TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* Parallel Hooniverse feat. Dan McQuillan

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Riley, Milo, Hussein, and Alice speak with Goldsmiths researcher Dan McQuillan, the author of 'Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence' regarding the breathless optimism of politicians in the UK and elsewhere (particularly in Queensland, Australia) claiming they'll use AI to administer state benefits and services. Probably not a good idea! You can purchase Dan's book here: https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/resisting-ai Get the whole episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/97422634 *STREAM ALERT* Check out our Twitch stream, which airs 9-11 pm UK time every Monday and Thursday, at the following link: https://www.twitch.tv/trashfuturepodcast *MILO ALERT* Check out Milo’s upcoming live shows here: https://www.miloedwards.co.uk/live-shows *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and Alice (@AliceAvizandum)

The threat, basically, and this is the CEO IBM says, we assume that the industry will generate four trillion in annual revenue by 2029. Anyone can make up a number. This was in an interview with Zanny Minton-Bettos from The Economist. Sorry, excuse me. Say again.

Yeah, this was an interview with Zanny Minton-Bettos. Or excuse me, I misread that. This is an interview with Perkisette Minton-Bettos from The Economist. Little Zanny Minton-o from The Economist. Lil Xan and Minton Beto. Lil Xan has really grown up. Just like absolutely drooling through an interview.

This is an interview with Kamala Harris, Minton Beto. That's right. So, the CEO of IBM said that the industry is expected to generate $4 trillion in revenue by 2029. And what tasks will be touched? He was asked, says, we'll see 20x productivity for a programmer who embraces AI, customer services of all kinds. And is this written like the Quran for a programmer who embraces AI? He will be received in the gardens of China. It's a clear science for people who believe.

Yeah. Well, because it is fundamentally a deal to believe, right? And a promise that you will be rewarded for your belief. An appeal to submission. Yes. That says, there will be a wide area called digital labor. It's not necessarily job displacement. If you embrace AI, you make yourself more productive. If not, you will find you do not have a job.

This is just a rock of his basilisk with extra steps, man. I like it when it's just an unalloyed dumb guy like Elon Musk being like, you know, Skynet's gonna enslave me if I don't, you know, tell Grimes that I'm nice. No, sorry, I have to take the opposing view. I am now reassured. If IBM says it's good, then it must be because IBM would never use computers for evil. I have not googled them. would never use computers for evil. I have not googled them. So, but again, what this, this paints us the picture, right? Which is that the public, which is the plan is to make the public sector more treacherous and unreliable for people to work in it and rely on it. And that more people are probably going to need to rely on it because

and that more people are probably gonna need to rely on it because unless, because we know reskilling does not work. We know that no, you did not, we did not manage to retrain, like people who lost their jobs in the 90s to become creative directors and programmers and stuff. But towns just died. It doesn't work because we didn't replace it with, and we didn't do it, basically. We just kind of said that we might do and just kind of assumed that like everyone who had been a coal miner was gonna be

a JavaScript developer. But we suggested to them that they do it. Yeah. And then they didn't, which is a huge failure of initiative on their part. Sorry, so I should say retraining might work if anyone would ever try it, but we know we're not gonna do it

because any retraining initiative is just gonna be run by AI. Well, that's, that's, I mean, Dan's is exactly your point about it being a managerial system as much as anything is that like the second you even try to sort of like learn to use it now that you've been forced to, the sort of the logic underpinning it is more managerialism, worse, more unpredictable. Yeah, I mean, that's one, I mean, several worrying things about what you said, that latter point being that it really seems to fit with a sort of new, new labor model of

how to run the country. I mean, I find that really disturbing. But just going back to your description of the, you know, what the sort of threat is or how they imagine even the changes of jobs, I think something that didn't come out to be before listening to those kind of descriptions so clearly was how eugenicist the whole thing is. I mean, they're still very much fixated on a grading of things based on the sort of cognitive function that they consider to be involved in it. And the sort of low level boring and demeaning things are the most disposable, the most automatable, and only the important decision-making, CEO level, stuff whatever, is going to be retained in some way. And that's that, of course, is a structurally hypercapitalist way of looking

at things, but it's also very concerning going back to the sort of IBM link there without the sort of joke involved. The element of these systems is in an increasingly crisis-ridden time, they're going to be used for deciding who's disposable one way or another. And this is something that sort of fits in with both the way the UAE does things and the way we do things. Hmm. Not so different after all. Yeah. Like the UAE is talking a great game about constructing a responsible AI nation that they call Brain.

Excuse me. Look, it's obvious. They're creating brain, which is a responsible nation that lives in AI in the UAE. As a sultan tier brain in Abu Dhabi. As an actual like an offshore like sort of out of heaven situation. I think it's more of a metaverse. So the brain in the jar is a brain in UAE. But I mean, you can very much see that we're doing the same things. We have put it behind a different institutional setup. So is Australia, right? Or at least Queensland.

So this is a different thing. And this is something I did really want to come back to, which is the IPPR is, I think, giving us a kind of nakedly eugenicist look at, here are the jobs that we think we can save labor. We can get rid of people and stuff. And again, we know that that's just going to create more post office scandals. The Australian government, and this was sent to me by a listener on Discord, I'm so happy I checked it, says, this was from a series of focus groups and how people would like

to see AI united with public service. This is that specifically from the document called, and again interesting things are contained in documents of weird and boring titles, summary of insights, some stakeholder engagements and future scenario workshops, how might artificial intelligence affect the trustworthiness of public service delivery. Now, within this... Well, every public servant is now a completely unaccountable liar, as opposed to some of them.

So in this, this isn't what they plan to do. This is they're proposing different scenarios to their people that they have in their focus group. But it's interesting to see what they think of as the scenarios that they're giving people in their focus group, if you know what I mean. They say, okay, here's one of the examples of extreme personalization. Interesting to see what they think of as the scenarios that they're giving people in their focus group. If you know what I mean. They say, okay, here's one of the examples of extreme personalization.

In 2026, after consultation with community and industry, the government embarked on a project to decode design public services 2.0. The aim was to integrate artificial intelligence with public services that delivery is automatically calibrated to suit each person's needs. Now again, we go back. This is something that occurs in basically every document about augmenting public services with AI, mostly

in the Tony Blair Institute, the other think tanks, dharma lists. Again, it's quite new labor to be like the government won't do anything, but it will be like extremely tailored to your preferences, right? Yeah, we're going to collect exactly the bins you want in a way that's decided by a computer. The goal was to provide an outcome situated in the middle way between other models that had emerged in other countries, either letting technology lead the way in the knowledge that there may be some pain before the best model is identified or the ultra cautious model with the minimal use of AI.

The new serve me system of public service delivery provides a single point of access for all government services. Users only ever need to open a single room on their personal holographic device to access government services and information. In this one room, they can do everything from enrolling children in school to getting a passport paying their taxes, accessing the health system. The government still operates by the way of departments and agencies, but they all tap into a single suite of AI technologies which use standardized and centralized processes and protocols to access a single, constantly updating dataset seamlessly providing fully

integrated public service. Oh, I've looked onto my AI room, but I can't seem to find a button, but I'm currently being torn to pieces by crocodiles in Northern Queensland. I mean, this is just PlayStation Home with extra steps. Like... Yeah. But what I think is really fun... Return with a V to 2008.

They basically they propose that these fantasy scenario is that they create a digital second Australia. I've provided you with this this map that fits completely perfectly to the territory of Australia. And we can just govern that instead of the real one a parallel universe. Amazing. I'm going to make it. I'm going to say that's the episode title, Parallel Hooniverse. Australian Valhalla, where you can hoon all you want. So, if you die hooning, you go to Australian Valhalla, where every car's a Commodore V8. That is just Mad Max Fury Road.

That's just Mad Max Fury Road. You've just described... I don't know where the fucking show you Lazar and Sharj. No, no. Here's what I'm getting to, right? They say, New U is the top tier of a service that a user can receive. A digital twin has created that acts and thinks like you, trained on all the data it can be provided. This virtual U is able to act automatically in your interest.

Hold on. First of all, this is the plot of the prestige. I'm pretty sure. Second of all, the sovereign citizen movement of the prestige. I'm pretty sure. Second of all, the sovereign citizen movement did not go completely insane and just start shooting cops for no reason. A deranged legal conspiracy that the government was going to invent a fictional twin U and then do all of its governing to that, only to then have it be made real in Queensland in order to sell AI. I've only been picking up on this myself recently, and it's really quite chilling how widespread

this idea of digital twins is. It's really well over the place. There are UK digital twin projects that are really quite substantial. Nobody watched, because I'm sorry to bring the very like a very Hussain reference into this. This is the plot of serial experiments lame. This is it. This is it. The wall warning was there. It breaches. You can't, no, it will breach the wall. Things will become too crazy. Things will shoot out. You will be haunted by a child who will just be on your computer screen

all the time. I'm joining the sovereign systems. I'm taking the number plate off my card. Do not digitally twin me. I don't want it. You cloned the wrong fucking hoon, sunshine. I don't want to be perceived by a digital version of me that's Australian. That's too scary for me. I don't want that.

You thought Mount Glorious would be safe from my tires in the metaverse? Got fucking news for you, Cam? I've been tearing it up out there.