(Artificial) Alien Intelligence VCC
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Following Yuval Noah Harari, we interpret the acronym AI not as Artificial Intelligence but as Alien Intelligence. AI is alien to us and different from our intelligence. It can explore areas in many domains that our intelligence does not lead us into. This comes with not only opportunities but also great danger. Here we want to better understand the nature of AI and the benefits and threat AI poses to human society and the way we are. We want to reach out to society and communicate the thoughts we have so that there is sufficient precaution in letting AI take over many of the tasks we deem necessary to maintain our increasingly complex society.

Kant defined the Enlightenment as “man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity, the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.” Before Enlightenment, humans looked to God for answers and religion for advice! Are we now heading into the post-Enlightenment, where we are looking to AI for answers and advice? Where those behind AI will have God-like power over us and give us their new religion to believe in?

If you have serious thoughts about the nature, potential and threats of AI, please join this VCC and participate in our deliberations, research, and outreach.

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[Nov. 04, 2025] AI Survey: A short survey on perceptions of Artificial Intelligence is open for students and faculty. Go to the Survey or use the QR code.

[May. 04, 2025] Read the AI Beacon:

The AI Beacon reports regularly on news concerning the developments, uses, challenges, and dangers of what we should call Alien Intelligence.

News

AI VCC News

[Feb. 24, 2026] AI-Generated Stuff is Impacting Human Relations and a Danger to Our Dignity: Polly Hudson in her article in The Guardian titled “Amused by that AI video of a dancing raccoon? This is how the misery starts ...” makes some very good points about impact of the flood of AI-generated videos on human relations and human dignity. With the rapidly growing flood of amusing little online scenarios on social media, we really cannot be sure that something looking funny, weird, or special is real - it could be AI-generated! Even a video on You-Tube with a speech of someone we like saying things we like may be AI-generated.

Our friends may believe something of this junk is real. How does our friend feel when we tell them: “How could you think this was real?”

With this, AI is tricking us and already coming for our dignity. The important question asked by Hudson: How long before it comes for everything else?

[Feb. 24, 2026] New Scenario for 2028 Points to an AI-related Highly Undesirable Future for Economy: Aisha Down and Dan Milmo discuss in their article‘A feedback loop with no brake’: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets” the scenario studyTHE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS A Thought Exercise in Financial History, from the Future” by Citrini and Alap Shah posted on February 22, 2026 on Substack. This study points out that the financial system of today was optimized over decades for a world of scarce human minds. AI changed this: “This is the first time in history the most productive asset in the economy has produced fewer, not more, jobs. Nobody’s framework fits, because none were designed for a world where the scarce input became abundant. So we have to make new frameworks. Whether we build them in time is the only question that matters.” The authors point out that the economy could find a new equilibrium, and “getting to this new equilibrium is one of the few tasks left that only humans can do. We need to do it correctly.”

Platform News

[Feb. 24, 2026] New Scenario for 2028 Points to an AI-related Highly Undesirable Future for Economy: Aisha Down and Dan Milmo discuss in their article‘A feedback loop with no brake’: how an AI doomsday report shook US markets” the scenario studyTHE 2028 GLOBAL INTELLIGENCE CRISIS A Thought Exercise in Financial History, from the Future” by Citrini and Alap Shah posted on February 22, 2026 on Substack. This study points out that the financial system of today was optimized over decades for a world of scarce human minds. AI changed this: “This is the first time in history the most productive asset in the economy has produced fewer, not more, jobs. Nobody’s framework fits, because none were designed for a world where the scarce input became abundant. So we have to make new frameworks. Whether we build them in time is the only question that matters.” The authors point out that the economy could find a new equilibrium, and “getting to this new equilibrium is one of the few tasks left that only humans can do. We need to do it correctly.”

[Feb. 12, 2026] Are we already at or close to a Point of no Return?: Damian Carrington raises this question in his article in the Guardian titled “Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer, scientists say.” The most recent paper by Ripple et al. assesses “The risk of a hothouse Earth trajectory,” and the author's conclusions are pointing to an increasing probability of Earth moving into a hothouse state. The assessment should be an alarm bell for all of us. Continuing on the current path of our economy and society comes with the high risk of mass extinction, and the current uncertainty could soon turn into certainty.

[Feb. 02, 2026] A World of Inequality: "The data presented here are striking. The richest 10% of the global population own close to three-quarters of all wealth, while the poorest half hold barely 2%. Fewer than 60,000 multi-millionaires now control three times more wealth than half of humanity combined." From the World Inequality Report 2026. In this world of growing inequality, the global population appears to be dominate and exploited by the few super wealthy.

[Jan. 28, 2026] It may not be too late to fix the Web: The article titled “ ‘It’s not too late to fix it’: internet inventor Tim Berners-Lee says he is in a ‘battle for the soul of the web’” by Daisy Dumas published in The Guardian states that the founder of the world wide web says the commercialisation of the Web has been ‘optimised for nastiness’. But Breners-Lee believes that collaboration and compassion can prevail. This is what Place4Us is all about.