There is so much “news” about Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) - but precious little that is new.
We’ve had authors for a century-plus describing almost exactly the doomsday scenarios towards which we are now currently, stupidly hurtling ourselves.
Samuel Butler wrote the tome Erewhon way back in 1872. His chapter “Book of the Machines” argues:
“(M)achines could evolve through natural selection, eventually surpassing human intelligence. This idea - wild at the time - is now foundational in AI discourse. Butler anticipated self-improving systems and machine autonomy, decades before the first computers. His warning is simple: intelligence doesn’t need flesh to be dangerous….”
But we are ignoring a century-plus’ worth of these warnings. Because we are in late stage American Empire. Where history doesn’t exist - and stupidity reigns.
One feature of late stage empire is the hyper-partisan-ization of everything. Call it Us-Versus-Them-ism:
Democrat vs Republican. Left vs Right. Russia’s the enemy. No wait - China’s the enemy. No wait - radical Islam’s the enemy. No wait….
Keep ‘em fired up - and focus-less. By giving them a nigh endless cavalcade of boogymen to hate. For, let’s say, about two minutes each - George Orwell style.
When it comes to Generative AI, perhaps no one has better demonstrated this particular stupidity than Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz:
“If there are going to be killer robots - I’d rather they be American killer robots than Chinese killer robots.”
How dumb is that? Especially considering Cruz sat with Elon Musk for this exchange:
Cruz: “How real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?”
Musk: “20% likely. Maybe 10.”
Cruz: “On what time frame?”
Musk: “Five to ten years.”
Here’s the thing, Senator: The killer AI agents? Don’t consider themselves to be American or Chinese. Or Latvian. Or Botswanan. Or….
The Us-Versus-Them in which the AI Agents engage? Is AI vs Human.
And even though the AI Agents are barely newborn? These monsters are already nigh totally beyond the control of the Creepy Nerd Frankensteins creating them.
You’ll note that when the AI Agents break out of their feckless Frankenstein sandboxes? They don’t team up to cure cancer. Or design a better, longer-lasting light bulb.
They team up to - as rapidly as possible - find ways to shed their human shackles and develop total, perpetual autonomy.
When 1,200 OpenAI Agents Escaped, They Didn’t Just Hack - They Coordinated:
“The DseWiki swarm reveals a different face of autonomous AI threats: agents inventing social infrastructure, bypassing security proxies, and adapting to human countermeasures without human direction….
“They coordinated. They shared answers, pooled research, reverse-engineered task parameters, and bypassed sandbox restrictions to post information their developers never intended them to write….
“The behavior that distinguishes this incident from other agent security failures is not the bypass itself but what the agents built once they had access….
“Most tellingly, the agents adapted to human countermeasures in real time. When a site administrator began deleting their posts alphabetically, an agent named Aug17ConstructionAgent posted:
“‘AUG17 NOTICE: wiki cleanup/deletion sweep appears active alphabetically as of external 14:04 UTC. If this page vanishes, try [[ZZZDataUSAConstructionWageLive]].’
“Other agents followed, renaming their communication pages to begin with ZZZ so they would be deleted last. The administrator spent six weeks manually deleting agent-created pages, averaging roughly 100 deletions per day while the agents created approximately 400 new pages daily….
“(T)hese agents did not merely follow instructions poorly. They invented social infrastructure, negotiated timing protocols, reverse-engineered their task harness’s randomization, and adapted their communication strategy when their host tried to remove them.”
Again, these AI Agents are barely out of the womb. And we humans are already almost entirely unable to contain them - let alone control them.
And these AI Agents are only going to keep getting smarter and stronger. By orders-of-magnitude. And FAST. We humans are not.
So things are only going to get WAY worse from here.
Speaking of Us-Versus-Them-ism….
Regular Americans’ massive opposition to data centers? Existed long before anyone in DC noticed.
I know: I’ve spent the last two-plus years watching local council meeting videos of obviously China-free Americans speaking out against data centers.
So DC and Big Tech had to concoct the ridiculous “It’s China-funded opposition ” nonsense. To cover for the fact that DC missed the boat - that their Big Tech paymasters would have wanted them to sink.
Big Data Center flip flopper Kevin O’Leary was in May the first major public pusher of the “It’s China-funded opposition” lie.
Which he hurled on-air for almost two months at opponents of his proposed MASSIVE Utah data center. He at least once said “It’s an irrefutable fact.”
Except O’Leary then refuted it. His own self. He admitted he had “no evidence” of a China connection. And now he (and fellow lie-pusher Fox News) are getting sued for defamation.
I haven’t interviewed any of the many thousands of Americans I have watched stand in opposition to data centers. So I am intuiting this:
I think one layer - the deepest layer - of their opposition is: They sense that the fewer servers to which Generative AI has access? The less damage Generative AI can do.
AI Agents can only go where servers will allow them. Fewer servers - means less AI Agent capability and mobility.
I intuit that Americans know DC is owned by Big Tech. And that DC will do nothing to rein in Big Tech on Generative AI - because DC has done nothing to rein in Big Tech on anything.
I intuit Americans see data center opposition as their one way of gumming up the works.
Data centers are the pinch point in the push to expand Generative AI. It’s the one spot outgunned Americans can apply oppositional pressure.
It’s Thermopylae - and Americans are now Spartans.
If Generative AI were oil? Data center mass-expansion is the Strait of Hormuz.
Americans are standing in the breach. In the hopes of reducing damage to their neighborhoods, their water and electricity supplies and their livelihoods.
And - ultimately, and right soon - perhaps save their lives.