Doppelgangers and all that
This follows on Stop AI scraping you Internet data, a five-part mini-series (so far) on how fake news, robotics then AI, and self-ideation overlap.
Naomi Klein — my favorite compatriot social commentator-turned-climate activist — just released her book Doppelganger where she explores her own, Naomi Wolf , in light of current fake-news and AI.
In a nutshell, she explores her identity as reflected by an alter-ego steeped into alternate realities fed by social media and recently augmented by AI.
This rang true to me as I battle for my identities described on my other Medium channel starting here: the original issue of who my internet ‘friends’ are led me to realise I’m addicted to an alternate reality — that is against the backdrop of leaving my ex, losing then recovering my daughter, and deciding where I can afford to live next on my depleted savings? — like, who am I really?
Am I the recluse whose ideas get lost in the noise of others’ own careers & concerns — true, I never had a mentor and never learned to sell myself, never mind other products — am I the adventurer whose seven previous attempts (see end §2 here) lead to this last one, or am I the seeker who spent three decades recovering his Hungarian, French and refugee identities — a decade each — to currently recover his Catholic faith?
I am still a Quaker, and “Advice & Queries” — a living compendium of collective wisdom — exhort us in Chapter 1.02 to both live adventurously (27) and to think it possible [to be] mistaken (17). This is quite contrary to the “fake it ‘til you make it” currently prevailing among my successful peers, family and the famous… Holmes’ Theranos (YouTube) being the best example!
While Klein is at a whole different plane, I also sought the story behind the story (see index here), as well as ‘de-doppelganger-ed’ myself from Dad— he tried & failed to raise me as a ‘mini me’, thus robbing me of my first mentor —after spending my youth sorting where I belonged: my expat circuit took me from France to Algiers, Australia and Canada in pre-internet days.
Then I went onto US & UK not only by career choice but also in the internet era: At first we enjoyed the global connections, then struggled to sort the global news and now comes AI that literally asks us “if we wanted to take the blue or the red pill” (Wikipedia); I refer to The Matrix movie that was prescient of the advent of augmented then alternate realities… in 1999!
I opined after the 2000 internet bubble burst (Wikipedia), that while relationships can be maintained and extended online, we are still mammals and relationships can only start face-to-face. Isn’t it ironic then that I fell to a scam on-line, even tho I knew how to read all the signs?! The issue was that I was vulnerable in my separation from my wife & daughter, and I sought company that presented itself in an idealised fashion…
My Mom pointed out that it was an addiction, that I always had women in my life — 7 in fact counting 2 wives and not my Mom (see end here) — and she’s currently helping me shake that addiction, where others tried and failed — everyone was concerned at first as we all are, but ‘their own stuff’ eventually got in the way and I ended up on my own… not their fault as much as society’s: it offers no framework to battle various oppressions assailing us today — contact me for Re-evaluation Counselling (home page) view on oppression as relates to activism, and go here for my intro.
The answer to all this is to try and rebuild my life, again, and merge both my upbringings — faith and science — in a new world view (start here): to try to forge a new relationship that addresses my failings; the obvious may be to return ‘home alone’ to Mom’s, but as I said, I’m a seeker not a settler...
