THE IMPERIUM.
Added 2023-05-11 21:13:52 +0000 UTCThis is the first of a line of infographics that’ll be included in the back of the graphic novel. There’s more to come for each species with visuals of their respective planets and updated lore.
Comments
I follow the topic quite broadly, and yeah I have some thoughts. If Chat GPT is anything to go by, then I’m not optimistic. That platform clearly has a political bent to it and will sometimes provide you with skewed information, or outright refuse you information because of its programming. I’m not saying that this necessarily has to be the case all A.I., just that any A.I. that comes out under the reign of our current batch of elites will be this way. China has been working on its own one for many years now, but I don’t have high hopes for that either considering the C.C.P’s track record. No mater which civilisational bloc/pole uses it, they will use A.I. to censor any who represent a real opposition to their model of the future and it will only strengthen their iron grip on power. Unfortunately the command economy which we live under dictates that this must be so. If you look at the power structure of the western economy, you have the federal reserve at its core which can now produce fiat debt out of thin air to lend money to the two largest investment firms on the earth, Vanguard and BLACKROCK (this was a procedure put in place in the first year of the pandemic to help deal with increased government spending in order to try to stabilise the economy). Combined (and they often do collaborate with one another) BLACKROCK and Vanguard have command of over half the global supply of ETF’s (exchange traded funds). What are ETFs? They are a method of blanket investing in sections of the global market and therefore having influence over them. ETFs come in tiers like gold, silver, etc… when you invest in a gold ETF for example, you are really investing in all of the gold rated companies like Amazon, Apple and Google. Now this has lead to an extreme centralisation of power in the economy and these are the people that really call the shots, money talks as they say. These colossal investment firms are so integrated with the system of power through their unique agreement with the money supply and public-private partnership that they are basically just an arm of the state now. They also initiated the well knows ESG (environment social Governance) scores that companies have to abide by if they want to continue getting investment from the two largest investment firms in the world. Take my homeland for example, the United Kingdom increased government spending to 98% of GDP in 2020 and America (the centre of the global economy thanks to the petrodollar and imperialistic expansionism) printed more money in one year than all previous years of its existence. If the government is spending big, then the government is getting bigger. ANYWAY, my point is that this centralisation of the economy though fiat debt means that very few people have a say on what is going on. These are the people who are in command of how Artificial intelligence will be used. AI will be great for the efficient running of things and it has tremendous potential on that front. You could have all of a cities infrastructure linked to a single A.I. or maybe even a council of specialised A.I.s that focus on the smooth functioning of certain areas. A.I. Will also advance the medical field as well with being able to diagnose health problems and the like. Despite what happens in Humanity Lost, I don’t actually think we are at risk of “conscious” artificial general intelligence rising up and ruling over us any time soon (or even that that is possible). I think the technocrats in charge already do that well enough as it is, A.I. will just be another tool in their toolbox that aids them in their endeavours. No, It seems to me (and I could absolutely be wrong on this) that no matter how complicated the neural network is, if just a more intricate version of the “if then else” model of computation. I think the threat A.I. poses is rather less existential, Its the opposite actually. I think it will merely allow for the more efficient running of our current system. Which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your politics, I won’t judge. I think A.I. is going to put a tremendous amount of people out of work in the near future. Not in all sectors will be affected by it in the short term, but definitely a lot of people will lose their livelihoods. This will lead to universal basic income being implemented to help the disaffected workers. Subsequently, this will lead to an increasingly large state though government expenditure. Taxes will go up to pay for the increased spending on UBI and this will put more power into the hands of international financiers and state officials. The government will have more of a say in your day to day life through the introduction of A.I. The increase in tax and unemployment will lead to a parasitic effect where the minority of people with jobs will be paying for a mass of “useless eaters”, as Yuval Noah Harari (one of the chief “agenda contributors” of the World Economic Forum) and author of Sapiens and homo deus, has already put it. I think it really depends on your orientation towards the future as a person, what you want out of it. The world will be more connected than ever, but society will become more fractured. I’m not a complete technophobe by any means, but take for example the invention of the car, it allowed the average man to travel further and faster than ever before. It was an absolute boon when it first came out, but then as more people acquired cars it lead to traffic and horrific accidents. Then came traffic lights to help deal with this, and road signs and this and that and the other, more and more control mechanisms were put in place telling both drivers and non drivers what they could and couldn’t do when going about their daily lives. The automobile altered the shape and size of cities, making them less friendly to people travelling by foot, bicycle or horse. Roads calved up our beautiful countryside and has made traversing the land more difficult and even deadly for countless species of wildlife. Before the car it was common place for a worker to be able to commute to their place of employment via a walk. The distance between buildings was much smaller and the infrastructure organically formed in a way that goods and services were accessible to people’s houses. Just look at the structure of old towns across Europe. As cars became more common place, people could commute longer distances and eventually employers would come to expect this of their employees. This hermetically sealed man away from nature. You travel from one box (your home), to another box with wheels (your car), then to your box of employment (your factory or office) and back again, eat your takeaway food out of a box delivered to you by another person in a box with wheels, sleep in your box room and repeat. This is the case for most people. Dwellers of small villages and towns, which would previously have most - if not every - need catered for, soon found local family run businesses closed down because people could just nip over to the nearest population centre to find better employment opportunities there. What at first was a liberating technology became an unintentional form of technological self-enslavement. What at first allowed you to go faster, thus freeing up time, eventually led to you being bogged down on congested roads and paying taxes for polluting the air and repairing potholes. I could go on, but I think you get the point I’m making here; I think AI will be this, but on steroids. It’s not hard to imagine that AI will have a greater impact on human life than the introduction of the automobile, the question is will that impact be positive or negative? With all of that being said, I do see the benefits for Artificial intelligence when it comes to certain sectors. Just to clarify a bit, I’m not against people having access to cars or anything, I’m a driver myself, I’m just using that as an example that all new technologies have a bunch of unintended consequences. I’m also not necessarily anti A.I. altogether either, I’m just opposed to how it’s being handled currently. It’s a tough question and I’m not one hundred percent decided on this. My opinions are always subject to change, but those are my thoughts and predictions at this current time. The TLDR (too long didn’t read) of this is that there is a minority of financiers who will use AI to their advantage to bring about their vision of the future. Whether you view that as good or not is dependent on whether you align with their vision for the future also. The real question of whether A.I. will be good or not is subjective and contingent on who it is that is wielding it, because it’s just a tool like any other.
Callum Diggle
2023-05-15 09:42:17 +0000 UTCI have an entire graphic novel planned for that period, it will be a standalone prequel comic set during the Human-Conglomerate war. It’s a while off though because I want to finish Humanity Lost first 😁
Callum Diggle
2023-05-14 06:51:58 +0000 UTCWill we ever get a flashback or prologue type chapter where we witness the start then rise of All-Mother and Imperium?
Captain_Torres
2023-05-13 20:30:49 +0000 UTCWhen you refer to an individual, I’m assuming you mean a single drone right? Well if a drone is cut off, I’d say that it would complete Its current objective, then go into survival mode killing any hostiles it comes across till connection is re-established.
Callum Diggle
2023-05-13 17:11:09 +0000 UTCso if an individual is cut off from an emitter, what happens? I’m assuming they either stay alive but enter a state of hibernation, die straight up, or become independent
Miningation
2023-05-12 17:08:20 +0000 UTCHumans! Humans! Humans!
Callum Diggle
2023-05-12 12:32:17 +0000 UTCVery detailed and precise information about the bad guys we secretely root for 😈
Davide
2023-05-12 11:17:48 +0000 UTCI see what you’re saying and that makes a lot of sense, I’ll make the edit.
Callum Diggle
2023-05-12 10:24:39 +0000 UTCShouldn't an overfather name two drones as new ones for exponential growth, assuming they stay in their system?
Gilbert Hangel
2023-05-12 09:43:16 +0000 UTCThere certainly are! I plan on sticking with it for a long time. I’ll complete the main story arc with Losté and then I’ll no doubt dive back in for prequels and sequels. Thanks so much, Morgan!
Callum Diggle
2023-05-12 06:55:14 +0000 UTCGosh, I daren’t even hazard a guess at the number, it’s beyond you or I to comprehend.
Callum Diggle
2023-05-12 06:53:38 +0000 UTCScary and cool! Do you have a take on current AI development? Or a public figure you follow on the subject? Stuart Russell (Berkley) and Gary Marcus (Founder of an AI bought by Uber) for example spoke on the Making Sense podcast
Gabu
2023-05-12 03:12:52 +0000 UTCThat’s exactly how I imagine it, well put Erika!
Callum Diggle
2023-05-11 21:29:51 +0000 UTCI love the potential of this universe. There are so many stories that could be explored and a wide spectrum of time. Crack on dear Callum 👏
Morgan Weafer
2023-05-11 21:29:21 +0000 UTCI’m glad you think so, really appreciate it man ☺️
Callum Diggle
2023-05-11 21:28:12 +0000 UTCI wonder if the Wormholes to the flux aren't opened immediately, are they a form of infrastructure the Imperium only install once they've taken over a new system? Sort of life building a road after you have control of a piece of land?
Erika Spooner
2023-05-11 21:25:23 +0000 UTCI'm curious about how many "individuals" are within the imperium. You must be able to produce a lot of units when you "Consume all resources" of an entire planet. I feel like this would suggest, like, quintillions of drones in the imperium, but I find it hard to think about numbers that big.
Patrick Perkins
2023-05-11 21:22:18 +0000 UTCLove the encyclopedic approach. Outstanding work as usual mate.
Fernando Ruiz
2023-05-11 21:21:30 +0000 UTC
