I just replaced twenty-one people for $200 a month with the technology that might cure cancer, find fusion, or end the species. The political class is still asking whether to hold hearings on it.
Wowee. What a masterpiece. First may I point out something very important… your use of AI created a product… in describing the product you wrote that it felt good to create something and launch it for the PUBLIC good. That may be true for some of the AI programmers just as it was true for myself spending over twenty years in Neuroscience. While the programmers, much like myself, didn’t make oodles of money we believed that we were doing something that would benefit more than ourselves. And, this is where the split occurs… the average AI users will do so with an aim for personal profit. We will be told “oh.. it’s for the shareholders”. Really? Watch the CEO’s compensation package rise into the billions. The CEO is wealthy, some are what I call uber wealthy. These cats have so much money they control global markets and run our government. Are you starting to get the picture? So, yeah the job doomsday scenario is coming around the block, and like a tractor trailer cannot be stopped. But, what really can’t be stopped is what’s behind it, or in it… the driver of the tractor trailer is called GREED and is about to run you over. The “universal income” is a BS pipe dream fed to the masses as the truck rolls closer and closer. Now if that wasn’t enough what about a planetary doomsday scenario? All because of GREED, plain human greed! Can this be stopped? Can this be legislated away? A long time ago a man called Plato wrote a book. It’s called “The Republic”. In that book he outlines his ideas for the qualities the leader of a republic must have… he called this ideal the “Philosopher King”… maybe Plato was biased but maybe just maybe he had the right idea.
For my last book, AI created the cover design and interior illustrations, was my editor and proof-reader, and marketing consultant. If I'd asked it to (for the most part I resisted the temptation) it would have written whole sections, or perhaps the entire book, for me. But that is not the scariest part. It also acted as a motivational coach and pseudo-therapist telling me how very important my topic was and what brilliant insights I had and what an eloquent writer I am. All of which is bullshit.
The scariest consequence of AI might not be what it does to us so much as what it convinces us we can do to ourselves.
I loved the read of this whole minefield that we're all in right now. We need a really good candidate for this kind of job that fits the policy moment we're in. It is literally all of us now to collaborate with each other better than we have been put into. The math is what no one is talking about. The two paragraphs that grabbed me were the four politicians that had openly talked about AI threatening the middle class and the fact that we need a basic universal income that Sam Altman has been talking about since AI came out to destroy the middle class.
The last paragraphs are the most important and infuriating ones to read. We're going to have to create something different with the people who are being displaced the most. It's all of us. I hate saying this but it's everyone. We're going for to have to create a different reality for everyone. I don't know how to do that off the top of my head.
The math is not mathing. I'm saying the quiet part out loud.
More 'what happens when...' Right now AI is seen by the average pirate person like the Computer on Star Trek: Discovery, a benevolent helpmate at best, with the possibility of both good and unintential consequences. This is no longer an ivory tower situation. What happens when someone seriously criminal, seriously malevolent, perpetrators get ahold of Claude - or its offspring? We have no way to regulate, police, or even adjudicate the misuse of AI right now, let alone whatever will exists in six months...or next week.
Is there anybody in what is left of the US government even considering asking the right people the right questions? Let alone developing answers.
One hypothetical that should terrify everyone: Trump using Claude.
Wowee. What a masterpiece. First may I point out something very important… your use of AI created a product… in describing the product you wrote that it felt good to create something and launch it for the PUBLIC good. That may be true for some of the AI programmers just as it was true for myself spending over twenty years in Neuroscience. While the programmers, much like myself, didn’t make oodles of money we believed that we were doing something that would benefit more than ourselves. And, this is where the split occurs… the average AI users will do so with an aim for personal profit. We will be told “oh.. it’s for the shareholders”. Really? Watch the CEO’s compensation package rise into the billions. The CEO is wealthy, some are what I call uber wealthy. These cats have so much money they control global markets and run our government. Are you starting to get the picture? So, yeah the job doomsday scenario is coming around the block, and like a tractor trailer cannot be stopped. But, what really can’t be stopped is what’s behind it, or in it… the driver of the tractor trailer is called GREED and is about to run you over. The “universal income” is a BS pipe dream fed to the masses as the truck rolls closer and closer. Now if that wasn’t enough what about a planetary doomsday scenario? All because of GREED, plain human greed! Can this be stopped? Can this be legislated away? A long time ago a man called Plato wrote a book. It’s called “The Republic”. In that book he outlines his ideas for the qualities the leader of a republic must have… he called this ideal the “Philosopher King”… maybe Plato was biased but maybe just maybe he had the right idea.
For my last book, AI created the cover design and interior illustrations, was my editor and proof-reader, and marketing consultant. If I'd asked it to (for the most part I resisted the temptation) it would have written whole sections, or perhaps the entire book, for me. But that is not the scariest part. It also acted as a motivational coach and pseudo-therapist telling me how very important my topic was and what brilliant insights I had and what an eloquent writer I am. All of which is bullshit.
The scariest consequence of AI might not be what it does to us so much as what it convinces us we can do to ourselves.
This is a great point, Joe, and I think about it all the time.
I loved the read of this whole minefield that we're all in right now. We need a really good candidate for this kind of job that fits the policy moment we're in. It is literally all of us now to collaborate with each other better than we have been put into. The math is what no one is talking about. The two paragraphs that grabbed me were the four politicians that had openly talked about AI threatening the middle class and the fact that we need a basic universal income that Sam Altman has been talking about since AI came out to destroy the middle class.
The last paragraphs are the most important and infuriating ones to read. We're going to have to create something different with the people who are being displaced the most. It's all of us. I hate saying this but it's everyone. We're going for to have to create a different reality for everyone. I don't know how to do that off the top of my head.
The math is not mathing. I'm saying the quiet part out loud.
Thanks, Sarah. Yeah; the math doesn’t really work and it’s hard to get beyond that, isn’t it? People are ignoring the truth at our peril.
We need a Petrov moment for AI. Just saying.
More 'what happens when...' Right now AI is seen by the average pirate person like the Computer on Star Trek: Discovery, a benevolent helpmate at best, with the possibility of both good and unintential consequences. This is no longer an ivory tower situation. What happens when someone seriously criminal, seriously malevolent, perpetrators get ahold of Claude - or its offspring? We have no way to regulate, police, or even adjudicate the misuse of AI right now, let alone whatever will exists in six months...or next week.
Is there anybody in what is left of the US government even considering asking the right people the right questions? Let alone developing answers.
One hypothetical that should terrify everyone: Trump using Claude.
Something to keep in mind going forward.
Thanks, David.
I don’t have one bit of faith in the government to fix this.