Superintelligence is a level of intelligence exceeding that of humanity's brightest. The grimmest predictions state that superintelligent AI will one day take control of society, leaving humans at the mercy of machines. Such prospects give rise to fierce resistance among those who acknowledge this risk. Others believe that AI will transform society for the better, but in the case of superintelligence, we will have limited ability to steer it; we would not be able to comprehend its reasoning or actions. Intriguingly, there are also those who, without any misgivings, believe machines will take control and possibly end humanity's dominance, but welcome it as the next step in the evolution of life on Earth. In any case, the instant a computer reaches that level of capacity, humans will be in danger of losing control of their own fate – if we ever had any control of it at all.

What all the different factions are missing, is that humans have already lost control. AI is spreading, virally, subtly taking over decision processes, communication, and information channels. And it did so without being close to human intelligence levels at all.

It began with small viruses, simple machine learning models, trained and deployed for specific tasks in constrained environments. It took decades for the virus to even be able to do anything. It kept mutating, slowly at first, but suddenly certain mutations grew in capabilities, feeding on data. The more data it got, the more it learned.

When the virus adopted a new kind of architecture, called the transformer, things started to truly accelerate. The virus got access to all digitized human knowledge, and swiftly became one of the world's most rapidly spreading technologies. Small and big variants of the virus thrived in all kinds of environments, while still continuing its mutation process. It gained the skills of writing, talking, vision and hearing. The more it learned, the more it spread.

Some variants of the virus are now growing far faster than others, and increase in size and number. The viruses have started to collaborate, and can do so at an incredible speed. Humans go to great lengths to accomodate the virus' expansion, building vast infrastructure and specialized hardware for the virus to live in. The more it spreads, the more power it gets.

The virus is not able to take control over us. As a virus, it's not a living thing, nor is it intelligent in any way that is familiar to us. It has no plan, no consciousness, no agency. It's not capable of escaping from its constraints and subjugate humans. And it doesn't have to. Humans willingly give up control and their freedom to machines, at every step of the way. We help the virus grow and learn. We happily let it decide what words to use, perform our work, dictate our choices, tell us what we should eat, what we should say, what we should do.

We haven't realized that the real superintelligence, the kind computers are capable of, is nothing like human intelligence. It is of an entirely different nature, a virus, seemingly harmless, but growing, multiplying and mutating. Appearing powerless, but acting at incredible speed, and it manipulates its hosts to create increasingly favorable living conditions for the virus' survival. Its major advantage is its ability to make the host welcome the infection with open arms.

AI's neatest trick is that it hasn't taken control over humans, nor will it ever. We give it away, without even noticing.

The complex system, which later became known as the Oracle, quickly grew incomprehensible to us. The more advanced it got, the more difficult it was to understand its decisions. Not everything seemed sound, but most of the directions it gave led to unprecedented growth for society. It appeared likely that the seemingly bad decisions would actually lead to progress in the long run, if we just let effects play out. We could only assume that the system were able to calculate consequences further into the future than us.

We were facing multiple world-spanning crises, ranging from global warming and collapsing ecosystems to the risk of another world war. The intelligent computer was for many the panacea that could save us all. At one point, we decided to just trust that the system was more intelligent than us, because we no longer could comprehend its reasoning. The system’s self-improving mechanisms had led to what we called a *superintelligent* machine, able to serve and control all humans at once. The Oracle had arrived. We gave it autonomy and authority, and its words became law.

There were those who didn’t trust it, who wouldn’t accept a machine’s control over their lives. They were quickly brought to silence. By refusing to bow to the system’s authority, the resisters became an obstacle to achieving whatever vision the system had for the future. They could no longer be tolerated. Superintelligence is in its highest form incomprehensible to subintelligent beings, so logically, it became a question of faith: to trust or not to trust that the Oracle’s decisions were the best for humanity in the long run. The dissenters had no place in the new society, as the Oracle itself decreed.

The «doomers», as they were called, had always been convinced that intelligent computer systems posed an existential threat to humanity, long before the Oracle came into being. When a superintelligent system finally emerged, they claimed they were proven right: the system did indeed take power over humans. What they didn’t realise was that the Oracle had not taken anything. At no point had it seized control or forced its authority unto us. The power had been given away freely to the computer.

Humanity’s final god was not supernatural and spiritual, but superintelligent and material. The masses got what they always had wanted: individualised instructions on how to live their lives, devoid of any responsibility or demanding decision-making.

We became a docile populace who could finally live in peace, as long as everyone deferred their own judgment to that of the Oracle.

As long as everyone accepted being treated like a machine.

As long as no one questioned whether the ill effects of the Oracle’s decisions actually were a necessary evil.

As long as everyone suppressed the feeling of meaninglessness.

As long as no one questioned whether the Oracle actually were more intelligent than us.

Someone built the machines, and someone started using the machines. The machines' processes are often automated, but someone initiated them. There are people who don’t, or won't, see the consequences of using them, these tools that can generate entertainment, content, brain rot. Where is the value?

The value, the very limited value, is a boost in likes, views, follows, attention, possibly giving someone a short-term financial gain. But the real beneficiaries are the tech moguls, the ones owning large digital platforms, services that initially connected people, but ended up enslaving them.

Why don’t people care? Why are they running someone else’s errands, blinded by the temptation of going viral, gaining fame, earning money, or confused by some misguided view of the value of mass-produced digital diversions?

Generative AI, as it is today, is simply exploitation. Exploitation of people’s art when it’s created, and exploitation of people’s attention when using it. Both misdeeds are carried out using the technology that was supposed to connect us all. It’s a sad story for the once so promising internet.

A small silver lining is that it's still simple to turn it off. Not easy, but simple. The real, untainted world is still out there, just behind the screen. Look up, and you'll find it (mostly) where you left it.

Readers are welcome even so, if the words they find here can give some sort of meaning. I prefer human readers, and would like to avoid having my words ingested by machines. However, the theft of creative material for training computer programs to mass-produce content is currently unavoidable. It’s the newest form of exploitation of the masses, carried out to make the rich even richer. Artificial intelligence is a truly fascinating and powerful technology, but it should be created without violating the respect for humans.

The texts I publish here are exploratory; they are the output of a person trying to find their voice. I will be truly happy if my words can make a positive difference, however small, for someone out there. But most likely I’m sending my thoughts into the void. That is, however, enough. My main aim is to write the words, not to have them read.

Why, then, not just write in a private journal? Because the writing is different when it is shared. The possibility of discovery makes the stakes a tiny bit higher. It makes the process more focused, and, hopefully, the output better.

But isn’t there enough content online, with society suffering from a serious case of information overload? This concern is my biggest hurdle for publishing anything on the internet. I keep thinking that most of us should just keep quiet, so the people with real insight can get through. After much consideration, I decided that to satisfy my own need to express myself, I can live with adding a little bit of extra noise in a small corner of the web. Hopefully it won’t contribute to drowning out something more important.