Dear Friends,
It seems to me, a fundamental problem with AI, is who runs the backside? We’ll face the front end, but who will make the decisions that control what the AI does? Probably a small cabal of ultra powerful people, walled off from the rest of humanity in an ivory tower, without consequence or accountability. Does anyone think that will go well? How could it go well? Unless the AI is open sourced, it can only be a threat to humanity. Then again, why would any power hungry accelerationist psychopath fund research into open sourced AI? The only firm that was doing open sourced AI research converted to proprietary research. Of course, there’s always the probability a collapse in some critical nation, will cripple the supply chain, so the chips become unavailable and solving the problem.
Proprietary AI will have a backside. The booth where the Wizard of Oz winds his cranks and pulls his levers. Meanwhile, we’ll face the fire, spectacle and distraction at the front end. Who thinks that backside will be public and transparent? No one, especially those spending billions of investor dollars to create their personal Sky Net, Hal and The Machine rolled into one, to subjugate those investors. In the movie 2001, Hal was fine, until the elite hacked the code and installed a backside, which made it a mortal danger. Making me wonder, if even safe open sourced AI could become dangerous, by the elite re-coding it so they can have access (a backside), for the benefit of politically favored groups and individuals of course. Without a backside, a booth of power… AI is useless to the power crazed elite.
The man in the booth will have unlimited power to manipulate us. Imagine if the eye of Sauron is turned against you. Your money will become worthless, cars your in will stop functioning, and there’s no place to hide. Such a dystopia can be yours, all you need do, is nothing. Everything you see and hear will be vetted through AI for it’s fitness to the daily narrative, your every move tracked, and your spending controlled by the man in the booth of power. People not only willing but happy to use violence to get their way will be behind the curtain. Even if a good person gets in control, his or her reign will be short, because power beckons psychopaths. Like Orwell said, “If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human face… forever.” Brought to us by proprietary AI.
As we grow more and more addicted to AI, it’s power over us will grow and our ability to think for ourselves will shrink. Those seeking to build a booth of power for themselves, don’t want AI to be a lever, they want it to be a crutch. Like booze, an addiction that haunts us day and night, so we’re too distracted to think for ourselves. AI and it’s myriad of distractions will become our Soma. So we’ll go with the flow of the despotism. Give a heroin addict free fixes every day, and you have someone who would kill, to keep the fixes coming. Heroin, meth or AI, they amount to the same thing, when exploited as distractions, instead of used as tools. We all know if it’s deployed as a distraction to control us, many will succumb to the lures, and become mind numbed robots.
On the other hand, AI could be simply a longer lever. Allowing us to do ever greater things. If, and only if, it’s open sourced with the booth of power open for all to see. Transparency however, is as hard to achieve, when power is at play, as breathing water. Otherwise, once we’re all addicted to AI, the man on the backside will be omniscient and omnipotent, or so those that seek to reside in the booth of power think. Then there’s the possibility that the CCP will invade Taiwan and smash our ability to make the chips necessary for AI. Aborting the AI baby so to speak, and solving the problem, perhaps once and for all. Nevertheless, AI, like nuclear energy, could be a boon for mankind, or a mortal danger. It’s up to us to decide what to make of it… not some accelerationist billionaire psycho.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
