OPINION/SATIRE: Has AI Already Replaced Trump? No Real Person Can Be That Oblivious, Can They?

PixabayPhoto bypugmom40

Masks that hide our identity have been around throughout history.

Avatars have been around as long as computers have. We select an image: A warrior, a goddess, or a hero to represent who we are or who we would like to be and use it when we’re online.

To be anonymous, to be selective in letting others know who is playing a game or answering their questions. We do it to feel empowered but yet not expose ourselves to ridicule.

But former president Trump defies all online and social media conventions. He openly says what he thinks regardless of the facts. He hides nothing. He dares anyone to challenge him while remaining indifferent to criticism or correction.

He stood before a microphone and urged others to gather at the Capital to defend the country, to preserve the election he said was stolen from him, and yet denies doing anything other than having a nice conversation with a group of supporters, albeit armed supporters, and never intended that they storm the Capitol.

And yet they did.

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He has been charged with and found guilty of sexually abusing and defaming a woman and ordered to pay $88 million in damages in both cases and yet continues to claim it’s all a farce.

He was found guilty of civil fraud in New York State and ordered to pay $355 million in damages and not participate in business activities in the state for three years and simply shrugs and claims it was just, “a fine of 350 million for a doing a perfect job.”

How is it possible for an actual person to be so immune to self-reflection; so indifferent to the effects that his actions create on others unless that person is not a real person but simply a placeholder for an ideal? An avatar masquerading as something else in an effort, a rather successful one to date, to make everyone believe whatever it says.

And to say whatever he needs to move an idea forward.

This is not a new phenomenon. In the past, society has had to deal with practices and products that were far from being the accurate cure-alls that their supporters/sellers claimed they were.

Like Big Tobacco claiming that cigarette smoking wasn’t all that unhealthy and kept actual proof hidden for decades.

Example: a 1937 Phillip Morris Ad claiming their cigarette helped clear up nose and throat irritation.

It could happen, right?

Another might be, Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup, an elixir given to teething children in the late 19^th century, to help with their discomforts – it contained morphine.

In 1898, the Bayer Pharmaceutical Co. offered a product for sale, a cough suppressant medicine that - contained heroin.

Not all claims are what they appear to be.

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AI or artificial intelligence is gaining traction in our society as an idea, an aid, a service, or a general means of eliminating one problem, the high cost of creating something (anything really) and replacing it with something artificial that can do it at a much lower cost, over and over again.

It’s highly targeted and focused, like ChatGPT which harvests billions and billions of bits of information on the Internet and learns from it, thus enabling it to mimic reality. To elevate an article, story, or image into “the real thing.”

Now there is no proof that Mr. Trump is anything other than, well, Mr. Trump. After all an avatar looks a little off, a little too put together, and comes across as fake, no matter the effort put into it to make it look real.

Even with investigations, indictments, and trials gathering up credible evidence that something was not right, suspicious, or outright illegal, the man denies it all.

Sees no connection to himself or his actions. Believes that it's all other people trying to sully his name. And does this over and over again with such conviction, such unrestrained certainty that one might associate this with an algorithm that possesses no self-awareness but simply does what it’s been programmed to do.

Alas, avatars are everywhere. Look on X, Instagram, FB, blogs, and video games galore and everyone uses a mask to hide their identity to more freely express their true self in environments that one might not associate with truthfulness or the need/desire to be their authentic selves.

But that doesn’t mean a person can’t act like their own avatar. That is to behave in ways that would indicate that a non-reasoning, non-empathetic representation alone is acting out various activities and belief systems that would otherwise be almost impossible for an actual human to do successfully over such a long period.

Probably more time is needed to study this phenomenon and prove or disprove it one way or another. Hopefully, there is sufficient time for such studies to take place before we realize that it will no longer be necessary.