Corporations: the AI Apocalypse

Popular opinion dictates that artificial intelligence is “scary” and worries about the potential for an AI apocalypse.

But I posit that the “AI apocalypse” has been here for a few hundred years, and the tide has begun to turn in the favor of the little guy.

Corporations are forms of AIs, and I’ll prove it:

Says Stewart Kyd (1793–1794), in “A Treatise on the Law of Corporations:”

“…a collection of many individuals united into one body, under a special denomination, having perpetual succession under an artificial form, and vested, by the policy of the law, with the capacity of acting, in several respects, as an individual, particularly of taking and granting property, of contracting obligations, and of suing and being sued, of enjoying privileges and immunities in common, and of exercising a variety of political rights, more or less extensive, according to the design of its institution, or the powers conferred upon it, either at the time of its creation or at any subsequent period of its existence.”

Sounds like technology, doesn’t it? That’s because it is.

Language is our most advanced technology, and law is a weaponized expression of linguistics.

Ergo, corporations are an expression of an “artificial intelligence” and the AI apocalypse has been running for the past few centuries.

a·poc·a·lypse (noun)

an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale.

Framed thus, it’s time to reconsider the dramatically destructive events of the past few hundred years, no?

This story has a good ending: the corporate structure has merit, but the landscape is dominated by a small number of top-heavy AIs (corporate entities).

It’s healthy to allegorically assess corporations as biological forms; they have a diet (the consumption of markets), they have pheromones (forms of hard and soft capital inclusive to money), and they have a religion (the necessity for blood sacrifice — resource consumption inclusive to the death of humans in some industries).

If I were a theologian I may be inclined to recalibrate my understanding of John the Elder’s Christian book of Revelation to consider that the so-called Anti-Christ may simply be a modern corporation, rather than a specific human being.

In any case: the AI apocalypse has been running for a few hundred years, and things are beginning to swing in favor of the little guy.

Why?

As a life form, they are insufficiently diverse to the detriment of the broader ecosystem. They are no keystone species. Indeed, they seem to delight in the consumption of “keystone” corporate species as they stagger drunkenly towards destruction.

And in their drunkenness, (and as a religion), the corporations have revealed themselves as little more than a death cult.

The people are over it, deftly adopting the instruments of the corporate entity in a manner more nimble, quick, and competitive than the large entities can muster: the allegorical equivalent of a warrior skilled in the use of a short blade up close and personal with an opponent carrying a large caliber rifle.

In other words: the AI apocalypse is almost over.

It’s not the end; it’s the beginning, but yeah. It’s gonna be pretty ugly for a while, as people re-learn how to walk on their own.

Have I mentioned how much I love fiction?

This is a good watch by a gifted scifi author (who also nicely and hilariously eviscerates most transhumanism as a repackaged form of Christianity).