WHY AI WILL NOT HARM HUMANITY, BUT SERVE AND UPLIFT

Most people do not realize that much of what they consume as “news” is actually initiated by someone, somewhere with an agenda. (The media never tell you this because they are complicit). We have a current widely circulated instance of this, with AI being treated as a threat that could wipe out the human race, generated by dubious  “whistleblowers” previously (and briefly) employed by tech firms. Some have been associated with anti-AI groups, and Chinese puppets seeking to retard America’s lead in this field. They have now been joined by executives of the leading AI companies publicly worrying about how potentially harmful their product could be. They even provide percentage projections of how likely human extinction will be, while altruistically calling for regulation of this “danger” they themselves have created. 

This is highly suspect for at least two reasons. First, the call for regulation by the leading players in a field is usually predicated on using the government to  seal  their dominant positions off from competition from upstart firms, giving them cartel-like power. Second, they also happen to have inflated IPOs coming up that they want to maximize the value of, thus serving their own interests rather than the public interest. 

All of this fear-mongering finds a credulous audience among paranoid people who have taken sci-fi too literally, while also worrying people who are more grounded. The fear centers on AI surpassing human intelligence and control, to develop itself autonomously, and then eliminate humans. Never mind that no one has bothered to explain just why AI would want to wipe out humanity when its development is designed to serve humanity. The latter is a more plausible scenario, as depicted back in 1970 by a movie called The Forbin Project, where an advanced central computer links with its Soviet counterpart to take control of war powers due to the way humans have messed everything up. The computer will then run things for the benefit of humans without all the rancor and conflict. Some people may even find this appealing.

Lost in this is the fact that even if AI exceeds human intelligence it is not the end-all that is suggested, because human beings have many other modes of perception and understanding that AI will never have. It is like saying that someone with a high IQ has it over everyone else in everything, when in fact it is limited to raw intelligence, which could be accompanied by limitations in other modes of thinking and perception or reflected in matters like social interaction. 

But AI is a tool for humans, that can improve life in a myriad of ways, such as medicine and health, finding cures for cancer and other potentially fatal diseases, as well as rare diseases that affect fewer people and thus don’t get much attention. It will be able to do these things at a much faster pace, drastically reducing all the years of trial and error experimentation and testing. It will do the same in many other areas, guided by humans, and that is really the crux of it. 

The real problem is what can be used for good can also be used for evil, but that is true of so many things in life. You don’t need AI to generate bioterrorism. The capability is already there, along with most other perceived threats. So the problem is really bad actors using the technology for nefarious purposes.  To mitigate that, and any potential threat from hostile external forces and criminals, AI must be used to develop countermeasures and shields to maintain security, and even proactively counter any possible threat. 

 Importantly, there will not be some monolithic central AI, but rather a myriad of AIs operating at the individual level, emanating from a number of different sources. It will be widespread and diverse. That means that federal regulation, international agreements, monitors, oversight committees, etc. that so far have been proposed won't accomplish anything beyond impeding progress. Again the real problem is not inherently AI, but rather what people will do with it. As  result they fail to address the specific segment that could actually prevent harm.

 For the less likely rogue AI, or misuse of it, we already have the outlines of a solution for resolving the most feared outcomes. Isaac Asimov thought and wrote a great deal about robots, and decades ago came up with a set of Laws of Robotics that would be ingrained in the machines so as to prevent any kind of harmful action. The same idea can be applied to AI. This would involve implanting some fundamental restraints at the program or machine code level, or even within the circuits themselves. With proper consideration this would then be virtually impossible to circumvent. 

Then the question is just what should be included in this essentially moral sense for AI. It is the moral sense that guides and restrains our own behavior, and something comparable could be created for AI. This could be developed by an entity drawn from people from a broad spectrum of fields such as moral guidance/ethics/religion, law, program development, math/probability experts, philosophers, circuit designers, scientists, etc. Such an undertaking ought to be able to come up with an ironclad set of inviolable principles, restraints, and guides embedded in AI that would prevent anything harmful. Furthermore, any violation would automatically invoke an unalterable kill switch. Ideally this would all be embedded in any source that is capable of producing AI. 

Thus, AI is not a threat, but rather something that will uplift and enrich humanity. It will be ubiquitous and as commonplace as cell phones, and will be an integrated, routine, and normal, part of life. At some point, we may, in some sense, even merge with it on our own terms. But that’s another story. 

REFLECTIONS ON 9/11 AND FOREVER WAR

September 11, 2001 is different from almost any other day in our history, such as Pearl Harbor, for unique reasons:

Memory

This date, this experience, has not diminished as much as other things. It is true that many born after that date have no direct knowledge of it, but consider this. For those of us who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s World War II already seemed like something in the distant past, in a kind of black and white world that seemed to be more connected to the times before it than the world after it.

But WWII was then only ten to fifteen years in the past. Contrast that with 9/11, which is now 25 years in the past, yet still seems as vivid as ever. It is true that younger people don’t know it directly, but then most of the rest of the country didn’t know it directly either. What they saw was what anyone can still see to this day on television. Today at least one network broadcast minute by minute coverage they had provided as it happened, and it still seemed fresh.

Continuity and Change

Many things have changed since then, especially in terms of security precautions. Certainly the world changed. Just think of the world that shortly preceded it, the time of the millennium. We watched celebrations around the world that came off without a hitch, infused with an optimism that has since sadly diminished.

On the other hand other things have not changed and still remain with us. If you look at pictures and films on that day, especially just before the event, things look remarkably the same, to the point where you can’t tell the difference without close examination, apart from the subsequent tragedy of Ground Zero. (I used to spend a lot of time there and it took many years before I could stomach going back). The image, the memory, is as vivid as ever for many of us, and still should be for others by simply watching the events unfold- the destruction and collapse of the buildings, the horror of victims jumping to their deaths, the reactions of people on the ground, and the many acts of heroism and sacrifice on the part of the first responders. Since the landscape and the people appear essentially as they do today, even if you weren’t around at the time it still resonates. It still feels contemporary.

Forever War

That’s because it is, and so it must remain until the threat is eliminated. Whether we like it or not, approve or disapprove, the same hatred, motivation, and actions persist against entire western world. Unfortunately we have some self-deluded individuals who share those emotions and have managed to attain disproportionate influence, particularly as magnified through social media. We cannot wish it away, suggest we are to blame, pretend that it doesn’t exist, or attribute it to a particular group of people Wishful thinking cannot change the fundamental reality; there are still many people in the world who want to kill us, destroy our civilization, and eliminate us. The real “Forever War” is the one directed against us.

The West has done nothing to deserve this despite excuses conjured up about colonialism, imperialism, etc., because without those things they would still dream of wiping us out. For radical Islamists we are infidels, who must be converted or eliminated. They still want us dead.

Where We Are Now

Now consider how crazy this confrontation is. We have immensely greater power, wealth, military prowess, and technology, even as some of the latter has been passed on to them by scurrilous actors, the same way our aviation technology was used against us. They are molehills alongside a mountain, yet they still come across as more resilient than us. Despite all our advantages they appear to have an edge. How is this possible?

We cannot ignore the fact that our enemies across the board have managed to demoralize us with the assistance of fellow travelers or useful idiots, despite our supposedly advanced communications capability. An artificial mindset has captured many people, who are abysmally ignorant of our capabilities, interests, and virtues. Others simply want to be left alone and not be drawn into conflict. The problem is that other people simply will not leave us alone. There is no way to avoid that reality, even if you are one of those who thinks we are at fault and/or that we brought this upon ourselves.

This is simply not going to go away as long as we allow it to fester. That means we must become proactive and prepare to eliminate the threat using all means at our disposal. We must undermine them, disillusion them, and otherwise destroy them. Unfortunately we have seriously bungled the strategy, due to major mistakes like Iraq, and the unnecessary disorganized, disgraceful exit from Afghanistan, which have disillusioned and demoralized a large segment of the public. So there is considerable sentiment, perhaps justifiably, against “forever wars,” or even foreign wars in general.

Unfortunately this misses the bigger picture, which is the real Forever War against the West. It Is in keeping with centuries of Islamic aggression and expansion, that only temporarily ended as the West pulled ahead commercially and technologically. But as we have seen in the horror of 9/11, they can now use things we created against us.

Muslims

However I want to be clear as to who we are talking about. It is not the Islamic world, but a segment of radical Islamic fundamentalists and their worldview. Most of the rest are simply human beings like all of us, with all the same life challenges. We have to distinguish between the real enemy and the rest.

Here is the truth about Muslims in America. Before 9/11 the Muslim population here consisted largely of educated professionals, i.e. doctors, etc. For decades they were a fairly conservative group. The problem today is that 80% of the Muslims in America only arrived after 9/11. They came in huge numbers due to lax immigration enforcement, and they were from a much lower population segment than our established Muslim population. Unlike the existing American Muslim community, who followed the same path as many other immigrant groups, many of these people have no loyalty to, or affinity with, the United States and are far less likely to assimilate, and much more likely to be on the dole, leaving us with a festering problem. The result is already apparent in places like New York City and Minnesota. We simply can no longer afford to admit people in this country who are unlikely to assimilate, have no visible means of support, and little appreciation of the American way of life. We can no longer circumscribe the vast majority of people in order to avoid offending such people. We are not the ones who need to change; they are.

What must be done

So how should we proceed against the Forever War waged against us? In the current conflict there is a simple problem. The Iranian fanatics intend to get a nuclear weapon unless we stop them. If they do, these true believers will not hesitate to use it. Even if you detest the man, the Trump administration has shown the way, unlike past bungling. You would never know this from the hostile media, but from a more detached standpoint the strategy has been brilliant. Casualties have been very low, at a level that is often reflected in military accidents.

The only real mistake so far was not laying out the strategy at the beginning and making the case for the ensuing actions. Otherwise the successful destruction of much of the regime has been impressive, eliminating much of their military capabilities, including their entire Navy and Air Force. The fanatics will not give up easily, but the administration has again applied a smart strategy of destroying them financially, to the point where they cannot pay their troops, or eventually continue to repress their increasingly restive population.

So far this engagement has been executed successfully, and has nothing in common with past failures. We have learned from our mistakes. Now we must see it through until the regime is gone, once and for all, and anything short of that will be disastrous and self-defeating.

Then we must pursue the still very active terrorists. Why are they able to use the Internet to recruit and brainwash people? Surely we could disrupt this, override, and even knock it out. We must further disrupt them physically, for to the extent they are committed to attacking us we must get them first. This does not require a major military effort, but a war in the shadows conducted by a few expertly trained people.

Finally we must address the abysmal ignorance of so many people regarding our history and civilization, and the warped understanding that so many have absorbed. Our enemies have already managed to demoralize, or at the very least exhaust many people through their Forever War, in a country that was once singular in its buoyant optimism.

We must remain true to the memory of all those who perished on 9/11 and remain vigilant so that their deaths not be in vain. It could have been, and still could be you or your loved ones. We must overcome our attention deficit that demands short term solutions to long term problems. All those innocents who died that day are nothing less than modern martyrs for our way of life. In that spirit let us live our lives in a way that does justice to what was denied them.

INTERNET ADDICTION?

It is not necessary to have any sympathy for Zuckerberg to recognize how spurious the attempt, by a number of states, to sue Meta for virtually its entire market value is, for allegedly hooking young people on sites like Facebook. Never mind that if you mention it to any young people they will tell you that “Facebook is for old people.” This is a transparent attempt by politicians and lawyers to legally steal someone else’s resources, in a way that will primarily benefit themselves. This is based on the flawed notion that Meta has effectively hooked children on their site. This is wrong, and I’m going to tell you why. 

Assume for a minute that Meta didn’t exist. People, including the young, would still flock to something else, like Tik-Tok,  with the same results. That they may have taken some steps to maintain the attention of their customer  is hardly sinister or illegal. The thing is that getting people to keep scrolling is not restricted to a few companies; it is in fact characteristic of the whole internet. Yet it would be absurd to attribute this to some evil cabal when it is in fact people doing it themselves. 

Every site wants attention from more people and will try to maintain and expand its audience. I’ve yet to watch a Podcast (apart from something on YouTube), but increasing numbers of people are watching them, and the more outrageous and sensational a program is the more likely it is to attract viewers. It is just another conscious method on the part of providers to attract an audience. The reality is that social media, and the entire web, are driven in the same way. Are we now going to assign the government the task of controlling marketing? 

The truth is that the entire Internet is what hooks people of all ages. This is clearly obvious when you see people universally and constantly engaged with their screens. It’s not just social media sites; it’s everything. Take email. What about all the scrolling through that? Yet no one was deliberately compelled to this behavior, and that is true of almost any way the Worldwide Web is utilized. 

We have a problem, but it is hardly restricted to a couple of social media sites, or young people in particular. It is everyone, everywhere all the time, and it has serious consequences for other aspects of life that are more important, based upon the time wasted and deviation from purpose. The only way to mitigate this is for people to wake up to what they are doing and exert some self-control over how their time is being used. 

As far as children go it is primarily the responsibility of parents to address this, not someone else, and certainly not the state, notwithstanding “democratic socialist” impulses. Focusing on children obscures the problem. Of course some of it may be harmful to them, but such things as social pressure would be there regardless, whether handwritten or electronic. Anyone who has gone through high school over the last hundred years can understand this. 

What is warped and missing here is that this is a universal phenomenon, affecting people of all ages. Nor is it the Internet to blame, which after all, is just a neutral conveyor of information. It is us. It is our behavior overall. But it  didn’t have to be this way. I recall in the early days of public use in the 1990s, initially using plain old modems, and then the old Compuserve, where your identity was just a number, and you were charged for your usage by the hour or minute. (If that were still the case you would not see such a widespread waste of time, given the cost). 

Back then the prospects were wonderful. You could research and access information everywhere, saving countless hours of contacting multiple institutions, and I and others still primarily use it that way. It was a living encyclopedia. As a result, universities and research institutes were the first online. That was unfortunately followed by pornography, which seems to attach itself to anything new, going back to videotapes. No one anticipated social media then, until it sprung out of coarser use as the Worldwide Web unfolded and everyone came on board. Once it essentially became free, usage exploded. 

Thus the Internet itself and all the players in it are not to blame for where we are. It is how we have come to be engaged with it, which is to say our behavior. That is the real problem we face, and it is up to us to change.  

TIMES OF TROUBLE, TIMES OF HOPE

The successful Artemis moon venture, after so many dormant decades, brings back memories of the very first flight around the moon by Borman, Lovell, and Anders aboard Apollo 8. I remember being glued to the TV around the clock as continuous coverage brought us what was probably the most seminal moment in space flight. Witnessing it was an unforgettable, thrilling experience. 

It was the very first human flight beyond earth orbit. It was the first manned Saturn 5 launch. They were the first humans to see the dark side of the moon, and the first live television broadcast from above the moon. It proved the feasibility of lunar travel and set the stage for Apollo 11 landing on the surface half a year later. 

It all happened towards the end of 1968, the worst year in our modern history. It was a time of continuous strife and division; worse than that in our own time, which in many ways originated back then. It was a marvelous, inspirational coda to that terrible year. They witnessed something no other human had ever seen before- the earth rising in the distance over the surface of the moon (the picture above was taken at the time). After orbiting the moon, on Christmas Eve Commander Frank Borman, and then the other crew members began reading from the Book of Genesis during a live broadcast to the whole world. It was one of the most powerful moments in human history. They triumphantly returned to earth a few days later, having completed a flawless mission.

It was a year of enthusiastically watching 2001:A Space Odyssey in a Cinerama theater presentation, and the first Star Trek episodes on TV. It seemed as though the Space Age had truly arrived. But sadly, by the early 1970s the last moon missions were completed and things tapered off. One of the biggest disappointments in my lifetime was the passage of more than fifty years before anyone again ventured to the moon. 

But now at last we have the successful mission of Artemis II to once again inspire us, and this time it will not stop, as we embark on a new age of human space exploration and settlement. Once again in troubled times there is reason for hope as the momentum increases and a space-faring future lies before us.