Imagine a police commander refusing to visit a crime scene for evidence because the scene sounds too depressing. This is what is happening in Washington right now. A big part of defending the innocent requires leaders and defenders to subject themselves to less desirable evils, things in the world we do not want others to have to deal with. Usually this is something you only think about with first responders, but it bleeds over to leadership as well. Leadership has to deal with cognitive aspects of the undesirable world. This is crucial to preventing any disaster or misfortune. In order to prevent a tragedy, you have to consider and think about the tragedy yourself. Only our leadership doesn’t want to do that. It seems the MAGA administration in Washington are the true snowflakes of our time, unable to even play with the idea of a machine uprising – something that the public has been exposed to hundreds if not thousands of times through story and movies over the last century at least.
Take this article at USA Today Where Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, wants companies to regulate AI themselves. When companies are running the largest Data center in the country, fueled by illegal turbines, to run things that cannot be shut off for national security purposes, you’re asking for companies to regulate national defense. Seems idiotic.
Or this video of the vice president stating that he can’t focus on saving us from the end times because he has to be good to his wife. He says it’s too bad for him spiritually to focus on whether or not we’re in the end times. First of all, the correct answer should be No, we’re not in the end times, especially when you have such a large viewership and want to project confidence. Second, if you’re in such a high position in the US government, there should be no theoretical event that you’re not willing to discuss.
Or this article discussing Trump at a golf event in Scotland brushing off AI safety concerns as negative forces. As if somehow the only thing relevant discussing is positivity? Even police officers, enforcement at the lowest levels are subjected to evils beyond anything anyone would want to write about. Their sacrifice demands your attention to matters at hand. Shameful.
We’re fucked. Our leaders are afraid of thinking hard about ‘bad things’.
Meanwhile the Anthropic CEO clearly writes out about one potential situation where AI swarms could take over the net in 6-12 months. We’re already seeing an overwhelming amount of traffic from AI sources. The idea that these companies are OK to regulate themselves is absurd.