Obama's Gonna Save Us from Artificial Intelligence, Everybody
Yes AI Can
Artificial intelligence is becoming less artificial and more intelligent by the hour. It can do stuff that would’ve seemed impossible just a few years ago. Hell, a few months ago.
Which can be fun. In November 2023, you can go to Bing Image Creator and type in any random thing that pops into your dumb brain — Norman Rockwell painting of the Hulk eating a sandwich in a diner — and within seconds it’ll generate stuff like this:
How did it do that? I have no idea. Even the people building this stuff don’t seem to understand how it does what it does.
It can depict any scene you can imagine, in any style you choose. It can mimic human voices. It can mimic human faces. It can generate endless reams of legible text. It’s fascinating, and it’s terrifying. These machines will at least attempt to do whatever you tell ‘em, and the quality of the results is increasing exponentially.
As noted fictional mathematician Ian Malcolm once said: The scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.
This looks like a job for… er… the government???
Former President Barack Obama quietly advised the White House over the past five months on its strategy to address artificial intelligence, engaging behind the scenes with tech companies and holding Zoom meetings with top West Wing aides at President Joe Biden’s request, according to aides to both men…
“You have to move fast here, not at normal government pace or normal private-sector pace, because the technology is moving so fast,” White House chief of staff Jeff Zients recalled Biden saying. “We have to move as fast, or ideally faster. And we need to pull every lever we can.”
First of all, it’s nice to know all the conspiracy theories about Obama scuttling around behind the scenes of this White House were absolutely true.
Second, which is worse: artificial intelligence, or politicians exploiting artificial intelligence to further their ideology?
This isn’t just about Obama, although I’d sooner trust Edward Scissorhands to examine my prostate. Nobody in government should have that much power over information. But I’m not comforted by the fact that the president of the United States is trusting this to an unelected functionary. I don’t want control over the robots going to the propagandist who convinced millions of people that “Yes We Can” was a winning message.
AI is a weapon. It can be used for good or ill, depending on the intentions of the wielder. But the difference is up to us to decide, not our self-appointed rulers.
All these guys want is to remain in power. They’re not trying to protect you. They don’t care how it affects you. The only reason they want to control AI is because it could loosen their grip.
Speaking of AI being used for propaganda purposes:
Those Jews are so crafty, they killed that poor kid’s mom and gave him an extra finger. I don’t want to say antisemites are morons, but most people can count to five before they click Post.
Libs Love Cancel Culture (Till It Bites ‘Em in the Ass)
Sorry, but I don’t care about college students missing out on high-paying jobs because they’re in the streets cheering for Hamas and tearing down posters of kidnapped children.
For the past decade, I’ve listened to the left pontificate about “freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences.” Well, if you try to get me fired for pointing out that Dylan Mulvaney will be a man till the day he dies, I won’t shed a tear when a law firm doesn’t want to hire you because you’re a goddamn antisemite who defends the beheading of babies in their cribs.
Decolonize my ass.
TGIF (Tiresome Gremlins Irritated Francesca), and thanks for reading. Please rest assured that when I’m not posting here, I’m berating myself for not posting here.
"The only reason they want to control AI is because it could loosen their grip." The crux of the matter. I remember on the onset of ChatGPT getting popular and it could routinely spit our essays about why climate change claims were dubious or why past pandemic responses never involved "shutting down everything", but as soon as it people used it to write negative articles about Democrats, well that had to go! As soon you saw people getting the raw, unfiltered truth from an objective machine that just examined information and let you draw your own conclusions, you just knew that this stuff's days were numbered. We can't have random acts of truth telling occurring, because that threatens the liberal vise-grip on the neck of Western Civ and we can't have that.
There is nothing, and I mean absolutely not a single thing, that can be "fixed" via regulation or government decree.
That said, I expect an "A.I. Czar" to be named any day now. I'm sure it'll be Kamala, they've been trying to set her up for success since the day she wiped her chin of the best that Willie Brown could offer. And, to be real, I'd rather have her in charge of the "White House Office on Artificial Intelligence" seeing how everything she knows is completely artificial. Plus, she'll get bored with this shiny new toy in about 48 hours. She has the attention span of a kitten dazzled by a laser pointer.
That's all I got, jimmy. I recently saw my subscription post to my bank account, and I thought "I hope he uses real cream in his coffee, not powdered."