While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right.
The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will cause massive job loss. This is not a story that I believe, nor does the data bear it out, but this is what they have told us. Similarly, they have hyped the risks of AI without putting an equal or greater emphasis on the benefits or readily available mitigations.
Conservatives have another fear. The employees of the leading labs claim to be philanthropic, but what we’ve seen is massive enrichment of NGOs advancing an agenda at odds with traditional values, fueling a revolution against our cities and communities. Soros-maxxing is not charity in our book.
Anthropic and OpenAI have established themselves as Public Benefit Corporations. What could be more in the public benefit than using half the wealth generated by these companies (which trained for free on the collective knowledge of humanity) to pay down the national debt? There is no ideological bias in that philanthropy.
Dario and Sam have begun to walk back their claims of massive job loss, but the damage to public trust is done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.
There’s just one problem. Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward. Conservatives rightly fear a Central Bank Digital Currency. They ought to be even more concerned about Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior.
We saw how social media was weaponized to censor conservatives (including President Trump) in the last Democrat administration. The definition of “trust & safety” expanded to mean protecting the public from supposed psychological harms, micro-aggressions, and disinformation (you know, like hearing conservative ideas or true facts about Covid).
That “safety” agenda as applied to AI will be vastly more powerful and Orwellian. AI won’t just moderate posts; it will curate reality — with the ability to rewrite history, enforce ideological conformity, influence policy at scale, mass surveil Americans, and condition the benefits of the many systems it controls on approved behavior.
America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S. — and that is the danger as the government becomes more deeply involved in AI development and assumes direct ownership and control.
Conservatives are right to fear where this is all headed but ought to think more carefully about how regulations they are flirting with now (that are widely celebrated among those with a long history of lust for Big Government) will be used against them the next time a Democrat administration is in power.
“Psilocybin, the psychedelic component of magic mushrooms, has previously been touted as an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, addiction, and PTSD — but now researchers say it has the potential to be used in Alzheimer’s intervention as well.
In this case study, published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, researchers focused on an 80-year-old Japanese American woman with Alzheimer’s. She had declined over the previous decade and was reduced to urinary incontinence, speaking in single syllables, and dependence on caregivers for mobility support and daily living.
She was then given a 5g dose of magic mushrooms.
During the initial phase, she was agitated, sweated profusely and entered a prolonged sleep state that suggested unconsciousness. But around hour 19, she began speaking in full autobiographical sentences, recalling life events she had been unable to articulate for years.
In the days and weeks that followed, more incredible changes emerged. She regained urinary continence, even in the evenings, and began dressing herself. She was able to make and maintain eye contact, remember social interactions, emotionally respond to others, and hold lucid conversations.”
Breaking: #Steelers signing TE Darnell Washington to $42 million extension.
Nick Herbig yesterday, Darnell Washington today. Omar Khan is cooking.
(via @JFowlerESPN)
https://t.co/CjiZzQJJlN
@JoeConchaTV I think Mr. BIlton’s approach and note here is quite classy and professional. I wish him and 60m well, and I hope his leadership is transformational.
Warren Buffett: "The bottom 2% in terms of income in the United States, the bottom 5%, and for sure the top 1% all live better than John D. Rockefeller was living when I was six years old."
"John D. Rockefeller was the richest man in the world and, today, you can get better medicine, better education, better entertainment, better transportation. You can do everything better than he could."
"When I was born, the dentist didn't use novocaine!"