01CPMD3174

Ha ha ha, I can see how I’m giving luddite vibes in this thread. You’ll just have to take my word for it that I’m more capitalist technocrat than luddite. I’m also a liberal, humanist, with an aversion to taking systemic risk. So, there is some tension.

The car analogy is the standard regurgitated response to anybody who questions the pace of technological development.

First, horses weren’t slow and safe.

Second, cars aren’t autonomous and they have relatively narrow use cases compared to AI.

Third, cars were eventually heavily regulated to prevent accidents and reduce serious injury from inevitable accidents. That’s why you have to wear seatbelts and cars top speeds are regulated.

Fourth , rather than using basing what do about AI on how we handled the introduction of cars, maybe we should focus on the facts, data, evidence specific to AI.

It’s fine to reflect on the past to think about how to build the future. Maybe we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion because we did something in the past we should do it again in a completely different context with a completely different technology.

Edit: fixed the count of points from “Fourth” to “Third” and “Fifth” to “Fourth”

I’m not a policy maker, but off the top of my head:

For starters, I’d have Congress preemptively do what they would probably do post some AI disaster. Something like form a committee of academic researchers, security professionals, and other people who are incentivized to be skeptical and have them investigate the risks posed by the AI we have and what’s cooking. The aim would be take the risks seriously and propose policies that seek to mitigate those risks.

I’d also, make more of an effort to cooperate with governments to establish some treaty-like agreements about how we will use AI in critical areas like warfare. We have these kind of agreements about biological and nuclear weapons. We can have them about AI weapons, too. Maybe this would cool down the arms race atmosphere.

I would establish some kind of central-bank like authority whose members are protected from congressional and executive-branch meddling and whose mandate is to influence the development of AI in a way that’s universally agreed to be good society. Not sure how this would look and what their levers would be, but I think something similar to the Feds mandate to balance employment and inflation, but the AI version, would be worth exploring.

Finally, I wouldn’t wait until AI has replaced people and hyper scalers are sitting on trillions to have a plan for how millions of people are supposed to make a living when they can’t find work anymore because agents and robots are doing the jobs they used to do. I think we’re still a ways away from that reality. But having a framework, better yet policies, in place would probably make people feel a lot better about the development of AI. If everyone knows they’re going to get a UBI check for 5K plus access to a solid state sponsored healthcare plan for them and their immediate family when AI makes us all redundant, I don’t think people would be so apprehensive to AI and data centers.

Again, I’m not a policy maker. I’m sure there are a bunch of externalities that people can point out to poke holes in my ideas. Be my guest.

Sitting around doing what amounts to jack shit while the technology that powers the internet seems increasingly vulnerable to the technology we’re building and distributing as fast as possible definitely is not the way to go.

The credit markets seem concerned about the timing of the AI booms future cash flows. So maybe the invisible hand will take care of the situation for awhile. I just hope the unwinding doesn’t take the rest of the economy down with it.

Either way AI is here to stay. So, even if the bubble burst, when the market inevitably comes back the same issues will be there. Better to get ahead then not.

100% agreed. To your question, I think unfortunate reality is people usually learn from pain. We burn our ourselves and learn to stop playing with fire.

It took two world wars and the fear of atomic weapons to establish the global cooperation we have now.

It took 9/11 for intelligence services to get over themselves and start sharing information.

It took a financial crisis to realize packaging subprime mortgages into tranches doesn’t suddenly make them AAA credits.

Maybe it will take some hackers doing something that seems improbable to have a framework for regulating the development and distribution of AI.

I’m sure there are cases where people saw calamity coming and circumvented it. When there is the perception of big money and winner takes all dynamics on the line, I wouldn’t bet on people motivated by power and money to do the “right” thing.

So I’d say fasten your seatbelt and be ready for whatever.

This is unsettling. There is clearly a serious problem lurking in plain view.

People are sounding the alarm bells but getting drowned out by Anthropic S-1 analysis and unsubstantiated claims of companies doing whatever with AI swarms.

I‘m wondering what has to happen for people to decide it’s time to take a step and think about what we’re doing. Does a plane need get brought down? Maybe a grid getting hacked and a seaboard going dark?

I know I checked my machine and saw I was vulnerable to the eMudhra cert thing. Patched it myself thanks to a helpful page I found here.

I’m hardly a luddite. But, still. This idea that AI is the problem and the solution, and we can’t afford to lose to China, so we have to keep our foot on the gas no matter what seems rather naive and misguided.

I don’t usually get emotional about celebrity deaths, but losing Patrick Stewart feels like a big loss and I’m quite sad about it.

Though he was most known for playing Captain Picard and Professor Xavier, I will always remember him for his portrayal of King Leondegrance in Excalibur.

As a kid watching him kick major ass in the Siege of Cahir scene led to many battles between my brothers and I, dualing each other with mop and broom sticks. We watched Excalibur and handful of other films over and over again via VHS tapes, ha ha ha.

RIP Mr. Stewart. Thanks for the memories and creating an amazing body of work I will continue enjoying until I join you in death.

I‘m grateful I found this page. Ran the command in the article a s discovered my machine was a sitting duck via Git.

Seems like via AI everyone is discovering their systems are compromised. Can’t blame Apple for making the discovery. 10 days and no patch is another story.

Hope they get it together and fix this soon.