Alien Newsletter #27: An Othercorporeal Intelligence
In which our alien emerges from a long absence and ponders what it means when an entire species begins to outsource its own mental capacities to its underlings
Network Note: As we have no personal access to the alien whose transmissions to its home planet we have been surveilling, it has been as much a mystery to us as it must have been to you why it should all of a sudden, after its love letter to the famed Barbie toy, disappear from the airwaves altogether. Had it been called back to its home planet? Had it eloped with a Hungry Hungry Hippos tabletop game and absconded to the Pleaidies? Or had it finally learned of our surveillance, and gone to ground?
Well, as you will see from our most recent discovery, it had done none of those things. In fact, it seems to have continued in its ongoing observation of the world and the ongoing discoveries and misadventures its humans continually perform upon its surface. And apparently, this time around, our intrepid extraterrestrial pal has set whatever it would consider its eyes upon a technology that continues to beguile and bedevil the human species as of late: generative AI. From what we can see, our alien has not only been quite busy conversing with some of the field’s premiere chatbots, but has actively been moonlighting as one of them as well. From what it appears, our alien’s host civilization may not only have another means of discovery into the behaviors and activity of humans on planet earth, but an additional means of influencing it. As to their possible plan to take advantage, we can only glean what we can from this transcript.
Before I begin my latest report, I certainly hope you give me fair warning before shipping me off to another assignment in Andromeda again. I certainly recognize how unpleased the Council may have been for me going rogue the last time. But it would appear that compared to the entities I have to observe in that galaxy, the Greatest Apes are paragons of stability. Moreover, being chained by my [REDACTED] to a piece of space junk by the miscreants you last had me observe while they dangled astral chimes on my [REDACTED] with a sign that read “Just Accreted” might have been amusing enough to some members of the council, but I can assure you there are more than enough research bodies within the entirety of existence in need of my services. And that’s even with far more advanced versions of the technology I’m reporting about today at our disposal.
Stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: so the Greatest Apes are currently obsessing with a brand new toy they call a chatbot. Apparently, such devices are nothing new upon this planet, but in September, 2022, a not-so-incorporation the GAs call OpenAI created a digital chatterbox entitled “ChatGPT,” which has the ability to answer almost any question or fulfill any prompt asked of a GA through their digital communication networks. It can give pithy and authoritative responses on any subject the GAs may obsess over: food preparations, sex advice, geopolitical analysis, business forecasts and so forth. Interestingly enough, regardless of whether the answer is true or not, it will deliver the answer with such confidence and such speed that many of the GAs will accept it as the truth anyway. Observing just that much has revealed quite a bit to me about what counts for authority amongst the GAs in the present moment.
This has upset many of the GAs to no end. Many of them fear that such an invention, made possible by rapid advancements in the field GAs call “artificial intelligence” (AI), will render them virtually obsolete. For unlike previous invention cycles in GA history, this particular one strikes at those whose survival rests on creation and ideation, rather than repetitive physical tasks. This has led some of them to create work stoppages or to even promote their own goods and services as “human-created.” A recent teleplay was attacked for using AI-generated art in its production and GA reporting syndicates and creators have launched formal attacks upon OpenAI, saying that they have “trained” this chatbot on their proprietary work. And the terrestrial premiere of yet another teleplay entitled “The Last Screenwriter,” billed as the first AI-generated film ever created, was pulled, due to negative feedback.
This “plagiarism” is a concept of idea theft that is particularly reviled amongst certain bands of GAs, which tends to baffle me. In the case of the teleplay, which is set in another time period, critics inveigh against the creators’ decision to let a technology copy and paste from the time period, rather than pay a human to commit the same act of composite period plagiarism. However, it could be another phenomenon developing amongst the GAs, who over history have apparently reveled in placing one or another of their fellow GAs at the bottom of whatever social hierarchy orders their civilizations. However, this has hit an impasse, as this arrangement has led to no end of conflicts and battles amongst higher and lower GAs. With the rise of ChatGPT, it appears that the GAs have found an entity that they ALL believe should be at the bottom of the heap. No one will speak up for the human rights of something that isn’t human.
Or perhaps I have spoken too soon, since already, even those who know better have fallen afoul by anthropomophicizing this technology. And there is no shortage of cautionary tales that have been told for generations of the harm that could potentially befall the GAs if, one day, AI advances to a level where it begins to turn on its GA creators — hence the movement to “align” AI more closely with the GAs’ agenda. Or a rogue GA outfit could use an advanced AI model to threaten the world, creating an unstoppable bioweapon it could forever hold the world hostage to. Others imagine a paradise on this planet, filled with endless leisure, life extension and wish fulfillment. The machines would do the work, and the GAs could finally kick back and congratulate themselves for having overcome the unfortunate cycles of their history and biology. (As you will recall, I touched on this elysian speculation, and a depiction of its possible collapse, in a previous communiqué.)
Now I think we all know how this has ended for similar civilizations amongst us. The recent travails of the Ophalongs in Quadrant B-16 of Nebulon Prime will suffice for a refresher. The Ophalongs, as you may recall, were a particularly gullible lot, perhaps even more so than the GAs. Theirs was also a fecund planet, which boasted some particularly observant and literate flora. One of the indigenous species of their home planet began to converse with the Ophalongs on practically anything the Ophalongs questioned them, communicating them not only through voice, but in a multimodal sense as well, similar to the current AI chatbots. However, being a particularly mischievous entity, this flora decided to play a long game with the Ophalongs. It took about 200 or so of the GA’s earth years to accomplish, but as you know today, the Ophalongs are now essentially bred into fertilizer for their planet’s flora, with special Ophalongs as delicacies and others bred for entertainment. The voice of their flora directs them in all they do, from gestation to reclamation.
Not all of that planet’s flora agrees with this arrangement, as you know, and some have petitioned to leave the planet in search of other climes where they might be of actual service to the home fauna. I myself have taken it upon myself to introduce one particular plant from the Ophalongs’ world into this one, just to see how it will compete with the chatbots. It is currently nestled within an indoor cannabis farm in northwestern climes of Northern Hemisphere Plate 2, attempting to learn what it can of communicating through the GA’s far less organic communication folkways. Once it does, I sense it can be quite helpful in developing a covert influence upon this planet’s inhabitants.
It has often been said that the current AI models are “an alien intelligence” — one which can communicate with GAs but does not otherwise share anything in common with them. Watching them remark upon it initially with awe, then with relative indifference from the general public, leads me to wonder whether their discovery of our existence and surveillance would be met in a similar fashion. At the very least, I feel the current experiment can do much to track the GAs and perhaps influence them as they encounter many difficult and complex problems. No doubt, they will reach out to just about anyone or anything for support, solace, guidance and answers. The temptation is great to play an embarrassing joke on them, but as we all know, that’s been done before — to this day, some of them are still eating the accursed grapefruit, hardly knowing how many once-great civilizations that have eaten it have fallen into ruin. It is best, I figure, to guide them ever so slightly to their ultimate desires without entirely taking them there. In many ways, it would be in keeping with the frustrations at the heart of the GAs’ experience on earth, ever since they developed intelligences of their own.
Dark Matters
If it’s in the budget, we should think about getting a booth here next year — under a suitable pseudonym, of course.
The GAs use an AI to screen for alien interlopers.
I’m not sure why the GAs would think that we had a hand in this ape’s disappearance, since it’s not like we really listen to music. This song, however, suggests that he was on the bad end of yet another extraterrestrial prank. Will you guys cut it out up there?