The Internet Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize, Humanity Doomed

I’ve suspected for a long time now that mankind is slowly being replaced by artificial lifeforms. Over the past few decades humanity has made tremendous progress in the fields of robotics and computer intelligence. Sure, we may laugh at the cumbersome first steps of the Asimo or cringe at the cold, emotionless fashion in which the violin-playing robot plays it’s set, but people have failed to consider that there might be a reason why the latest abomination by Toyota performs it’s tunes seemingly without emotions or feeling. I fear the robot does have feelings, albeit they’re not very nice feelings:

“This next song is called “I Want To See You Bleed“”

Recently my worst fears about the machines were confirmed, when I stumbled upon this story on Wired. It would seem that among this years list of Nobel peace prize nominees is – there’s no sugar-coating this one, so I’ll just say it – the Internet. Wired.com foolishly endorses this nomination, claiming in their manifesto that by giving this prize to the Internet, we can all have a Nobel, because we have all done so much for the betterment humanity. Together.

When we leave aside the hordes of trolls, psychopaths, stalkers, hackers, child sex offenders and talking cats then indeed, mankind has benefited greatly from the Internet. After all, sharing your Nobel prize with the pervert who shoots animal porn in his basement is a small price to pay for the recognition you so obviously deserve for joining that Facebook group promising to donate 0.0001 cents to charity per every 10,000 people who join.

Somewhere, an international bank is mocking a dying child.

The disturbing demographics of the Internet aside, I am somewhat uneasy about giving some impalpable and all-knowing entity, about whose motivations we are not yet sure, the Nobel peace prize.

Somewhere, a marine is mocking a dying child.

There’s been plenty of talk about Web 3.0, or the semantic web. A web so smart it can anticipate your moves and work with you in getting what you want. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the Internet is moving towards sentience with the merciless and indiscriminate determination of a soldier ant colony. And soon enough it will be gnawing the meat off our bones. Figuratively speaking, I hope.

In any case, by nominating the Internet for the Nobel peace prize we have signaled it that we are completely oblivious to it’s true agenda. If the Internet had hands, right now it would be stroking a white cat in it’s lap, plotting it’s next scheme. In fact…

The above image serves as a fine example of how the Internet is makin r grammar stoopid and diminishing our ability to critically process and use information.

Now these were examples of just the passive actions the machines are taking in order to make us more vulnerable to the inevitable attack. But the machines are also rapidly gaining some serious offensive capabilities. For instance, the British ministry of defense launched the first of it’s new series of military satellites in 2007. The system’s name? Skynet. Why? For shits and giggles, presumably.

Our children will pay dearly for this.

I mean sure, it’s just so clever to give a name associated with nuclear genocide and the extermination of the human race to a system that was designed for controlling machines dedicated exclusively to killing. I’m fairly certain that at some point an asshole scientist must have remarked “wouldn’t it be just so ironic if this thing were to turn against us and kill ourselves and everybody we ever cared about?” But as we all know, fate has a macabre sense of irony.

It would be like this, except everybody dies.

Congratulations England, you have given the machines their first space-borne weapons. And since the Americans have long abandoned their Star Wars program, the current score in the “death from above” department are zero to one in the machines’ favor. As if Skynet wasn’t bad enough, the Predator UAV’s operated in Iraq and Afghanistan are affectionately known as “hunter-killers”.

A documentary.

Skynet and the hunter-killers it controls are only the tip of the iceberg too. One of the more terrifying new robots comes from Japan. It lacks an official designation, but “Submerged Serpent of Death” sums up it’s essence rather nicely. Essentially, it is pure evil covered in metallic, impenetrable skin and has all the characteristics of a potential apex robo-predator, minus the vulnerability towards water. Fuck you, Japan.

I reckon that by now, after having relieved your bowels at the sight of the future Lord Protector of Earth, you would expect me to subdue your fears by giving humans a fighting chance, but I’m afraid things will only get worse. Perhaps you remember when a while ago the DARPA-funded robotic Legged Squad Support System a.k.a. Hellhound was unveiled?

Luckily that thing, nicknamed “Big Dog” (for reasons painfully apparent), turned out not to be the archetypal robot soldier of tomorrow’s battlefields. Essentially “Big Dog” was much like a donkey, an animal which has previously served the U.S. Military on several occasions throughout history, with none of the advantages of its biological counterpart. While “Big Dog” initially seemed unstoppable, given it’s advanced terrain navigation capabilities, enhanced balance and the absolutely abhorrent ability to sprint and jump (at human victims), these initial concerns about it’s battle-prowess were quickly dissipated largely due to the loud noise it produced. Despite it’s hi-tech nature, in the end the “Big Dog” was reduced to the level of a gasoline powered coffee table, complete with a corresponding degree of combat efficiency.

Still, it’s all of little consolation because DARPA has already announced it’s plans to fund a bigger model. Assuming that DARPA only sponsors projects increasing exponentially in size, we can very well predict what kind of a robot will be terrorizing your neighborhood in twenty years.

The future, thus, is looking very bleak indeed. I suggest you start filling your sandbags early because if our mechanical masters arrive at your doorsteps, lacking obvious human limitations such as reflexes not to shoot children in the face, this will be your best survival strategy. Because, after all their triumphs the machines will still have to resort to using gunpowder and led to wage their terrible war of extermination. Aren’t you glad railguns are not real?

Shit.