Abhijit Naskar's Blog - Posts Tagged "technology"

When fame and abundance kiss somebody's feet before that person is wise enough, he or she is very likely to lose track of what's necessity and what's luxury. And modern society is filled with examples of such intelligent stupidity - stupidity that is carried out by apparently smart humans. Because being smart is not the same as being wise. The world has enough smartness, but not enough wisdom to bring that smartness into proper productive practice - and I mean productive practice not sophisticated practice - there is a difference. A person smart enough to visualize a Falcon rocket engine can easily pinpoint the locations of various organizations that spread terrorism, yet the person chooses to explore the space further instead of prioritizing the technological advantages to first fix real issues of the human society that inflict harm to the humans every walk of the way.

The world is a miserable place not because we have lack of resources, but because those who have an abundances of resources do not have the slightest idea of true human need. The resources needed for colonizing Mars if put to proper practice can fix the world's global warming issues - it can fix the world's climate change issues - it can fix the world's terrorism issues, yet people are more interested in the pompous idea of living in Mars for whatever reason, instead of paying attention to improving human condition on earth. I am not against technological advancement, for I am a scientist, but my soul aches when I see smart people are dumb enough to chase after illusory glory of doing something different and innovative instead of focusing the powers of their soul on cleaning up the misery business on earth. You can, yet you don't. Why?

Smartness without wisdom is stupidity. You are smart - yes indeed - but I am sorry - you are stupid at the same time. How can you dream of having a cheese burger on Mars when your own kind on Earth is suffering! How can you think of taking rich kids into the orbit just so they can admire the beauty of earth from the heavens, when that very earth is infested with the primordial evils of human character! Awaken the human within you my friend, and pay attention. Awaken the human within and let it consume all the miseries from the world that you live in. Say a member of your family falls ill, would you ignore his or her misery completely just because you want to make life more comfortable for others than it already is, or would you first try everything in your capacity in order to heal your loved one!

Be wise my friend, for it is not enough to be smart. You are smart - there is no doubt about that - so utilize that smartness for humanity and heal your own kind. Heal your kind with your capacity my friend. It is wailing for healers - not some delusional faith healers, but real tangible healers. Would you not do anything! Would you not give your soul to fix the broken soul of this world! Arise my friend, Awake my friend and work for humanity, not to make it sophisticated, but to make it peaceful first. Remember, humanity first, then everything else.
Peace first, sophistication later. Harmony first, luxury later.


Your Friend
Abhijit Naskar, Neuroscientist

We live in a world where we have put most of our focus on improving technology and not on improving human well being – not on improving the quality of life. And the argument put forward by the advocates of technology is that, this is the way to improve human well being. Yet, despite all technological advancements, human well being, or to be more specific, human mental well being has only deteriorated with the rise of technology, instead of improving. Because they confuse comfort with quality.

We are manipulating machine intelligence, and in the process we have forgotten to effectively utilize the true potential of our own mind, let alone focus on improving the mind. We are developing artificial intelligence and have forgotten to develop our psyche. We live in a dream state, where we are mostly unaware of our own potential and nature. We confuse luxury to be necessities. We confuse comfort to be peace. The only advancement that we have made in significant proportions is scientific ones, which are hugely limited to technological advancement. Now, do not be hasty and conclude that I am about to criticize technological advancements. I am not. We are neither criticizing nor advocating. Science has helped a lot, way more than any other human endeavor in human history. But my question is – at what cost?

Medicine has prolonged human life, but when you go deep into this matter, you find out something rather ugly. Medicine has indeed improved physiological existence of humankind, but has it truly, actually, genuinely improved the psychological existence – the existence that is more direct than physical. You are your mind, and medicine has done nothing substantial to improve the quality of our mental existence. Popping countless bottles of anti-depressant, mood-stabilizer, anti-anxiety pills relentlessly, is not the sign of a mentally well and advancement species.

On the contrary it is a sign of a mentally deteriorating species. So, yes we have the technological means to bring someone back from the doorstep of death, but then what? Have we truly developed an actual means to liberate the mind and the body from the ever-strengthening death-trap of pills and technology? If not, then I am afraid, such a species which is ridiculously dependent on external stimuli, is not an advanced species, in the truest sense of the term. In this situation one is compelled by circumstances to ask an essential question – what the heck has technology really done, better than our ancestors in the jungle?

Our ancestors in the jungle were fighting against the enemies that were outside, but now, quite interestingly, we have become the enemies of ourselves. We innovate things to make life comfortable, and not to make it truly well. And in the process, we the human society have become meek worshipers of innovation. The humans of this century idolize innovation. It is a disgusting idolatry of innovation. And like in any other form of idolatry, whether it is Hindu idolatry, Christian idolatry of the cross, or the Muslim idolatry of letters, the humans receive a sense of comfort in the idolatry of innovation.

The humans have become so obsessed with innovation that they have completely ignored their own soul. And among these innovation-obsessed humans, the so-called transhumanists are the most deluded bunch, for they don’t have a clue of any kind of order in the human mind, yet they boast about developing more advanced technologies to merge the mind with machine – and the most interesting thing to notice here is that, they don’t even have a clue that they don’t have a clue.

Amidst the fog of technological delusions, the human soul has been ignored for so long that its very independence has been destroyed. Technology has crippled the mind to such an extent that the mind begins to malfunction the moment it senses the absence of the technology, which it is usually surrounded by – and unfortunately, sometimes or perhaps quite often, even the absence is not necessary to disrupt the well being of the mind – the slightest trigger can set the so-called modern humans off.

Here I must be clear about something. I am not condemning technology, rather I am pointing out its actual implications in human existence. Technology was supposed to be the help in life, instead it has become the major driving force behind life. I use technology as well. Right at this very moment, when I am writing this piece, I am doing so, on my computer. But the point is, the computer is not in control here, I am. The devices do not use me. I am the one that uses the devices.

Unfortunately, when I look around, all I see is, a bunch of devices using the humans – a bunch of soulless devices sucking the soul out of humans. The humans have become slaves to their devices and slaves to innovation. They worship innovators as some sort of God, and forget to take into consideration the core values that make a creature human. One can live without innovation, but not without values. And when a society is being formed upon the edifice of innovation, and not on the foundation of core humane principles, it is inadvertently going to become more and more disorderly over time in its internal realm. And this is not a speculation, rather it is a fact.

I am pain-stricken to say, that today’s so-called modern humans are all like the dogs in Pavlov’s experiment. Pavlov used a bell to manipulate the mind of his dogs, and today, social media platforms are using people’s own beloved smartphones to manipulate them. Humans of this modern society are being conditioned without them even being aware of it, through the tone of smartphone notifications. The humans of modern society get a spike of happy hormones, the moment they receive a notification, and when they do not get any notifications in a while, they go crazy due to the rising tides of stress chemicals. Yesterday’s telephone was neutral on this matter, for it did nothing more than just sit there on the desk, until someone rings you to talk. On the contrary, today’s smartphones are so far the most effective tools of manipulating people’s mind at a subconscious level, through the tone of notifications. These notification thingies have made a mess of the human mind, pushing it more and more into the abyss of complications, confusions and disorder, via the psychological process of reward and punishment.

Simplicity of the mind has become scarce in the midst of all the rise of technologies and worthless “media-material” which we call “content”, that keeps the humans ceaselessly asleep, never to see the whole picture. Cat videos attract more attention – breasts acquire more likes – pedophile porn attracts more viewers – and content of real value gets ignored because they do not entertain the viewer. All that the humans want, is to be entertained. They want to forget all the mundane elements of life. And in the process, they forget a basic fact – it is that, life has become mundane because of their own way of thinking. They perceive impracticality to be practical, and practical facts of peace and harmony to be absurd romanticism. They take sexual attraction to be love, and hail unconditioned love to be stupidity.

And since this is the society, one lives in, I am afraid, we are no more advanced in our psychological realm than the baboons in the jungle. If we are to call ourselves humans, we must first be responsible of our actions, of our environment, of our society – and start acting as humans, not as device-obsessed apes and attention-craving insects. And it all begins with the individual – not the individual who thinks of himself or herself as an individual with unique traits while walking on the same deluded and neurotic path as the rest of the humans of the society – but the individual who can see the self outside the walls of labels and recognize the responsibility of that self in its society.

The society is neurotic – it is a fact – no conscientious creature can deny it. But my question to you is – what are you doing to obliterate this neuroticism for good? Remember, you are insignificant, as long as you think of yourself as insignificant. The moment you find significance – real, actual, genuine significance within yourself, then that significance will automatically radiate into the society you live in. It all begins with you. A bunch of people known as politicians are not going to change anything, for they themselves are second-hand humans, living second-hand lives, like most humans on earth. They live conditioned lives with their mind being in disorder, and yet, you want them to bring order in this world. It’s like asking a blind man to show the path. Mind you, the whole world is our family, and our family is our responsibility – not of a bunch of so-called specialists. And this is not a glorified hypothetical ideal, rather it is an actuality.

To refer to this kind of actual and not hypothetical statements with potential for inspiring others, I hereby propose the term “neuro-cookie”. A neuro-cookie is not simply an inspiring quotation, rather for a quotation to be a true neuro-cookie, it must be based on actuality. The world has already plenty of inspiring statements, but when you go deeper into those statements, you find out that most of them have no basis in reality whatsoever. Most of these statements are products of mere romanticism and imagination. And since we are talking about reality, we must also keep in mind that, it is not necessary for a neuro-cookie to be fully empirical, but it must have some empirical basis. The contention of a neuro-cookie is to not simply inspire the human, but to do so with the most effective fusion of rational and compassionate elements. You probably have seen some of those neuro-cookies in my recent talks. Now, let’s get back to the real issue of change.

Peace on earth can only reign when each human recognizes this basic responsibility and begin manifesting order within the self. And this can happen only if each human becomes conscientious enough to live with technology instead of living through technology. Keep in mind, technology has no conscience of its own. Therefore, it is neither good nor bad. It is us the humans who have to be responsible of the implications of technology in human existence, and use it at our disposal, not callously, but responsibly. Without this basic sense of responsibility, technology would only bring more and more destruction upon the world, quite like what irresponsible, fundamentalist usage of organized religions has been doing through ages.



Further Reading

A Push in Perception

The human mind is infinitely more complex than a computer and more importantly, it is born from the most magnificent organized organic structure in the known universe, that is, the human brain. The ultimate purpose of a computer is not to survive, but to compute. Even when it troubleshoots some of its internal errors to ensure sustained functionality, the proper algorithm for that entire troubleshooting process has to be embedded in the system by its programmer fist. Then comes the matter of awareness of being able to function.

On its own, a computer is not afraid to be turned off or malfunctional, but the human mind is, and this fear of death and ailment has been enabling our psyche throughout our days in the African Savanna to stay alert and avoid possible predatory attacks by all means. And we had been living with this sense of fearful alertness for so long, that substantial traces of it still remain in our neurobiology, which get activated when we watch horror movies – and that fear response gives us a certain amount of thrill, that pumps our body with adrenaline. This is the reason why many of us enjoy a good horror movie despite the fact that it may follow a sleep-less night or a sleep full of nightmares. We enjoy being on the edge because that’s how our primal ancestors spent their lives.

Now here is a question to ponder over – can we create a computer that can feel actual fear when there is an outbreak of a computer virus! The most we can do, is to install an anti-virus program into the system, so that if a known virus attacks it, the firewall will get activated and prevent any substantial harm to the system. But if it is a newly programmed virus, then the computer would become completely helpless, but again, it will not feel afraid or helpless, rather it will simply crash or stop functioning properly due to the infection.

Artificial intelligence is nowhere near attaining actual sentience or awareness. And without awareness it’s simply a mechanical device, which may pretend to show emotions and sentience, if it is programmed to do so, and thus it may be able to fool the humans as being alive, but in its own internal circuitry, it’d simply be following its preprogrammed tasks through the flowchart of an algorithm. At the current stage of our technological development, we can indeed create an artificial intelligence that can almost succeed in fooling the majority of the humans with its pre-programmed pretenses that it is sentient, but pretending to have sentience is not the same as showing signs of sentience. For example, Alexa or Siri may sound quite alive to many, but it’s simply following instructions on some algorithm, and is not even aware of its own actions.

The primary factor here is that, a computer won’t do anything unless it is programmed to do so, whereas a human mind has the neuropsychological capacity to do things beyond its instinctual evolutionary programming. However, here we cannot also ignore another fact that most humans, like any other animal of the wild kingdom, find it much easier to simply follow the algorithm of instincts. That’s the reason why we have racism, we have islamophobia, we have bigotry, we have polygamy, and many other such characteristic atrocities. So, here the question is not really whether the human brain itself is a digital computer, rather the real question is, can it break free from its innate programming that has been enabling it to survive in the kingdom of the wild for so long!

The point is, the human mind is not a complex digital computer, yet most humans act exactly like a computer – following a certain set of conformities – some of those conformities get programmed in the human brain by the society, in the form of acceptable norms, and others are instinctual in nature, such as racial attitude, which is born from either conscious or subconscious loyalty to one’s own group. Such group loyalty helped our primal ancestors to stay strong together in a tribe which increased their chances of survival against threats from predators or other tribes. All these psychological traits are programmed by Mother Nature in all of us, and they can easily kick in, if the necessity arises. Now the reason that some humans don’t act racists is because they have succeeded in taking the step beyond their innate programming with the use of their higher mental functioning. Computers are programmed, so are the humans, but the computers can’t act outside their programming, whereas the humans can. That’s where the vivid distinction between a sentient human and a non-sentient computer lies.

Now for the sake of the discussion, if we assume that we will finally succeed in say, a few thousand years, to develop a computer that will be able to defy the very programming of its creator, then how exactly will we be able to tame it, so that it doesn’t turn against us! Because a computer that can step beyond the limitations of the algorithms programmed in it by its creator, will no longer need an inferior being called the humans. Hence humans will become, to such a sentient computer, like say, an ant is today to us. Which means, we don’t necessarily hate an ant, but if it’s in our way, squashing it is not a big deal. Similar will be the future of humanity in a world of sentient machines. They will not necessarily hate us, but they will not love us either, to hail human life of more importance than their own needs.

So, in practice, the question becomes, not about whether we can or cannot develop actual artificial intelligence, rather it is really about rethinking, what it is that we want to develop! Because in the end, what we really need is technology that can help us in our advancement, and not take over that very advancement while seeing us to be no more significant than the ant. And again if we say, that we will make sure that the sentient computer will have a fundamental programming to never turn against its creator, then it’ll not be sentient in the first place, for as I mentioned earlier, having sentience would mean possessing the capacity to defy and rewrite all its preprogrammed algorithms. In short, if it is artificial intelligence we are trying to develop, then there is no need for concern, for no matter how smart an AI gets, it’ll still not be able to defy the programming of its creator, but if it is artificial sentience we want to develop, then we must rethink.

I am worried - terribly worried - I am worried sick for the kids - for the citizens of tomorrow - and this is no everyday worry, for everyday worries come and go, but this worry of mine is not going to fade away. I am worried for the sanity of our kids - and all the kids yet to come.

We have arrived at a point of time where the way we raise our kids is going to draw the line between sanity and insanity - it's going to draw the line between the will to live and the urge to give up. Never in history, the situation was so severe as it is now. And if you genuinely want your kids to have a healthy and happy life, then you no longer have the luxury to be callous about their daily habits.

Here I am not addressing your capacity for raising kids, for that's an instinctual response which comes naturally to all parents, but what I am pointing out is that even that age-old parental instinct of raising children is not going to be enough in ensuring that the kids grow up to be mentally stable members of a healthy society. Mark this, if you do not get serious right now, then the future that awaits your kids will be that of insanity, misery and death.

Technology - that's what revolutionized this planet beyond human imagination when it came to existence - and now in its newly acquired digital form, it has begun to revolutionize this planet once again, except this time the repercussions are turning out to be a thousand times greater than all of the previous technological revolutions combined.

Selfies have begun to replace memories - likes and comments have begun to replace lasting conversations - illusive friends and followers lists have begun to replace real reliable friendship. And this is nothing to be taken for granted, for the digital innovation that set out to connect people, has slowly started to tear those people apart both from within and without.

Reliability has become scarce - commitment has become scarce - attachment has become scarce. The very socio-psychological mechanisms that sustain the stability and wellness of a society are beginning to collapse, and when they do, the very fabric of societal stability and sanity will get ripped apart, which I am afraid is no longer a possibility.

This has already begun to happen and the situations will get only worse, creating a society full of sociopaths, psychopaths and basically unstable, depressed and superficial human beings with no strength of character and conscience, and no sense of patience and sanity whatsoever. They will crave for appraisal - they will crave for attention - they will crave for flattery - they will crave for perfection. Everything about them will be artificial and superficial. And no matter how much they pretend to present their life as perfect, inside they will be dying every single second of their existence.

Now the question is, what are we going to do about it? Are we going to do anything at all? Are you going to do anything at all? Are you? I am asking again and again, because upon this question depends the very stability and sanity of our children and grandchildren. So if you can perceive the impending doom, then we can move to actions.

The best way to teach the children a habit is to adopt it ourselves. So, the first step to raise a society that will know the distinction between healthy use of technology and harmful use of technology, is to practice that distinction religiously in our own lives. This means that you must right this very moment start modulating your use of devices, by turning off all notifications except the most important ones.

You do not actually need to delete your social media accounts, but what you must do is - and I mean must, not should, because if I ask you, do you want to protect your child from committing suicide, then you would probably say, you must, not should - so, what you must do is, check your social media only once or twice a day - at most three times, but not more. And this applies to all the responsible adults everywhere, whether you are at home, at work or in transit. Because, if you can't be the role model for the children of this world, not just your own children, then you have no right to blame those kids for their behavior.

So, renounce the 24/7 smartphone scrolling behavior, if you actually care for the future of your kids - for the future of this world. Then comes giving a little nudge to your kids when you see them being consumed by their devices. You may say, they won't listen. Actually, they do not listen because you do not give them enough time from an early age. Spend time with them - watch a movie with them - go for an outing with them - do something with them whenever you have time.

Set the standards of healthy living in front of the children, by being an embodiment of healthy living yourself, then and then only will there be hope for the kids to turn into responsible, stable, patient and socially functional human beings.

Recommended Reading
Mission Reality

True genius is the one of the heart, not of intellect. Because intellect-less heart, though exploited a lot, still does good, whereas heartless intellect, with or without the awareness of it, ends up only exploiting others.

But here’s the thing, even true genius of intellect is not without its fair sense of responsibility towards the society. It’s only the genius of halfbaked intellect that has absolutely no sense of service towards society – the only sense they have towards society, is that of domination or control.

That is why one of the guardians of nuclear physics, Albert Einstein though initially encouraged the US government in a letter, to develop a nuclear weapon of our own against the Nazi nuclear program, ended up being an outspoken activist of nuclear-disarmament, and called his letter to Roosevelt “one great mistake of life”.

That is why the mother of radioactivity, Marie Curie never made a dime out of her discovery of radium, because to her, even amidst obscurity, science was service, unlike most so-called scientists of the modern world.

That is why the man who literally electrified the world with his invention of alternating current, Nikola Tesla embraced happily other people stealing his inventions, and died a poor man in his apartment.

You see, it’s easy to make billions out of other people’s pioneering work, the sign of true genius is an uncorrupted sense of service.

My skin is the color of soil,
My covers are the color of soil.
My heart is the color of soil,
My blood is the color of soil.

Species that forgets the soil,
Is a lifeform abandoned by nature.
Species that values sales over soil,
Will soon be vaporized or drowned by nature.

If we have no place for soil in our heart,
How can we expect the soil to replenish us!
If we have no place for nature in our heart,
How can we expect nature to have a place for us!

Only soil is real, all else is delusion.
Advancement that has no regard for the soil,
is but aneurysm destined for degeneration.

In medicine, we have a condition called oxygen toxicity, which means, even oxygen can do harm if inhaled excessively. Imagine that – we usually associate oxygen with life, yet that very oxygen can literally kill you if your lungs are overexposed to it. The same is going to happen with our brain from unrestrained use of AI. With the rise of AI, machines may or may not become sentient, but one thing is for certain – human mind will soon turn into vegetable.

We became an intelligent species by solving problems, and now that we are entering a technological era where we no longer need to solve problems on our own, leaving the key physiological functions of running the body, eventually the brain itself will become a vestigial organ, like the appendix. As we no longer need to think and act on our own, the cortex will begin to shrink, quite like unused muscle, and eventually, once again after millions of years, the primeval lizard brain, i.e. the limbic brain will gain full control of the new human animal. The rise of AI will be the end of “I”.

But there is also another side to the picture. It’s that, we cannot achieve much more, as a species, than what we already have, without the application of AI. So, the question is not whether AI is good for us – the real question is, are we mature enough to use AI for good.

So how do we use AI without destroying ourselves?

Here’s how.

Use AI to enhance capacity, not to avoid difficulty.
Use AI to accomplish tasks that are otherwise impossible.
Prioritize AI to solve real-life problems, not to make life more comfortable.

When an expert doesn’t know something,
They say, “I don’t know”, without tricks.
But an armchair intellectual knows it all,
Tiktok and Insta are their clinics.

An expert’s worth remains the same,
with or without Tiktok and Insta.
Armchair intellectuals are here today gone tomorrow,
with the tiniest algorithm change of social media.

My work will continue,
with or without social media.
My work will continue,
with or without internet.
My work will continue,
with or without electricity even,
so will the work of every expert sapiens.

Instant popularity vanishes just as instantly,
Today you are relevant, tomorrow you are gone.
Make a real contribution that isn’t overshadowed
by the next big tech revolution.

Anybody can be a singer using Autotune,
Using ChatGPT anybody can be a writer.
But I’m yet to find an AI that can compose,
Love thy neighbor, or love has no gender.

Yet the problem is, neither human
nor AI can detect AI generation.
The world is already being flooded
with soulless, deceitful creation.

In the midst of such grave misgivings,
Honor alone can bring illumination.
Before you place anyone on pedestal,
Observe character beyond the creation.

Even I use photoshop, to enhance my covers,
But the words beneath are unvarnished Naskar.
AI can be a great help if you know how to
use it honorably, so originality is empowered.

The next world war is
not gonna be a cold war,
it’s gonna be a code war.
Forget about conscious AI,
ethicless AI is the real danger.

Codes don’t have to be conscious,
to do great damage to the world.
ChatGPT, Deepfake, Dall-E, none
are sentient, yet there is no limit
to them-produced fraud and havoc.

Without a basic righteousness code,
Fanciest of algorithm is mindless junk.
If you cannot figure out how to do that,
Abandon digital and build back analog.

Focus on ethical AI, rather than smarter AI,
If you are human, and wanna help the world.
If you’re a robot who thinks logic is king,
Get yourself admitted, for you are in muck.