God-like – Reference list

Easy access list of references from my book, God-like: A 500-Year History of Artificial Intelligence

Curtain Up: Sometimes Human Make Mistakes

[1] See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67959240

[2] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melvin_Kranzberg

[3] See: https://www.ft.com/content/03895dc4-a3b7-481e-95cc-336a524f2ac2

[4] See: https://www.ft.com/content/03895dc4-a3b7-481e-95cc-336a524f2ac2

[5] Huxley, A., Ends and Means, p. 99

[6] See: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt.html The article continues, “As fate would have it, Altman and Oppenheimer share the same birthday.“

[7] See: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13iht-edooling.1.16905500.html

[8] See: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/31/technology/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt.html

[9] See: https://www.reuters.com/technology/sam-altmans-ouster-openai-was-precipitated-by-letter-board-about-ai-breakthrough-2023-11-22/

[10] See report in New York Times, Feb 2019: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/business/media/artificial-intelligence-journalism-robots.html (Accessed Feb 2020)

[11] See: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/01/political-donations-plunge-to-167m-down-from-average-25m-a-year (Accessed Feb 2020)

[12] See: https://fortune.com/2019/10/03/openai-will-need-more-capital-than-any-non-profit-has-ever-raised/

[13] See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35082344

[14] See: https://www.ifow.org/publications/the-amazonian-era-the-gigification-of-work

[15] See: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook

Act 1 – Memory Theatre 

[1] Critchley, S., Memory Theatre, Fitzcarraldo, London, p. 21.

[2] Memory Theatre, p. 19.

[3] Brueggemann, W.: Prophetic Imagination, p. 17

Act 2 – Memex

[1] Introduction to As We May Think, Atlantic Monthly, 1945

[2] Interview in the San Jose Times, Feb 1999. https://web.archive.org/web/20130707130924/http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_23592605

[3]https://raysolomonoff.com/dartmouth/boxa/dart564props.pdf

[4] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert_Wiener#cite_note-22

[5] William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, from Proverbs of Hell.

[6] Huxley, A., Moksha, p. 9

[7] The idiom is deliberate. See Jay Steven’s book, Storming Heaven: LSD and the American Dream (Grove Press 1998) ISBN 0-8021-3587-0

[8] The Eliza chat-bot, for example, used Rogerian forms of response to appear to be a therapist, and STUDENT was a programme that could solve mathematical problems written in English by parsing the structure of sentences.

[9] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJDv-zdhzMY

Act 3 – The Creation of Adam

[1] The Platonic Origins of Anatomy: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/15538648_The_Platonic_Origins_of_Anatomy

Act 4 – ‘Lo’

[1] Runciman, D., The Handover, p3.

[2] Heidegger, M., The Question Concerning Technology, (trans. W. Lovitt), New York, Harper, 1977, p.4

[3] In fact, though he never apologised or expressed regret, Oppenheimer never himself managed this philosophical leap, and the actions that he and his team had taken did trouble him greatly — perhaps more than Vannevar Bush who had overseen them.

[4] https://www.thekurzweillibrary.com/memorandum-for-members-and-affiliates-of-the-intergalactic-computer-network

[5] Interestingly, in 1991, following Operation Desert Storm and the DART tool for automated logistics planning used to plan the invasion, DARPA claimed that all of their 30 year investment in AI had been recouped in one military campaign.

[6] Interview in the San Jose Times, Feb 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/20130707130924/http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_23592605

7 https://harpers.org/archive/2015/08/the-transhuman-condition/

[8] Quoted in: https://harpers.org/archive/2015/08/the-transhuman-condition/

[9] Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Nick Bostrom. p.5

[10] Transcendent Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCov79Blk9Q

Act 5 – Dr Faustus

[1] See https://classes.engineering.wustl.edu/2010/fall/ese403/software/Informs%20Articles/CH10%20Scheduling%20the%20Operation%20Desert%20Storm%20Airlift%20An%20Advanced%20Automated%20Scheduling%20Support%20System.pdf

[2] See: This American Life episode, June 2023: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/803/transcript

[3] See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/

[4] You can read it here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22058315/is-lamda-sentient-an-interview.pdf

[5] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia

[6] See: https://www-rollingstone-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/women-warnings-ai-danger-risk-before-chatgpt-1234804367/amp/

[7] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_bias_on_Wikipedia

[8] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_bias_on_Wikipedia#cite_note-BusinessDay-4

[9] See: https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/12/21255870/facebook-content-moderator-settlement-scola-ptsd-mental-health

Act 6 – Apple

[1] See: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/technology/ai-google-chatbot-engineer-quits-hinton.html

[2] Noble, D. The Religion of Technology, p. 6

[3] See: Yuval Noah Harari: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html

[4] Genesis 11:6, 7

[5] Yuval Harari: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html

[6] Olivia Laing in Funny Weather: Art in an Emergency, p. 3

[7] Yuval Harari: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html

[8] Note again, there is no apology from him for resorting to theology, to scripture. If religion is technology is religion, then as the amplification levels of a system begin to approach dimensions that are incomprehensible, it is no surprise that he turned to the myth-writers and prophets who had fought for centuries to try to express the ineffable. It was perhaps only by raiding their mind-blowing ideas of the infinite above that adequate words in the face of such a vast new presence amongst us could be found.

[9] See interview with Tucker Carlson, reported here: https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/movies/elon-musk-cofounded-openai-says-035901693.html

[10] See: Yuval Noah Harari: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/opinion/yuval-harari-ai-chatgpt.html

[11] Yuval Harari interview: https://www.noemamag.com/historian-human-history-will-end-when-men-become-gods-2/

[12] See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68169082

[13] See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-66877718

Act 7 – Frankenstein

[1] See: https://x.com/carsjung/status/1720145943025033349?s=20

[2] See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67302788

[3] See: https://www.ifow.org/news-articles/regulating-algorithmic-management

[4] See, for example, https://www.ifow.org/publications/good-work-algorithmic-impact-assessment-an-approach-for-worker-involvement

[5] See: https://www.euractiv.com/section/artificial-intelligence/news/ai-act-eu-commission-attempts-to-revive-tiered-approach-shifting-to-general-purpose-ai/

[6] See: https://www.raconteur.net/technology/bt-digital-chief-ai-job-losses-innovation

[7] See: https://committees.parliament.uk/event/19671/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

The Final Act – Autonomy in an Age of Automation

[1] See: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/obesity/symptoms-causes/syc-20375742

[2] See: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/risk-factors-and-prevention/how-reduce-your-risk-alzheimers-and-other-dementias

[3] See: https://www.ifow.org/publications/reframing-automation-a-new-model-for-anticipating-risks-and-impacts

[4] See: https://www.tes.com/magazine/archived/why-body-vital-brain-when-it-comes-learning

[5] Boyle, M., Senses of Touch: Human Dignity and Deformity from Michelangelo to Calvin, 1998, https://brill.com/view/title/559

[6] Gozhenki, Y., Thinking Through Drawing, 2007, https://issuu.com/yevgengozhenko/docs/dissertation_amc007_-_thinking_thro

[7] From personal correspondence.

[8] Thompson, H., Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Paladin, London, 1972, p. 202.

[9] From personal correspondence with Brand.

[10] See: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/editorial/woty

[11] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Room_coffee_pot

[12] See: https://www.ft.com/content/053ee253-820e-453a-a1d5-0f24985258de

[13] I’m thankful to the Civil Society organisation, Careful Trouble, for this phrasing.

[14] See: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-centred-ways-of-working-with-ai-in-intelligence-analysis/human-centred-ways-of-working-with-ai-in-intelligence-analysis#data-information-knowledge-wisdom

DSTL is the UK’s version of DARPA, and this piece exposes how important the military has been to the development of AI in the UK as well as the USA – as military-industrial complex is across so many states.

[14] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven_and_Hell_(essay)

[15] See: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/sep/05/the-immortals-meet-the-billionaires-forking-out-for-eternal-life

[16] See: http://www.phys.unm.edu/~tw/fas/yits/archive/oliver_thesummerday.html Permission sought.

[17] See: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/05/could-robots-make-us-better-humans

[18] Heidegger, M., The Question Concerning Technology, (trans. W. Lovitt), New York, Harper, 1977, p.4

[19] Nor does Professor Ben Ansell, as he outlines in his 2023 Reith Lecture: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001sty4

[20] BLAKE RICHARDS, BLAISE AGÜERA Y ARCAS, GUILLAUME LAJOIE AND DHANYA SRIDHAR writing in Noema, here: https://www.noemamag.com/the-illusion-of-ais-existential-risk/

[21] For an extended exploration of this idea, see my books Mutiny! and Getting High

[22] From The Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/06/11/of-consuming-interest/299ed19c-b0f7-47d8-ba44-bd8c41b1a890/

[23] Lecture transcript here: https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2023/Reith_2023_Lecture3.pdf

[24] Bowling Alone, p. 235

[25] Bowling Alone, p. 240

[26] Bowling Alone, p. 246

[27] Bowling Alone, p. 172

[28] Interview in the San Jose Times, Feb 1999: https://web.archive.org/web/20130707130924/http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_23592605

[29] 53 minutes into this film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsg-__K_IAI

[30] See: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67650807