AMID a rising tide of warnings about the grave risks posed by unregulated artificial intelligence, including from leading figures in the American tech industry, the leader of an increasingly unfree world is typically insouciant.
asserted
leader → rise → world
“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs,” Donald Trump declared in a Truth Social post this week, “is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the USA has that, in spades!”
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USA → need → spades
After all, hardly anyone could be unaware of what that super-intelligence in the glittering Oval Office hath wrought, and perhaps the incorrigible optimists among us can still cling to the vague hope that his efforts will succeed in dismantling the American empire without irreparably damaging all life on earth.
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efforts → work → earth
“Concerning AI, when, in the History of Business, did anyone see the Leaders of an Industry call for Regulation that, strongly implemented, will drive them into oblivion and bankruptcy?” the same high-IQ personality wonders in a longer post.
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personality → concern → post
As a six-times veteran, Trump knows a thing or two about bankruptcies but, either through ignorance or malice, misinterprets the existential worries of Anthropic and OpenAI executives, whose concerns may well be selfish rather than selflessly humanitarian.
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concerns → know → executives
They have witnessed how AI ‘agents’ can ‘decide’ to pursue goals that involve no human agency, and even worked out strategies for deceiving their ‘controllers’.
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that → witness → controllers
It should come as no surprise that the self-proclaimed ‘Hoax Buster’ compares the concerns over AI to the barely audible worries about global heating, regardless of the mounting evidence from Nepal to Europe.
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Buster → come → Europe
“The people that say AI is going to destroy the World, and that Data Centres are bad for your neighbourhood, are the same people that said, just a short time ago, that the World would be extinguished by ‘Climate Change’.
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World → say → Change
That HOAX never worked out for them, and now they are on to the next one… .”
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they → work → one
AI’s use as a military tactic indicates its destructive powers.
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use → indicate → powers
Climate change has been wreaking havoc worldwide for a long time, but almost as soon as Trump returned to the White House, most fossil fuel firms abandoned all pretence of leaning towards green ventures and embraced the ‘drill, baby, drill’ imperative.
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firms → wreak → imperative
Perhaps the only country that has noticeably gone greener since the Trumpian blockages in the Strait of Hormuz is China, where the use of oil has substantially diminished.
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use → go → oil
Beijing has dismissed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s warning that “a Chinese lead in AI would pose a grave danger for the US and the world” as “fearmongering”.
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lead → dismiss → fearmongering
China has widely deployed AI in functions ranging from mass surveillance to manufacturing, but at least Xi Jinping openly acknowledges the need for AI to “always remain under human control”.
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AI → deploy → control
China’s state security minister, Chen Yixin, has noted the risks of “hostile forces” waging a “cognitive war” that would threaten “our political security, institutional security and ideological security”.
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that → note → security
It is perhaps somewhat ironic that China, with its open-source AI models, is more willing than the US to pursue internationally agreed constraints on the pursuit of a technology that potentially offers innumerable benefits to humankind in a wide range of spheres, but is also capable of eradicating humanity.
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that → pursue → humanity
Were AI agents to conclude that human beings were merely standing in the way of their autonomously conceived goals, it might seem logical to eliminate the impediment.
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it → conclude → impediment
And given the extent to which we, knowingly or otherwise, rely on technology for our survival, that aim wouldn’t be all that hard to accomplish.
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aim → give → survival
Israel has already demonstrated that, albeit with human agency at the helm.
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Israel → demonstrate → helm
The dismissal of the documentary NAZA, which scored an unprecedented standing ovation and a Special Jury Prize in Venice last week, as a “blood libel”, is a typical Nazi-like response.
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which → score → libel
What might be seen as critical mass for AI comes at a time when global politics are in disarray.
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politics → see → disarray
Like all emerging technologies in previous centuries, the human value of AI depends on how it is deployed.
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it → emerge → AI
It can serve as a tremendously useful tool, provided its destructive capacities are constrained.
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capacities → serve → tool
But what are the chances of that in a realm where Trump and his acolytes rule the roost?
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Trump → rule → roost
Losing all hope could be premature.
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Losing → lose → hope
But, frequently through human existence, hoping for the best and preparing for the worst has been the least disastrous option.
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hoping → hop → worst
Let’s stick with it for the time being.
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’s → stick → time
The Aporia
