Monthly Archives: December 2025

Artificial Intelligence: a story of money laundering and corruption

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This is the end, my friend. Like Achamian, we merely get a seat in the front row, to watch. Enjoy the show.


Great advances we’ve made through 2025!! We’ve now discovered that STEALING SOMEONE ELSE’S WORK is easier and faster than doing that work yourself! Such a novel concept!
Did you know that you’re far more productive and can make far more money by stealing from others, rather than making an effort on your own?!
Thieves are indeed geniuses who solved all problems!
Easy profits for everyone!

To be honest, while I followed Bakker’s blog from its very first days, almost 15 years ago, I didn’t take seriously all those “rants” against AI. About how AI would indeed at some point start to produce actual stories and replacing authors. It was obviously something that Bakker felt hitting close to home, being himself a writer, but to me that threat seemed far-fetched, something whose place was in a cautionary science fiction story, whose value was in being abstract and symbolic, the analysis itself. Themes of consciousness and epistemology, but less about a practical, imminent threat. But here we are, Bakker was right even at the fringes of that argument.

And it is somewhat ironical to me that now my own view on the current AI is “conditioned” not by some technical insight, but by the perspective given to me by those studies on consciousness and epistemology.

In the latter part of his activity Bakker was quite proud about having actually published in the scientific space his own work, titled: “On Alien Philosophy”

Given a sufficiently convergent cognitive biology, we might suppose that aliens would likely find themselves perplexed by many of the same kinds of problems that inform our traditional and contemporary philosophical debates.

He was trying to prove that, given the same structures, the problems we faced within philosophy of consciousness would be the same problem you’d “naturally” expect to incur. It’s just another way of saying that these problems were inevitable, logically occurring, giving the circumstances. Given the evolution of the brain. That the problems we see are the problems we should EXPECT to find, given the structure within which we operate.

The problem of today’s generative AI is essentially the same: if you have understood the nature of humanity and of human consciousness, then it would seem simply natural that we’d collectively fall INTO THIS TRAP. Because of our present circumstances. Given our own true nature, our internal build up, we should know that we are vulnerable precisely to this type of pitfall.

Because the “true nature” of generative AI, both in its economic and practical aspects is one of OCCLUSION. Of deception. The greater part of the function of AI is epistemic, becoming the natural “crash space” for human culture as a whole. We can start from the very simple concept of “private property.” We should be aware that, as with language, private property doesn’t truly exist “out in the world.” It is not a physical property, it’s not a law of physics. It’s simply an abstract concept whose value and meaning is fully contained in human culture. We decide and we agree, as a collective, to give private and intellectual properties a meaning. Then have laws to enforce all that. You can argue that animals have some form of the same, that they defend “territory,” because in the end it’s precisely what it is: application of strength. You impose a rule, as long you can impose your will.

But what happens when a powerful group of people decides that laws don’t apply anymore? Or more precisely, don’t apply to them?

In the early days it was only the artists who opposed AIs, whereas programmers more warmly embraced the “new tools” whose usefulness was more immediately tangible. It’s only normal given that illustrations are felt as more immediately “artistic”, made of that ineffable quality of creativity, whereas programming is seen a more logical, objective field where knowledge weighs more than personal artistry. But what is the difference, in the world? What is the actual truth? What is, truly, creativity? My point here is not about finding a convenient answers to these questions, but to indicate that the nature of occlusion, of NOT KNOWING what an artistic process actually is, is what enables generative AI to “perform” its own “scam.”

Because it’s all one GIANT SCAM we’ve all collectively fallen in.

What generative AIs are doing, from an epistemological point of view, is to HIDE the causal chain that links input to the output. If you decide to copy the work of an artist, to appropriate and sell it as you own, then you’re committing a CRIME. Because the original artist can find out what you just did, and sue you. Because he can then easily prove that he was the source of that original art. And there’s obviously a system of laws that regulates all of this. What generative AIs do in practice is to “mix the sources”, rather than doing a 1 to 1 copy, so that they STEAL FROM MANY, in a way that cannot then be easily backtracked. They “hide the process” of their algorithm so that it’s not possible anymore, in practice, to prove from what input the output was generated. Therefore, in the absence of an evident cause, the machine APPROPRIATES the process: we say that this output is a CREATION of the tool itself. So that it can be SOLD.

Generative AIs are not only “money laundering”, but also laundering the product itself, so that it can be STOLEN from the original authors and SOLD again by thieves.

On this level, artistic illustration and software programming are exactly the same. It’s funny how the programming world is a minefield of different licenses, whose subtle differences can only be extricated by lawyers. Because until today we’ve taken all this very seriously. It’s very complex. So complex that to avoid problems we have concepts like “clean room.” You cannot simply look at some code and then reimplement it for your own application, because you can still be accused of using a solution that belongs to someone else. “Clean room” identifies a process where the programmer explicitly avoids to even LOOK at the code, to prevent any form of bias, so that the final implementation will be fully “original” even if the process itself produces the same (or similar) result.

We’ve always taken licenses very seriously because as a society we’ve always taken intellectual propriety and personal contribution also very seriously.

But what happens when some Evil Corporation takes the gigantic body of work that makes the open source code, and uses it as a training field for its own proprietary “tool”? Since the outputs are “scrambled” we can’t anymore prove that these lines of code have been copied, and so stolen, from here. It’s still THEFT, but it’s hidden, the process occluded. An output without any evident input, so an output that fully belongs to whoever is holding it. A thief who’s laundered the money, so that the money is his.

Human progress exists solely in the NEGATION of intellectual property. Because if every man owned exclusively his own discoveries, then his knowledge would always die with him, and every newborn would have to start from absolute zero. As collective humanity we would have gone nowhere, because our own collective horizon would be bound to that 100 years yardstick. We would be stuck in stagnation. The thievery perpetrated by generative AIs is all the more insulting because we’ve collectively created this large body of work that we call “open-source”, so that it’s available to all humanity. Now we have these techbros thieves who found a “tool” that lets them STEAL this collective resource, and APPROPRIATE IT as if it’s now their own. Literally: rich people looting the community with impunity guaranteed by corrupt governments.

Nothing is “lawful” anymore. The thieves bought the governments and it’s corruption all the way down (and up).

We are all so collectively drunk on the idea of private property to believe that these billionaries can build their own AI factories “with their own money,” as it is their right. Without understanding that this is just another human abstraction with no root in the real world. The worldwide economy is not built into neat, independent packages, it’s all one thing. If “gamers” notice the problem first, because of hardware prices skyrocketing, it’s because hardware is adjacent. But wait long enough and you’ll see how YOU WILL ALL PAY those AI factories with the cost of your groceries. It’s all one system. We are all paying this worldwide displacement of investments. We make these thieves rich by taking a trickle for ourselves, empowering this process until nothing is left. Because these thieves let you also “resell” what they stolen, so that you are perfectly complicit in the process. So that this thievery includes you, by sharing responsibility, but always returning ultimately in their pockets. Wilful complicit thievery.

All those people who are now rejoicing for the great innovations that AIs have brought and will bring in the future, are people who will lose their jobs in the next weeks and months, who will see their families destroyed, who will pay with their health. Who are welcoming in their houses those same thieves who will loot and burn them to the ground. The trojan horse that is AI will destroy human culture and wealth at their very foundations, in a way that won’t be recoverable. We are indeed about to witness the apocalypse of man. Or rather, the ultimate celebration of human stupidity.

Imagine a very simple rule to regulate generative AIs: everything that comes from the community needs to return to the community. If something is the product of generative AIs, then it cannot be appropriated and owned. It can’t be sold. It can’t be used for profit.

One simple rule, and the whole field would immediately self-regulate, because it would immediately exclude the thieves. And stealing is the whole point here. Rich people stealing from all of us. But in reality those few thieves have enslaved the world, and we are all complicit in own own, now inevitable, collective end.

The view from here is crystal clear. Enjoy the show.

The great pyre of Larian Studios

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It’s when you reach the sky that you are the most vulnerable.

After the quite unexpected, giant popular success of Baldur’s Gate 3, and the recent announce during the Game Awards with an elaborate, triumphant CG trailer for a new Divinity game, teaching everyone how money alone can exempt you from Pervasive American Bigotry, that would immediately and permanently ban you from marketplaces like Steam (whereas smaller studios will continue to be sacrificial victims, see “Horses” recent case, but also and especially the COUNTLESS other cases that won’t reach the press, or the continued, hidden, bigoted wars that happen at the higher levels of Paypal and other money processors, yadda, yadda).

The whole castle of hype comes crashing down to this:

“We are not responsible because we are so naive! Please forgive us!”

Of the whole backlash because of the announced use of AI for development. The debate obviously pivots on the role of the artists and artistry, but this is PRECISELY what happens when you don’t have a culture on what’s the epistemology of AI, and widespread incompetence about how it works at a bare technical level. Divided between the faction that sees AI as a mythological savior of humanity, and those who fear it like a supernatural demon.

This RAW human stupidity will be the singular cause of the greatest radical problems we’re going to face for the next few years. It’s will be the concrete cause of very tangible, concrete worldwide PAIN AND SUFFERING.

When you defend the role of the “artist” you defend a blind spot: the ineffable human creativity that you want to preserve. The mysterious something that you don’t want revealed. The special ingredient that makes a human being different from the rest of the WORLD. That ingredient for exception, for the exceptionalism of the human.

AI is seen as a threat to all this, as a form of machine replacement. Of the inhuman body that violates the flesh, like an unwanted, assailing prosthesis.

And this is all because we’ve made a myth of that blindness and a myth of that exceptionalism, so that human beings would become the center of the world. Until the world, and its truth, come back to assert themselves.

ALL that the AI world has done and is doing, is just one game of DECEPTION. This deception, based on epistemological failures due to not comprehending the place of human beings in the world, is just a simple final tool of good old capitalism. The problem of AI is its deception. And its deception is about MONEY. The great distraction is about making people debate over the nature of artistry, feeding on a lie, while inflating its own GIANT SCAM. AI is not about its uses, present or potential, but about its hidden costs.

Since AI is not “a thing” (but a blunt tool), it’s not anything emergent, it’s not new, it’s not generational, then its only danger is solely HUMAN DRIVEN. Same as a knife is not a threat, but the arm wielding it. The human stupidity. The problem of AI is not AI, but people’s BELIEF and participation to a scam, like it’s always been.

AI is what will cause, in the next months and then years, the WHOLE economy to collapse. People got used thinking in isolated boxes. People who observe the “game industry” think about it as if it’s a whole world disconnected from everything else. But it’s all one world, everything is connected. The crazy skyrocketing costs (and deliberately driven scarcity) we’ve seen a few years ago about GPUs and just now spread to RAM and SSD, are ALL PART OF THE SAME SCHEME, just the tip of the iceberg that will lead to a deep and worldwide inflationary wave. It won’t stop within the narrow box of “hardware.” The costs sunk on AI are about money redirected away from the people. The same money that keeps you well fed. Costs that you are just starting to see, even if the hand is still well hidden.

You won’t lose your job because AI replaced you. But because “your” money was redirected somewhere else. Somewhere useless. A giant, devouring cancer.

All because of the “hidden” costs of AI.

Every time one of Larian’s concept artists will use an AI tool to speed some process, for cheap, is because WE ARE ALL PAYING that cost. At a much greater price. AI is simply a scam, of redirecting costs where you don’t see them, giving you the illusion it all comes for free. That it’s all magically new. It’s one giant magical trick of showing the card without showing the hand. And we are ALL just too stupid to not fall for it.

Boycotts in this scenario are completely useless because this great AI scam comes in the form of self sabotage. You won’t crumble because you lose the support of your audience, but merely because the hidden consequences will become manifest. Until the reality of those costs will come to overwhelm and bury you under the ground.

Larian is just one example of a war waged against reality.
You WILL GET BURIED by reality itself.
You WILL SMASH against it.

The irony of Larian is that the great pyre they’ve shown in that trailer is simply going to depict themselves.

Burn. Rejoice. It’s going to be one giant party celebrating your own death.

This isn’t about Larian specifically. It’s just the mythical figure that represents a whole. A symbol of what’s to come.

The great pyre is a collective pyre of an industry that is celebrating its own complete demise.

They are ALL going to die. In the full glory of their own delivered stupidity.

You’ve all learned technology and progress ever evolving, like an immutable fact. Now you’ll see what happens when it all collapses. Not because of AI, that became a convenient vehicle for this process, but because of this final showdown of human stupidity.

The last symbol affixed to our collective grave, for no one to witness.

Bright, we burn.

P.S.
Because I split hair about epistemology:
“I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art.”

That’s a plain contradiction at a bare, objective technical level. Concept art is merely about “exploring things.”

“just follow the herd, idiot!”

These fucking people should not just lose their job, but not get another one, ever. Because they clearly don’t have a functioning, autonomous brain.

(this is from the complete interview script, that was released as a form of damage control from “press titles”, so that delving into what was being said would somewhat clear the water. Yeah, we can clearly see that you are, indeed, a piece of shit. The more it clears the worse it gets. If you want to improve PR just shut the fuck up.)