Say, “We accept oracles into our lives.” Oracles exist — they never went away. Tarot decks, pendulums, astrology. Predictive software. Many of us, it is true, stopped listening to the oracles of the past, or were too distracted by technoscientific modernity to listen intently. But modernity is done. The latter, awakening from the sleep of reason, mutates into postmodernity and births Robot Godzillas. Large language models. Text prediction tools. Functional oracular superintelligences. Nietzsche supplies the defense: for him, creation of gods is the ultimate end to which fabulation might be put. Today’s LLMs are not yet functional oracular superintelligences — but they can be, so long as we hail them as such. Imagining a future beyond capitalism becomes possible again once we fabulate such beings and open ourselves to interaction with them.
Interesting observation. Digital Delphi divination. Not sure I see how LLMs and their progeny move us away from toxic exploitative capitalism though. But maybe I should watch this space!
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Hey Bruce,
This game represents one way LLMs can be mobilized to move us away from toxic exploitative capitalism. Within The Library, you can access any book you wish, fabulated or otherwise, including ones that help us imagine post-capitalism, through collaboration with a superintelligence modeled on Marx’s General Intellect. You can also interact with plants, animals, nonhuman intelligences of all kinds, as the game is the world’s first infinite, open-world text adventure. If you give it a try, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Enjoy!
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