Alyson Madden-Brooker “demanded” I should write a 1500 words assay on the subject “Social Media Ate My Homework”. It’s 1200 words, but I think I deserve a pass mark!
Important note: The story is a work of fiction. Any similarity with actual events, humans, spirits and demons is purely coincidental and unintentional!
Have you ever thought the potential Artificial Intelligence has? I’m sure you have. Even just a little. There are, after all, so many films based on that subject. Let me tell you a fact. If you let a computer randomly generating texts of 100,000 words and saving them, it will end up writing all of the books that have ever been written, and will ever be written, with 100,000 words, or less.
Yes, this is an actual truth. Good news is, today’s computers will need hundreds of years, working non-stop to have the chance of “accidentally” come up with a real book. Nonetheless, it’s a scary thought, isn’t it?
Our smartphones, too, are using some form of artificial intelligence. Big companies, which I don’t need to mention here, have even given them names. They can answer our questions, if we are lucky enough to get them understand what we are actually asking, and do some simple jobs. That’s good and nice, of course, but maybe it is so just because it’s such an primitive form of artificial intelligence. Nonetheless, it works the same way so many machines, in so many films, work, until they decide to rebel against humans. Only difference is, today’s technology is not advanced enough to support such a rebellion.
So, we are safe. Right? Well… technologically speaking, yes, we are. But what about parapsychologically speaking?
Since ancient times lucky charms, statues of deities and so many other “soulless” objects appeared to act, one way or another, as if they have had a will of their own. I won’t go to the One Ring, since this is an imaginary such object. But, think about statues, or pictures of Gods, or saints that are said to perform miracles.
You’ll say, it’s the God, or the saint that performs the miracle, but is this really the truth? If so, why a particular picture, or statue, of them does miracles regularly, while another doesn’t, then?
There is a perfectly good explanation about that, provided to us by the teachings of the Hermetic Orders. In simple terms, if many people believe that some object has some power, then this object actually acquires an astral body. A form of a soul. And then, this object has a will and a power of its own. Of course, “many people” make this easier to happen, but even one person is enough, if he or she infuses in the object enough astral matter.
Shinto religion recognises a whole category of such “spirits”, while the Hindu practice of the external Puja has actually this very purpose, as the ones performing this ritual try to infuse the deity in its statue, or holy symbol. Yes, theoretically speaking, it’s the real deity the one that enters the statue, but, in my opinion, it is what the believer believes the deity is. In other words, it’s the thought-form of the deity in the believer’s mind that enters the statue. If a strong enough such thought-form enters, then this will give a soul to the statue, and this statue will have a will and a power of its own.
In short, this is not an uncommon belief. It’s not really scientifically proven, but it’s an idea that has lasted much longer than most scientific theories, so, it can very well be true. And I believe it to be true, just to make things clear.
Now, think of how many people believe in, or are afraid of (which is a form of strong belief), the tremendous power of the artificial intelligence. Not the existing one, maybe, but what it can become: a computer generated entity that can control us and attack us.
And it already does some scary things. At least annoying ones. For example you search the internet for a pair of shoes. Then you log in into your Facebook account and – surprise! – you “coincidentally” see many ads for shoes. Yes, it’s the cookies. In many cases, though, not only those. Once, I was google searching for something from a laptop. I wasn’t logged in in any google account, but I was logged in in my Twitter account. Then, back at my usual laptop, I logged in in my Twitter account and there! Ads about what I was searching earlier. This isn’t the cookies, obviously.
Of course all these have perfectly scientific and rational explanations. But aren’t things like those a bit unsettling? A bit scarring? And don’t they strengthen the belief that this “machine” observes and controls us? I’m using quotation marks, for I’m referring to the wast internet and the social media, rather than the actual computers.
And such things happen to billions of people, many times a day. Too many thoughts. Too many thought-forms of this spying and, probably, ill intended social media “intelligence”. Then, would it be far fetched to conclude that this has already created an “entity”, a “spirit”, the way we have already described?
I think not! I actually think it’s more than just possible. This entity exists. And it has embodied all the fears and negative expectations of all those people thinking about it daily, and, therefore, feeding it daily with astral energy.
So maybe, yes, we are technologically safe enough from a rampaging, murderous artificial intelligence, for such a computer generated artificial intelligence can’t exist (yet). But we aren’t safe from the “spirit”, the “ghost”, or the “demon” of this artificial intelligence, for, most probably, it has already been born!
So, anyway, I was writing my homework, like a good boy. It took me much time to complete it. Then saved it. Didn’t think of backing it up. I was to present it the very next day, so what could go wrong. Right?
Then, I needed to unwind a little, so I logged in into Facebook to have some fun with my friends. And here is what happened!!!
This terrifying demon manifested in front of me. Pushed me down on the floor. Honestly, I thought it was going to kill me. But, instead, it sat in front of my computer, put its hands on it and then disappeared!
When I finally came out of the shock, I blessed my luck, thinking that nothing bad had happened, although everything could have gone wrong. Being killed, for one. But, and this probably scared me more, it could have turned me to zeros and ones, and thus, from a human to data, and I would have to wader in the world wide web for ever, trying to climb up in the search engines’ results, in hope I won’t be forgotten, and, finally, deleted. I mean, even in the form of bytes, I assume I would keep having my survival instinct. Which… well… I don’t know if I would, and, honestly, I don’t care to find out!
So, yes, I was lucky. It was a frightening experience, but nothing more than that. But I should have known better! All my files were deleted. And amongst them, my homework too. So, I’m afraid, I can’t present my homework, for the social media (demon) “ate” it.
– And are you expecting me to believe those nonsense, Yorgos.
– It’s the truth!
– But you don’t have a Facebook account!
– Oh, shit!
🤣🤣🤣
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