Tag: technology

Ever Wonder Why Web Pages Keep Reloading on Your Phone? Or How Advertisers Know What You Are Thinking About Buying?

by James Wallace Harris, 3/20/26

I’ve practically stopped reading web pages on my phone because I can’t get to the end of an article without it reloading several times. That irritates the crap out of me. Yesterday, my friend Mike sent me a blog post that explains why web pages do this: “The 49MB Web Page.”

Shubham Bose realized while reading a page at the New York Times that it involved “422 network requests and 49 megabytes of data.” Bose is a software engineer and decided to deconstruct how and why. I highly recommend reading his explanation of what happens when you load a webpage. He also explains the hidden machinery that tracks our personal data.

My friend Anne and I joke that we can talk in person about something we’re interested in, and the next time we get on our computers, the algorithm is sending us information about what we talked about privately. Bose does not explain that apparent bit of mind-reading by our AI overload, but if we’re being observed in 422 ways each time we read a page, it can probably predict what we will think about soon.

Bose is an engineer interested in the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX), and recommends programming techniques that could make me like reading on my phone again.

Is that the real solution? Make our experience better so we don’t notice all the activity behind our reading?

Personally, I’m slowly returning to magazine reading. It’s hard to give up the convenience of the internet, but the UI and UX of print magazines are more enjoyable.

Magazines cost a lot of money and people naturally prefer free. But that’s another philosophical issue over technology. The internet provides endless free content, but is it really free? There’s a reason why free comes with 422 network calls and 49MB of spying programs.

My friend Linda and I are reading If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. The book is about how we should worry that AI will wipe us out. The authors present many scenarios in which AIs could drive us to extinction. Most of them sound like science fiction, but there are mundane hints we should ponder.

This morning, I read “The Laid-off Scientists and Lawyers Training AI to Steal Their Careers” by Josh Dzieza about several companies that hire laid-off experts to train AIs to make fewer mistakes. Online systems entice desperate humans to work in digital sweatshops to train AIs to put other humans out of work. The same kind of monitoring used to sell us shit is used to track their work. The system traps them in a cycle of working for less and less money because they know these people are desperate to put food on the table and pay rent.

Is artificial intelligence doing this to us, or is it our own greed? At some point, we need to decide. There are many stories like this YouTube video, which suggest that AI can’t take our jobs.

It might be dangerous to get too comfortable with that idea. Because I also watched another video that shows how fast AIs are learning.

We have to decide, although our greed might not let us. One article and one video claim the solution is to develop a symbiotic relationship. But what happens when the AI gets smarter than us? If they don’t need us, will they want us around?

Many claim the internet brings out the worst in people, and it makes us overall dumber. There’s that old saying, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” Isn’t AI and the internet teaching us how not to fish?

JWH

What Computer OS Do I Recommend To Friends in 2026?

by James Wallace Harris, 3/15/26

I’ve been helping friends and family with their computers for decades. I managed hundreds of computers at work. I’ve set up thousands of computers since 1978. In the old days, it was easy, just recommend Windows to the average computer user, and Mac OS to Apple fanatics. But in 2026, Windows is annoying many people, Apple computers are becoming affordable, and Linux use is spreading. Plus, there are options like Chrome OS for minimalists. It’s much harder to help someone pick a new computer today, with prices spiking, AI, and all the new chips.

I’m not even sure what computer OS I want for myself anymore. I was a faithful Windows user for decades. Yet, I’m writing this post on a Linux machine, running the Mint distro, an operating system suitable only for the nerdiest of computer geeks. However, my main machine is a Mac Mini M4 since I packed away my Windows machines.

Since retiring, far fewer people ask me for help buying a new computer. And I have much less experience shopping online and visiting Best Buy. But a couple of my friends, whom I picked out their current laptop, are talking about needing a new computer. Their main concern is price. Both spent $600 for Windows laptops about six years ago.

Several decent laptops in the $500-650 range are currently for sale from Lenovo, HP, Dell, and Samsung. Any of these machines would be superior to what they had before. All are configured with an i5, 16GB of memory, and between 256GB and 1TB SSD drives. Each model has a 15.6-inch screen. Recommending them would cause them the least amount of transition pain for my two friends

However, Apple’s new MacBook Neo for $599 is an excellent deal. The Mac Mini M4 at $599 is what got me to switch to MacOS last year. And both of my friends use iPhones and iPads. If they were willing to suffer learning MacOS, they might be happier with the MacBook Neo if they could handle a 13-inch screen.

The Neo has only 8GB of memory and a 256GB SSD. For their use, that’s no problem. However, for $100 more, they could get a 512GB drive and Touch ID. The real problem with the Neo’s small screen. I have the MacBook Air M1 with the 13-inch screen, and it’s really too small for my liking. The cheapest MacBook with a 15-inch screen is the Air, at $1,299. They won’t spend that kind of money.

There’s another factor. Windows machines typically last 5-6 years, while the latest Apple computers with the super-efficient and powerful Apple Silicon chips might last years longer. None of my other machines matches the quality of the Mac Mini and Air. It’s not even close.

The 13-inch screen on the MacBook Neo and Air has a default resolution that makes the typeface tiny. Of course, Janis and Linda are used to 6-inch and 10-inch screens on their iPhones and iPads, so they might adjust. I set my MacBook Air to a lower resolution to make the typeface bigger and easier to read. But this sometimes causes a problem when a button I’m supposed to click is off-screen. I have to change the resolution, click the button, then change the resolution back.

There are Chromebooks with 15 to 16-inch screens within my friends’ price range. And these are a possibility. But I have to explain their limitations, and I’m not sure if my friends will understand. If everything you do is within a browser window, then Chromebooks are a good solution.

Since I’ve been migrating away from Office 365 to Google Drive, I could almost switch to a Chromebook myself. Most of my computer work is writing, browsing, and emailing. It’s only when I want to scan old magazines and create PDF and CBR files that I need programs that Chromebooks can’t install.

I use my MacBook Air M1 machine only to write when I’m sitting in a recliner, and it does the job fine. And I do that in a Chrome browser window while using Google Docs. I could have bought a Chromebook and saved half of what I spent on the Air.

But there are other things to consider. There is a synergy between my iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air, and Mac Mini. And since I’m subscribed to Google Gemini, their AI, there is a reason to use Google Chrome, Google Docs, and all the other Google services, which all work with Apple hardware. It helps that Google and Apple are becoming big buddies. Having tight integration between my hardware platforms and all my software has many synergistic benefits. Yet, I must admit, those benefits require a learning curve.

I admire Linux. I root for Linux. But I’d never recommend Linux to a casual computer user. Being a Linux user is like being Sisyphus – always having to roll a rock uphill. It’s fun if you can dig it, but painful if you can’t.

The easiest solution for my friends (and me) is for them to buy something like what they had before. But that pains me. Windows is suffering tremendous enshitification. And Apple is producing stunning hardware, hardware that’s becoming affordable.

Technologically, my Mac Mini M4 is by far the most advanced computer I’ve ever owned, and it only cost me $549. The MacBook Air M1 was $749, and it’s been the nicest laptop I’ve ever owned.

The last computer I helped a friend buy was a tiny Mini PC. She had an HP laptop that was giving her trouble, but didn’t want to spend $600 for another one. She already owns an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse that she uses with the laptop. I asked her if she ever took her laptop on trips. She said no, that it always stayed on the desk. I said she could get a tiny Mini PC with an N95 chip for $190, which was more powerful than her laptop. She’s been happy with that solution.

Most people don’t need powerful computers. Only gamers and content creators need to get expensive machines. I know several people who only use their phones for functions they once used on computers. Sme other friends find that a tablet covers all their computing needs.

It’s gotten very hard to recommend computers for people. AI has the potential to shake things up even more. If people get used to talking to their computer and asking it to do the work, the whole human-computer interface might change. We could all end up talking to our watches.

Most of my friends are retired. A few still take courses that require a computer. But for the most part, without needing a computer for school or a job, the desire to own computers diminishes. Most of the fun functions that families bought home computers for have moved to smartphones, smart televisions, and smart home products.

I might tell my two friends to try buying a keyboard for their iPads and see if they can get by without laptops. MacOS and iPadOS are getting closer, so features and functions are crossing over to the other form factor.

If I gave up on digitizing old books and magazines, I could probably adapt to blogging on my MacBook Air. I’m amazed by how so many young people only have laptops. But I haven’t made that decision yet. If I only browsed the net, emailed, and needed a word processor and spreadsheet rarely, I could consider a tablet with a keyboard.

I think the trend is towards smaller computers, or even away from computers. I’m still stuck in the past. I love large high-resolution monitors. I gave up loving big tower computers years ago and switched to mini PCs. I haven’t paid close attention to what all my friends are using, but I think desktop computers are disappearing from homes.

Finally, I will say that learning to use AI might make people want a big monitor again. If you enjoy learning, researching, and writing, Google’s Gemini and Notebook LM are wonderful tools. Juggling lots of knowledge works great on 27 to 32-inch high-resolution monitors. If you think you’ll be into that, I highly recommend the latest Mac Mini with the most memory and the largest 4k to 6k monitor you can afford.

Gemini, my AI of choice, just told me it currently offers more features to Windows users, but it’s catching up quickly for Mac users. I was disappointed to discover that many Gemini and CoPilot features I enjoy on the Mac aren’t available on Linux. That’s pushing me towards the Mac and away from Linux. I wrote the first draft of this post on Linux, but moved to the Mac to finish it.

Most people will use AI on their phones for reference and chatting. AI could replace Googling. However, if you create any kind of content, AI could influence how much computer power you will want in the future. I’m not sure anyone knows how much they will use AI in the coming years. It could inspire hobbies and pursuits we can’t imagine now.

I’d say the Mac Mini ($599) with a 27″ 4K monitor ($300) offers the most bang for the buck if you want to get into content creation and play around with AI for under $1,000. It’s also good for programming. But it’s overkill if you just browse the web, do TurboTax once a year, and maybe write a few letters or create a spreadsheet of your expenses. Gamers will want to stick with Windows, although many are moving to Linux. Production content creators will want something faster.

JWH

Can We Fight Back Against Enshitification?

by James Wallace Harris, 2/9/26

“Enshitification” is the trendy catchword of the moment. Cory Doctorow coined this handy term and describes what it means in his latest book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. However, I don’t think you need to read the book to get the idea. At a minimum, just listen to the interview with Doctorow and Tim Wu below on the Ezra Klein show titled “We Didn’t Ask for This Internet“:

Tim Wu covers similar ground in his book The Age of Extraction.

For my purposes, I use both terms to point to a specific kind of corporate greed that’s making our lives miserable. We could use both terms in this sentence: The relentless extraction of wealth is leading the enshitification of society.

Cory Doctorow uses the Internet to illustrate the process. Every program, app, or site begins life doing something wonderful for users. Often, their creators promise to always keep their users’ best interests at the core of their business model. But as time goes on and they need to keep making more money, they forget that promise. Eventually, they will do anything to get more users and more money.

Tim Wu models his term on the evils of private equity and similar practices. For example, in the interview, Wu gives this evil example:

In America, hospitals preferentially hire nurses through apps. And they do so as contractors. Hiring contractors means that you can avoid the unionization of nurses. And when a nurse signs on to get a shift through one of these apps, the app is able to buy the nurse’s credit history.

The reason for that is that the U.S. government has not passed a new federal consumer privacy law since 1988, when Ronald Reagan signed a law that made it illegal for video store clerks to disclose your VHS rental habits.

Every other form of privacy invasion of your consumer rights is lawful under federal law. So among the things that data brokers will sell to anyone who shows up with a credit card is how much credit card debt any other person is carrying, and how delinquent it is.

Based on that, the nurses are charged a kind of desperation premium. The more debt they’re carrying, the more overdue that debt is, the lower the wage that they’re offered, on the grounds that nurses who are facing economic privation and desperation will accept a lower wage to do the same job.

Now this is not a novel insight. Paying more desperate workers less money is a thing that you can find in, like, Tennessee Ernie Ford songs about 19th-century coal bosses. The difference is that if you’re a 19th-century coal boss who wants to figure out how much the lowest wage each coal miner you’re hiring is willing to take, you have to have an army of Pinkertons who are figuring out the economic situation of every coal miner, and you have to have another army of guys in green eye shades who are making annotations to the ledger where you’re calculating their pay packet. It’s just not practical. So automation makes this possible.

Doesn’t that sound like a cross between Nineteen Eighty-Four and the way China monitors its citizens? Wu is seeing how the extraction of wealth is doing something just as evil, but we could call it enshitification too.

Another example, this time from my New York Magazine subscription, “Body Cam Hustle” is about how people are making money off of videos of drunk drivers taken by the police. States enacted laws requiring police to wear body cameras to gather evidence and protect the innocent. The Internet went from promoting cute cat videos to scenes of personal shame. To show how society is also just as corrupt, audiences prefer seeing women being arrested.

I doubt I need to give any more examples, we all instantly recognize the genius of coining the word enshitification.

Cory Doctorow and Ezra Klein recall fond memories and hopes the Internet gave them when they were young. But it seems the Internet turns everything to shit eventually.

Does every sucky thing that depresses us most today connect to the Internet?

And more importantly, can we fight enshitification?

One area where I noticed people fighting back is with subscriptions. Tim Wu says subscriptions are the new, and more efficient, method of extraction. People are switching to Linux, free and open source software, unsubscribing from cloud storage, and going back to DVDs, CDs, and LPs.

Other people are taking up analog hobbies like sewing, gardening, woodworking, cooking, and handicrafts. Young people feel they are embracing the hobbies their grandparents pursued.

And other people are buying local rather than ordering online.

On the other hand, millions are adopting AI and racing full steam ahead into a dark Blade Runner-like cyberpunk future.

Does running from the clutches of Microsoft or Apple into the arms of Linux really help us escape enshitification? If Facebook and X are evil, does it make them less evil to access from Fedora and use the Brave browser? (I’m writing this post from Linux, and it’s been a struggle not to use all my favorite software tools on Windows.)

Would we be happier if we shut off the Internet and went back to televisions with antennas? I’ve contemplated what that would be like. My initial fear is that it would be lonelier. I don’t know why. I have many friends I see regularly. I guess the hive mind feels more connected.

I think we like to share. To communicate with like-minded people regarding our specific interests. Before the Internet, I was involved with science fiction fandom. I published fanzines, belonged to Amateur Press Associations (APAs), was part of a local science fiction club, and went to conventions.

I suppose I could regress.

But do people do that? Shouldn’t we figure out how to move forward and solve our enshitification problems? But how?

What if we split the internet into two segments? We keep the existing Internet, and create a new one that requires identity verification. To get a login would require visiting an agency in person and providing proof of your identity. Like when we got Read IDs. But also connect that identity to three types of biometric data. The login to the new Internet would have to be absolutely foolproof, otherwise people wouldn’t trust it.

I know this sounds scary and dangerous, but we’re already doing this piecemeal. Both corporations and criminals already know who we are.

Would people behave better on the Internet if they knew everyone knew exactly who they were? I assume that with such tracking of real identities, it would be almost impossible to rip people off since all activity would have a well-documented trail.

For this to work, corporations would have to be just as open and upfront. They would have to make all their log files public. So any individual could examine all the ways they are being tracked.

Is a much of enshitification due to anonymity and hidden corporate practices?

What if everything we did on the Internet was out in full sunlight?

I have no idea if this would help. It could make things much worse. But isn’t everything already getting much worse?

JWH

What I Learned After Buying a UGreen DXP2800 NAS

by James Wallace Harris, 1/7/26

Don’t bother reading this essay unless you’re considering the following:

  • Want to cancel your subscription to a cloud storage site
  • Manage terabytes of data
  • Hope to convert your old movies on discs to Jellyfin or Plex
  • Want to run Linux programs via Docker

For the past few years, I’ve been watching YouTubers promote NASes (Network Attached Storage). Last year, I just couldn’t help myself, I bought a UGreen DXP2800. I’m not sure I needed a NAS. Dropbox has been serving me well for over fifteen years.

[My DXP2800 is pictured above on top of a bookcase. It’s connected to a UPS and a mesh router. It’s a little noisy, but not bad.]

Actually, I loved Dropbox until I figured it was the reason my computers ran warm and noisy. I assume that was because it routinely checked tens of thousands of my files to keep them indexed, copied, and up-to-date on my three computers, two tablets, and an iPhone.

Lesson #1. If you desire simplicity, stay with the cloud. My old system was to use Dropbox and let it keep copies of my files locally on my Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. I figured that was three copies and an off-site backup. That was an easy-to-live-with, simple backup solution. However, I only had 2TB of files, which Dropbox charged me $137 a year to maintain.

Moving to the UGreen DXP2800 meant accessing all my files from the single NAS drive. It’s cooler and quieter on my computers. However, I had to purchase two large external drives for my Mac and Windows machines that I use to automatically back up the NAS drive daily.

Thus, my initial cost to leave Dropbox was the cost of the DXP2800 and two 16TB Seagate drives for a RAID array ($850), plus $269 (20TB external drive). I already had an old 8TB external drive for the other backup. And if I want an off-site backup, I need to physically take one of my drives to a friend’s house, or pay a backup company $100-200 a year.

And I have more to back up now. I was running Plex on my Mac using a 4TB SSD. Basically, I ripped a movie when needed. Since I got the UGreen DXP2800 and 12TB of space, I’ve been ripping all my movies and TV shows that I own on DVD and Blu-ray. I’ve ripped about half of them, and I figure I’ll use up 8-10TB of my RAID drive space.

I’ve been working for weeks ripping discs. I had no idea we had accumulated so many old movies and TV shows over the last thirty years. Susan and I had gotten tired of using a DVR/BD player, so we shelved all those discs on a neglected bookcase and subscribed to several streaming services.

When I bought the UGreen DXP2800, I thought we could cancel some of our subscriptions. We are viewing our collection via Jellyfin, but we haven’t canceled any streaming services.

I should finish the disc ripping in another couple of weeks. At least I hope. It’s a tedious process. My fantasy is having this wonderful digital library of movies and television shows we love, and we’ll rewatch them for the rest of our lives. I even fantasized about quitting all our streaming services. But I don’t think that will happen.

Looking at what TV shows Susan and I watched during 2025, none were from our library. Susan has started rewatching her old favorite movies. She especially loves to watch her favorite Christmas movies every year. And I have talked her into watching two old TV shows I bought on disc years ago, The Fugitive and Mr. Novak. Both shows premiered in 1963, and neither is on a streaming service.

Lesson #2. It would taken much less effort to just watch the shows on disc. And when I’ve converted them, I will have 10TB of data that I must protect. It’s a huge burden that hangs over my head.

Lesson #3. I tried to save money by using the free MakeMKV program. It works great, but creates large files and is somewhat slow. I eventually spent $40 for WinX DVD Ripper for Mac. It’s faster and creates smaller .mp4 files. However, it doesn’t rip BD discs. I found another Mac program that will, but it will cost another $49. I bought a $39 program for the PC to rip Blu-ray discs, but it was painfully slow. They claimed to have a 90-day money-back guarantee, yet the company ignored my request to return my money. It pisses me off that there are several appealing ripping programs I’d like to try, but they all want their money up front. Most offer a trial that will run a 2-minute test. That’s not enough. I’m happy with WinX DVD Ripper for Mac; I just wish it ripped Blu-rays.

Even then, files that are ripped from Blu-ray movies are huge and take much longer to rip. I’m not sure Blu-ray is worth it.

I tend feel movies and TV shows look better on streaming services. Most people won’t notice. My wife doesn’t see the difference between DVD and BD. For ripping, I prefer DVDs.

Lesson #4. I bought the UGreen NAS even though I wanted a Synology NAS. UGreen just had better hardware. I thought I wanted to get into Docker containers, and UGreen had the hardware for that at the price I wanted to pay. However, setting up Docker containers requires a significant amount of Linux savvy.

I kind of wish I had gotten Synology. It runs many programs natively, so you don’t have to mess with Docker. I hope UGreen will do more of that in the future. I spent days trying to get the YACReader server running. I never succeeded. That was frustrating because I really want it.

There are many services I’d like to run, but I just don’t have the Docker and Linux skills.

Final Thoughts

I’m not sure I would buy a NAS, knowing what I know now. However, if I could figure out how to run programs via Docker, I might go whole hog on NASes. In which case, I would regret getting the 2-drive DXP2800. At first, I thought I’d be good getting two 8TB drives to put into RAID. But I spent more for two 12TB drives, just in case. If I really get into having a home lab, I should have bought the 4-drive DXP4800 Plus.

There are many features I wish UGreen would offer for its software. If all the programs I wanted to run ran natively on the UGreen OS and were easy to use, I think I would love having a NAS.

Setting up file sharing was easy. I got it working on my Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iPad, and iPhone. However, it’s hard to open files using the UGreen app on iOS and Android. I don’t know why UGreen just can’t make an all-purpose file viewer. Dropbox can open several file types on my iPhone. UGreen expects me to save the file to my iPhone and then view it with an iPhone app. However, I can’t get my iPhone apps to find where the UGreen app saved the file.

That’s why I want the YACReaderLibrary Server running on the DXP2800. I have YACReader running on every device. It can read .pdf, .cdr, .cdz, .jpg, .png, .tiff, and more. Too bad it doesn’t read Word and Excel files too. I think other Linux server apps can handle even more file types. I want my NAS to be a document server.

I’m moving forward with my NAS. If I fail, I’ll regret buying the NAS. Or, I might create a server full of useful apps that I can’t live without. That sounds fun, but it also sounds like it could become a lifelong burden.

JWH

Past-Present-Future As It Relates to Fiction-Nonfiction-Fantasy-SF

by James Wallace Harris, 12/12/25

I’ve been contemplating how robot minds could succeed at explaining reality if they didn’t suffer the errors and hallucinations that current AIs do. Current AI minds evolve from training on massive amounts of words and images created by humans stored as digital files. Computer programs can’t tell fiction from fact based on our language. It’s no wonder they hallucinate. And like humans, they feel they must always have an answer, even if it’s wrong.

What if robots were trained on what they see with their own senses without using human language? Would robots develop their own language that described reality with greater accuracy than humans do with our languages?

Animals interact successfully with reality without language. But we doubt they are sentient in the way we are. But just how good is our awareness of reality if we constantly distort it with hallucinations and delusions? What if robots could develop consciousness that is more accurately self-aware of reality?

Even though we feel like a being inside a body, peering out at reality with five senses, we know that’s not true. Our senses recreate a model of reality that we experience. We enhance that experience with language. However, language is the source of all our delusions and hallucinations.

The primary illusion we all experience is time. We think there is a past, present, and future. There is only now. We remember what was, and imagine what will be, but we do that with language. Unfortunately, language is limited, misleading, and confusing.

Take, for instance, events in the New Testament. Thousands, if not millions, of books have been written on specific events that happened over two thousand years ago. It’s endless speculation trying to describe what happened in a now that no longer exists. Even describing an event that occurred just one year ago is impossible to recreate in words. Yet, we never stop trying.

To compound our delusions is fiction. We love fiction. Most of us spend hours a day consuming fiction—novels, television shows, movies, video games, plays, comics, songs, poetry, manga, fake news, lies, etc. Often, fiction is about recreating past events. Because we can’t accurately describe the past, we constantly create new hallucinations about it.

Then there is fantasy and science fiction. More and more, we love to create stories based on imagination and speculation. Fantasy exists outside of time and space, while science fiction attempts to imagine what the future might be like based on extrapolation and speculation.

My guess is that any robot (or being) that perceives reality without delusions will not use language and have a very different concept of time. Is that even possible? We know animals succeed at this, but we doubt how conscious they are of reality.

Because robots will have senses that take in digital data, they could use playback to replace language. Instead of one robot communicating to another robot, “I saw a rabbit,” they could just transmit a recording of what they saw. Like humans, robots will have to model reality in their heads. Their umwelt will create a sensorium they interact with. Their perception of now, like ours, will be slightly delayed.

However, they could recreate the past by playing a recording that filled their sensorium with old data recordings. The conscious experience would be indistinguishable from using current data. And if they wanted, they could generate data that speculated on the future.

Evidently, all beings, biological or cybernetic, must experience reality as a recreation in their minds. In other words, no entity sees reality directly. We all interact with it in a recreation.

Looking at things this way makes me wonder about consuming fiction. We’re already two layers deep in artificial reality. The first is our sensorium/umwelt, which we feel is reality. And the second is language, which we think explains reality, but doesn’t. Fiction just adds another layer of delusion. Mimetic fiction tries to describe reality, but fantasy and science fiction add yet another layer of delusion.

Humans who practice Zen Buddhism try to tune out all the illusions. However, they talk about a higher state of consciousness called enlightenment. Is that just looking at reality without delusion, or is it a new way of perceiving reality?

Humans claim we are the crown of creation because our minds elevate us over the animals, but is intelligence or consciousness really superior?

We apparently exist in a reality that is constantly evolving. Will consciousness be something reality tries and then abandons? Will robots with artificial intelligence become the next stage in this evolutionary process?

If we’re a failure, why copy us? Shouldn’t we build robots that are superior to us? Right now, AI is created by modeling the processes of our brains. Maybe we should rethink that. But if we build robots that have a higher state of consciousness, couldn’t we also reengineer our brains and create Human Mind 2.0?

What would that involve? We’d have to overcome the limitations of language. We’d also have to find ways to eliminate delusions and hallucinations. Can we consciously choose to do those things?

JWH