In Too Deep

How could we do this to us?

It must be pretty tough being a regulator in today’s rapidly changing landscape – being tasked with balancing huge philosophical concerns while having absolutely no idea what is going on.

With recent advances in AI, a call to regulate has been made by prominent voices in the industry including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Geoffrey Hinton and of course, elite-level scholars like Grimes.

While the rest of America is trying to figure out which beer best fits their political views, the exact people who are literally creating the problem are imploring the government to stop one another.

That abomination right there is the result of me prompting Stable Diffusion to create a picture of Elon Musk in the style of Jim Carrey from the Mask. The world is right to think that the future is t̴̢̧̥͒e̸͍̭̬͑̈́r̷̗͗r̸͓͘ỉ̷̭̳̿f̶͚̤͠ÿ̶̧͖͑ǐ̸̺̠̻͊ń̴̢̢͉͂g̵̫͊.

The good news is that the world’s governments are still focused on the “important stuff”, like controlling “misinformation” and who should be punished when things inevitably go wrong.

Good stuff, right, but how do we continue to support an almost-entirely unregulated industry that’s sole purpose is 👀 informing you how to feel 👀 ? Perhaps the real issue is that this AI thing is something that may not be influenced by traditional means.

If you ask me, it’s all smoke and mirrors.

• Private money is going to do whatever it wants (at least, until it gets caught) and detecting post-deployment violations will be virtually impossible.

• Even the FDA, whose main concern is nearly as existential, relies mainly on audits due to the heavy burden of comprehensive preventive measures.

• Foreign governments that do not have the same disposition will let AI advancements run amok and no matter how you feel about AI, this is an arms race.

One of the worst possible outcomes would be the one where the government continues to allocate taxpayer money for its public-sector AI initiatives while stifling the innovation of other US-based companies for the sake of uncertainty.

Our only hope at that point might be that a foreign AI would say something unflattering about Xi Jinping and it would be put in a “timeout” to think about what it’s done.

Stick around and enjoy the show – it won’t be ending anytime soon. I do sincerely hope that Europe’s AI Act gets finalized with some sane guidance around privacy and infrastructure, but does not start to define how the AI behaves. Clearly the US will have a strong impetus to follow suit and perhaps we can narrowly avoid extinction after all.

For Your Consideration

Love him or hate him, Alan Watts was in the highest echelon for quotable soundbites.

The idea of self vs oneness, and simply bearing witness as a detached observer has been part of many philosophies, both spiritual and not. From Buddhism, to Hindu, to Stoicism – there are insights to be gained by detaching yourself to the idea of self, but rather bearing witness to the experience (and simply being present).

When I was young, I sought the benefits of meditation that were glamorized by the media. There was a sense that one could tap into an almost superhuman physical power with the right discipline and practice.

Turns out that the superhuman power that actually became available was the ability to control and calm the brain. Being truly present.

At the end of the day, that was a much more powerful muscle to strengthen.

Links and whatnot

• The AI Revolution could become the ‘Great Homogenization’

• OpenAI warned Microsoft that Bing Chat wasn’t ready

• Lessons from 11 years of hosting a SaaS Product

• Amazon still doesn’t understand tablets

• Reddit’s CEO wants you to know that he doesn’t care about your feedback

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