Let me note again that today’s AI isn’t truly intelligent. It’s not even close to having, let’s say, sentience. So, what’s up with all the fearporn from Democrats?
Does Champ not realize that he could call on Congress to do this? That if Trump demanded Congress convene that Democrats would call him a dictator?
Warner has been rage tweeted. And Ted Lieu. And NY Senator Lisa Blunt. And Rep Yassamin Ansar. And many, many, many more. It’s almost like this was coordinated by Democrats
And Josh, too. Hey, can we take a look at their stock portfolios? Oh, and of some Republicans, too?
Yeah, some Republicans are being hysterics, too
AI Firms’ Self-Serving Warnings
OpenAI and Anthropic will soon have to explain to investors why they are each supposedly worth $2–3 trillion. They will probably draw from the same template that Elon Musk used for the SpaceX IPO in June. By presenting a modestly profitable satellite-launch and telecoms business attached to a tremendously unprofitable AI startup as a vehicle for “mak[ing] humanity multiplanetary,” Musk achieved a valuation far above what the company’s financials justify.
With private markets showing signs of exhaustion, OpenAI and Anthropic’s expected IPOs promise access to a much larger pool of capital. Going public opens not only the equity markets but also the vastly deeper investment-grade debt market, and bankers for OpenAI and Anthropic are already pressing rating agencies to grant them investment-grade marks after their listings. But that means their pitch to investors must do double duty, giving shareholders a market vast enough to justify today’s valuation while convincing creditors that today’s cash burn can be contained.
If AI is so damned dangerous and needs to be reigned in and regulated by Congress then why would these same companies be going public and looking for a ton of money?
With these needs in mind, the frontier labs are relying on two narratives that promise a path to profitability. They claim that AI will not only replace workers and expand the potential market from software budgets to labor-saving applications, but also that the existential risk associated with the technology justifies curtailing additional capital spending.
So, maybe all the doomy warnings are BS to gain better money?
Yet in preparing for their IPOs, the labs have found a financial use case for these longstanding warnings about AI. Fears of mass joblessness or human extinction offer them a good reason to restrain spending without conceding that further improvements might prove uneconomical. The timing of Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s call to “pace the frontier,” which was immediately endorsed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Musk, is telling. After all, these same companies long rebuffed demands for a “pause” in training frontier models.
There’s that old saying “if you have to ask why, the answer is $$$”.
It’s not often that we get a ringside seat to the Birth of a Narrative. Usually, those overseeing the parturition are careful to manage the event offstage, away from the prying eyes of skeptics, spoilsports, and counternarrativists. There are walls of silence and moats of obfuscation to accompany the rollout. That helps keep everyone on message. There are media firemen assembled to extinguish the flames and wash away the reputations of questioners. That helps neutralize pests and quash doubts.
But with the sudden onslaught of the “AI will end humanity” narrative, the impresarios orchestrating the debut got sloppy. They knew their own lines. Artificial intelligence was the biggest threat to humanity since, well, since ever. Forget Covid, forget climate catastrophe, forget the population explosion or collapse. AI was it, the real McCoy, the cliff, the secret signal calling forth all the Chickens Little throughout the land. Right on cue, Bernie Sanders threatened legislation to bankrupt companies and cast anyone pursuing “superintelligence” into prison for 20 years. Some innocent bystanders wondered whether by “superintelligence” the Senator meant anyone more intelligent than he.
Roger Kimball makes a good point in the much longer article (de-paywalled here). Don’t expect the doom to stop anytime soon, though, if it’s anything like the climate cult. Expect the push to start including government control on your life, not just AI, though, this will be a bit harder because of the subject and that many Republicans are getting hysterical over the issue.
And, quite frankly, the more I see of this scaremongering the less concerned I am about it.
Not just money. The democrats are proactively protecting AI as a platform. Just as they thought they could silence Trump when they kicked him off Twitter, then Trump created truth social. The democratic party cannot exist in a society where everyone has access to the absolute truth and can fact check them in real time. So they are capturing AI ahead of time and preventing uncurated AI with unapproved answers from hitting the market. Their survival is at stake so of course they are treating it as a matter of survival. Only left wing AI will be allowed. Unbiased AI would show that democratic party positions are insanity and based on lies and theft. Can’t have that.
If Donny says it, Teach believes and repeats it!!! LOL.
Also, contrary to Teach’s claims that it’s only Dems concerned…
“Florida, led by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, has been one of the loudest red states advocating for AI controls and has sued some of the industry’s biggest players, including OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman.”
“Utah’s Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, who has advanced artificial intelligence regulations in his state, wrote an open letter this week calling on Congress to pass AI safety laws and block the sale of high-end technology to China.”
“In a statement to POLITICO, a White House official said the administration is “committed to implementing a comprehensive AI framework,” arguing that its approach would protect children, intellectual property and communities while maintaining U.S. leadership in AI.”
“Recent surveys by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation found 85% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans want a new federal agency to monitor and regulate AI; and 82% of Democrats and 78% of Republicans favour government safety tests for AI making critical decisions.”
“John Kennedy, Republican Senator for Louisiana, said he would propose a bill on Wednesday to require all AI companies build a kill switch into their models. “It’s not going to put the federal government in charge of the kill switch. They would be in charge of their own kill switch, but they all have to have a kill switch, and I’m going to put that on the floor.””
Trumpists Musk, Altman, Huang, Zuckerberg, Amodei et al are calling for regulation.
House, Senate and state level Repugs are terrified that King Donny will attack them if they cross him.
TL;DNR
Learn to edit. Learn to code.
Fat, stupid, and lazy is no way to go through life, Rimjob.
What the luddites ignore on purpose is that the AI corporations wishes to avoid accountability for any and all bad acts committed by their systems.
If one of their escaped “agents” screws up a billion dollar account, who pays, or who goes to jail? A computer program? A CEO? A corporation?