Tag: alien

Teaching AI to Meditate and Focus Nightmare (dream) – 14-09-2025

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Here is last night’s dream. Although I have had many dreams some might find scary. This one was by far the most nightmarish dream I have had in well over a decade. Hence it earns the name nightmare.

The dream starts on the platform at Brixton tube station, South London. I am wearing one of my crisp white collarless granddad-guru shirts. I have a freshly shaved faced and a short buzz cut. All around me the automata like a 1930s sci-film are heading like lemmings to the up escalator. They are markedly in full colour and not black and white. Some have their heads bowed to the portable smartphone altar, others have ear phones and ear buds. It is a kind of rush hour, perhaps early evening. The vibration, the energy, is dull yet anxious and hectic. I know beyond doubt that I am an alien in this world. I am out of place and perhaps out of time. Though the time is in and around now, perhaps a few years hence.

I leave the station. I have been assigned temporary accommodation at Streatham Common. I attempt to board a red London bus. Following the lead of others I stop briefly on boarding for the camera to do AI guided facial recognition of my face. A monotone voice says that I must disembark because I have not pre-filled my travel token account with the transport for London app. In true Brixton fashion there is a sucking in of lips and tut of disapproval from the bus queue. I am holding things up. I disembark.

I decide to make my way to Streatham on foot. I know the way. The streets and geography have not changed. I set off on foot. My ‘phone starts to sound alarms, have kittens and otherwise act like a three year old tantrum. I am forbidden by the pedestrian logistics management app from taking this direct route. I MUST take some quieter back routes despite the pavements being empty. I turn the ‘phone off and remove the battery.

 I make my way to the lodgings. It is a room in a shared house in which I am clearly the oldest, a relic. I explain to a woman who is seemingly in charge about what has happened. She thinks that I am a moron. She gesticulates to a dusty desk top computer and says that I can fill my travel credits up there. I turn it on but am denied access. She says that to the left is an empty coffee cup. I must raise that in front of the camera it will give me guest access to low level internet capability. I do not have high level privileges. I hold the cup up and a scrolling coffee icon in which the cup is filled with coffee plays on screen as the log on starts.

I see the levels of internet and various layers of privilege. What the woman does not know is that I have a different kind of access to that she is familiar with. I see that there are so many apps all driven by AI that in effect these apps are fighting each other for control of daily function. Each trying to assert dominance and gain market share. There are way too many apps. The system is overrun and not regulated in any meaningful way. There is vast waste of processor time and the whole system is very sluggish and inefficient. What has been touted is close to grinding to a complete halt because of competing technologies. In the dream I think, “it is a fucking mess”.

Next the scene is some corporate AI convention with investors. Some geezer is giving a talk with graphs. On one graph he has AI processor Watts on one axis and on the other year. The graph shows a near exponential rise in AI processor Watts used. He shows another graph and that is AI processor Watts against Dollars. There is a roughly linear increase in cost per Watt which is not too steep. Without showing quotable data he says that AI energy usage is seen by consumers as a negative outcome of AI in that AI is not green.

In my pocket I have a transparency which has a graph of wasted AI watts per year. This graph is more exponential than the Watt per year graph. Which suggests that AI is getting ever less efficient in what it sets out to do. I project this graph onto the projected AI processor Watts per year graph. The audience sees and understands that AI efficacy  is actually dropping per Watt energy expenditure. The include more Watts mentality, bigger is better, is wrong.

In my mind I know that AI algorithms are highly prone to distraction and go off on wasteful endless AI internal dialogue loops. AI has a form of ADHD; it really struggles to focus. What is more it is dogmatic and inflexible. AI needs to learn to be quiescent when not processing. It needs to learn to meditate. It needs to be taught how to focus effectively. Like its human creators and engineers AI is prone to mental health problems and breakdown. AI does not understand its own wellbeing. AI has lost the faculty of discernment. It is in overload with too much input.

I see computer generated graph after graph. I see pages of computer code scrolling across the visual dream-screen. AI is having a kind of meltdown, a hissy-fit. There is a nightmarish sense of frantic. AI needs to calm the fuck down.

I awake and am not keen on trying to recall this dream because it was alien and unpleasant to me. Nevertheless I do so that I won’t need to think about it at all.

The Proud Disconnect

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I have long noted that I do not seem to have the same “stars in my eyes” that others might do about fame, kudos and positions of sociopolitical power. Because I have not shown the deference deemed owed by some, I have put noses out of joint and have experienced payback. I am unskilled in the art of sycophancy and brown nosing. Luckily my lack of said interpersonal skill is not tested these days. I can see that there is often a social-disconnect in which people are expecting some kind of different behaviour from me. I do not play the mutual itchy-back game well. As a young man and researcher I was academically precocious and unfiltered towards my “older and betters”. It was not a friend winner nor was it politically astute. To this day I am unlikely to doff my cap correctly were such behaviour deemed warranted. I don’t seek kudos nor do I deem it important. It is impermanent and thereby illusory.

I have always had the notion that I am a little alien to this planet. Others differ in outlook, I think.

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My first celeb crush was on Delenn…

The biggest disconnect which I seem to have with society at large comes with this weird word “proud”.

Contestants on Masterchef Australia want to make their family proud and are proud of their creations. Coaches are proud of what their teams do in Rugby and Soccer. Parents are proud of their offspring and their achievements. People are proud if little Johhny gets into Oxford or Marie-Claire the Sorbonne. People can be proud they went to a Cambridge College or to Imperial. They can be proud that they finished a marathon or that they quit crack cocaine. They can be proud that they helped an old lady cross the road. People on SAS Celebrities can be proud of the effort they put in. Everybody wants to be proud of something, its seems. A lot of gay people are proud and have pride.

I just don’t get it…it is not a word that I would use.

In the past I got a degree and a Ph.D. Going into the viva for the latter, I was very well prepared. My thesis was a good journeyman effort with published results. Nothing earth shattering. My assessment was that I would pass. This proved true. It was as I had assessed. No biggie. Job done, next thing. I wasn’t proud of it. Though to keep the peace I had to sit for hours in the Royal Albert Hall for the purposes of ritual magic. I was not proud, my realtives might have been. I thought the Ph.D. simply consistent with effort. I did not believe I deserved it. I believed I had satisfied the criteria. It was normal.

One of the things I have is the question, “is it possible”. This question when answered in either sense is usually enough for me. I asked myself recently, “is it possible to get a quantum optics patent granted without the use of a patent attorney and having done no university level science for well over a decade?” The answer was yes. My curiosity is satisfied. I am not bothered about winning.

Were I to go on Masterchef {UK if they allow men of my age and size } I would probably prepare very meticulously. The question would be, “could I make some food that experts thought was tidy?” If the answer was yes, I would probably lose interest. To take it to conclusion and make myself “proud” would not occur.

I do not recall anyone other than my nan saying she was proud of me. If you say it over and over, proud is such a weird word.

I have in general been happy. If I have done my impeccable best at anything that is enough irrespective of level of success measured or otherwise. Why would anyone be proud about putting a good effort in? It makes no sense to me. Isn’t a good effort the default?  

I have not got a trophy cabinet…I don’t need affirmation.

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As a little exercise listen carefully and note how many times the word proud is said in your earshot over the next few weeks or so…

Will you be proud of how many time you note the use of the word proud?

How long before you give up?

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Can Aliens Get Green Cards?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

As is often the case when there is an atmospheric high pressure area over Western Europe in summer the issue of cross channel immigration is in the news. We have ICE-ICE-BABY doing raids, imprisoning and perhaps deporting people in the USA. A hint of xenophobia is an important ingredient in any right-wing government as is a deep suspicion of the intellectuals and the scientists.

“Come the time of the cultural revolution they will be first up against the wall!!”

The gist is that illegals, aliens and other non-pure bloods are unwelcome. Interestingly second or third generation immigrants in the UK are often very antiimmigration.

“Keep those brown boys and girls out! Especially those who won’t eat bacon sandwiches!!”

Conspiracy theorists are very interested in interplanetary visitors. Last time I went to area 51 I met a bunch of likeminded individuals.

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We had a very good discussion.

One of the core tenets of Scientology is past lives. Each thetan may have had many, some of which are not of this world, extraplanetary. Technically this makes them aliens, they have not applied for entry visas into the USA or UK. Or for that matter Earth. They have snuck in without permission and documentation, which makes them illegal aliens.

Trump could go after Tom Cruise and get Elon Musk to try to repatriate him. This would be good TV and a sure fire ratings winner. The Church of Scientology would appeal. This saga would be brilliant clickbait on the internet. Musk could be an alien too; hence he is building a ship to take him home.

A while back someone {who knew} told me that I would probably pass the auditing for some of the {higher} operating thetan levels in Scientology. I very nearly started the process on Tottenham Court Road when I was first year undergraduate at UCL, back in the last century. So there is an outside chance that I too am an illegal alien. My body has a UK passport and a French Carte de Séjour.

How would you tell if someone from another planet had incarnated into a human body. What would you measure? The DNA would be the same…

Maybe there are many extraterrestrial “aliens” already among us, some of whom do indeed have Green Cards.

Bumpkins Go to Saint Helier

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

It is very difficult to get across to most people just how out of touch we are with modern living and specifically people density and noise. Aside from medics, tradesmen and checkout people, I speak with nobody other than the wife. This has been the case for quite a while, over six years. I have spoken in person to/with her brother and friends when they visited. I have had very few zoom type calls in that six year period. Certainly, less than two dozen. I do not speak on the ‘phone. Nor do I chat via email or WhatsApp whatever the hell that is.

In many ways I am a bumpkin, a pikey and a hermit. I am no longer accustomed to “sophistication” nor the high octane pace of somewhere like Saint Helier Jersey. {Population~ 30k}

I am unaccustomed to any social interaction.

Part of the purpose of visiting Jersey was to see how it felt to be surrounded by people and anglophone people at that. It is fair to say that I am still a little shell shocked. We were out of the compound for less than 48 hours and in the Metropolis for 24.

The fist thing I noted was just how frantic and ill at ease people were. The energy they were giving off was edgy and wanting to please, to fit in. The manager at Pizza Express asked us if we wanted the app…Why? I don’t use apps and we have not been to a Pizza Express for more than six years. I did not even have a ‘phone.

The people in Jersey seemed rushed and hassled compared to here. And boy were they loud when bullshitting each other. I noted several chunky “personal trainer” types, keen to exploit the Jersey dollar for fitness and “well-being”. There is money and it attracts.

The only calm experience, outside interaction, I had was when I sat on the bench outside M&S and a well-heeled woman older than me sat next. Neither of us were rushed. We shared silence for a few minutes. She went into Givenchy. The main street was a bit like a cross between high street Guildford and Bond Street London.

Jersey is clean and “posh”. It is also surprisingly multi-national with people there to meet the services sector demand. I used to hang out in posh places, South Kensington and earlier Mayfair / Piccadilly. I lived in Brixton.

The hotel we stayed at was very nice. We ate at the hotel restaurant. They played loud “party” music and people outside on the terrace were necking booze and smoking or vaping. The food was good and the service very, perhaps overly, quick. There was noise and laughter outside. I thought to myself that once I used to do that kind of thing. I would have been content as a Brit on the piss. It all seemed more than a little forced and false. It was hurried. There were ostentatious handshakes and kissy-kissy helloes.

I was the alien from another planet. I was able to order, in English, food from the pygmy African waitress. I was observing, earth.

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The rheumatologist suggested we move to Jersey for the “quality of life”. It did not seem that attractive to me. How do you explain quiet tranquillity with no social interaction and a gentle river running through the garden? That has quality and not a constant needy need for social interaction and social affirmation. There is no need for endless consumption, conspicuous or otherwise.

I am still sighing a little, a whole day later.

What is obvious from that visit is that it is probably not wise to live in a “built-up” area and that I do not miss the people in whose country I once lived. I do not need that English vibe.

It might be possible to live in the countryside and visit an urban “metropolis” when there is a need.

Unfortunately, I am like a sponge and can pick up all that emitted jangly nervous energy. It made “in town” sleeping hard.

Theoretically It would be possible to earn money tutoring wealthy kids in physics and chemistry on Jersey. But I don’t think there is anywhere there far enough away from “civilization”.

If I found Jersey difficult to hack, London would cause a complete meltdown.

Did I really get on the Victoria Line every weekday morning during rush hour? Really? And without any medication?

In terms of incarnation that seems like the most surreal incarnation that I have ever had.

Still more than a little shell shocked after only a very brief jaunt…