much like us.
Header image of Tehran under attack at night via Wikimedia Commons
A shelter operator has received death threats amid confusion over the facts after animal welfare authorities raided a Los Angeles County shelter on Friday.
The initial news headlines were apocalyptic — more than 700 dogs and cats were found in deplorable conditions according to authorities, who said the California property where they executed a search warrant represented the most extreme animal hoarding case in history.
A day later the numbers have been revised down to a still-significant 250 dogs and 66 cats, and the owner of Rock N Pawz shelter in Los Angeles County says she and her facility have been smeared, resulting in a flood of death threats directed at her.
The story is a reminder that facts aren’t always established as quickly as we’d like them to be in the age of 24/7 news and social media, and the advent of photorealistic AI can add to confusion and stir public outrage by distorting the reality of fluid situations.
What we know for sure is that officers from the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care and Control executed a search warrant on the property in Lake Hughes, an unincorporated community in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, about an hour’s drive from Los Angeles proper. The investigation was prompted by repeated complaints from neighbors, who said there were overwhelming odors coming from the shelter and claimed there were regular dog fights and incessant loud barking.
A local news station, KTLA, reported authorities on site were wearing respirators with protective gear, and quoted authorities who said they did not believe it was a case of intentional neglect.
“Sometimes people try to do the right thing, and they may bite off more than they can chew,” the Department of Animal Care’s Sgt. Matthew Davoodzadeh told the station. “They end up ultimately not being able to care for the animals in a proper way.”
Authorities have not filed charges related to the case and there have been no allegations of criminal conduct.
The influx of animals has strained nearby shelters while veterinarians examine the 316 dogs and cats taken from the property.
In the meantime, shelter owner Christine D’Anda said descriptions of the property and the conditions of the animals aren’t accurate, and took to social media to complain of harassment and death threats directed at her since news of the search warrant hit the web.
On Facebook, users posted images allegedly taken from the property, while others pushed back, alleging the images are either AI creations or were taken from unrelated news stories.
The shelter’s page indicated active rescue and adoption efforts, including fundraisers and an advertised adoption event last weekend.
D’Anda said she will fight the allegations in the legal system.
“There’s nothing that I can do. I’m a very stoic person,” she said. “I’m very sad about the whole situation, and I can’t wait to go to court.”
