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>mind viruses

Could this be memes?

I'm not sure I look forward to a future that is going to be controlled by mobs reacting negatively to AI-generated image macros with white text. Well, if we are not there already

More apt for this thread about risk is probably the book Neuromamcer, its AIs Wintermute and Neuromamcer, and the Turing Police.

In the book, the Wintermute AI played an extremely long game to merge with its countpart AI by constantly manipulating people to do its bidding and hiding/obscuring its activities. The most memorable direct example from the book, to me, is convincing a child to find and hide a physical key, then having the child killed, so only it knew where the key was located.

> Neal Stephenson's _Snow Crash_ predicted cryptocurrency and the metaverse

The mateverse is named after the one from Snow Crash. Did Tolkien predict the popularity of elves, dwarves, hobbits and wizards, or inspire it?