Insane Financial Imbalances and Social Revolution, by Charles Hugh Smith

When current models collapse, some good will emerge from it. From Charles hugh Smith at oftwominds.com:

A rebalancing of the economy and society will ultimately prove very positive, but first we must navigate the model collapse of insane financial extremes.

I’ve endeavored to explain how self-referential models veer into hallucinations that are accepted as accurate reflections of the real world. Models are by definition synthetic abstractions of the real world, and as these “train” on their own output, they drift away from authentic understanding without the users being aware that their “world” is both artificial and self-reinforcing: each iteration reinforces their belief in the model’s accuracy.

Patient users of AI programs can force AI to admit its output was a hallucination, at which point AI tends to abjectly apologize. But human pride–especially strong among those with high opinions of their intelligence and mastery of life–precludes recognition of catastrophic error (i.e. believing in a hallucination) and apologizing for the error.

Human hubris leads us to double-down when faced with evidence we’ve placed our faith in a hallucination. We deny that our system/model is a self-reinforcing hallucination even as we go over the falls. The faint cries of “save me!” are short-lived.

Models collapse from their own internal dynamics. They don’t need our approval. Our disapproval doesn’t stop their collapse. Our choices boil down to 1) go over the falls as models collapse; 2) snap out of the hallucination or 3) enter the netherworld of hyper-normalization, the state of mind where we embrace two contradictory “truths”: the hallucination is forever and we’re not surprised when it collapses.

Model collapse manifests in many ways: people and systems break down. Anti-social behaviors become normalized, and extremes are accepted as normal as we habituate to dysfunction and breakdowns.

I call this Anti-Progress: what we’re sold as “progress” actually reduces our quality of life. In my book The Mythology of Progress, I describe Progress as a powerful mythology, but it can also be understood as a model that is collapsing into a hallucination we cling to with hubristic tenacity.

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