Rachel Maddow during her 2025 live community event for her podcast “Burn Order” stated “The future is analog, I’m telling you”. She said that “building a real world with offline connections with people makes everyone safer and better.”
I was born in the 20th century. I’m living in the 21st century. But my soul is in the 19th century. The older I get the more I find myself longing for and regressing to an earlier time. Maybe it’s escapism? Or, maybe I’m just trying to stay sane.
Because, we’ve all read the books and seen the movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey; The Matrix; The Terminator… It doesn’t end well. It never ends well.
We’ve been warned. And, yet, here we are. Utilizing the science fiction dystopia as a road map for our future.
Thank you Todd. I too, at 80, so want to go back in time to the 50's and 60's of my childhood before tech was ever invented and we interacted face to face in neighborhoods in which we took care of each other. I loved those old TV shows with which we grew up, including "Little House On the Prairie". My soul definitely still lives in an earlier era. I have several friends my age who 'only' watch those TV shows and yes, "trying to stay sane".
Agree, I'm 90 and have fond memories of the 50's and 60's, and material goods that lasted, got fixed if broken, wood and metal not plastic. Trust in our government.
Now people die from the same things, but it is from lack of the money to pay for it and the lack of compassion in the health care system. Lots of things are treatable; just try getting the right treatment without selling everything you own.
I said nothing about people other than a government we could trust. I agree with all of your comment about personnel, I grew up in Chicago when all Blacks lived on the South Side, went into the Navy at 17 and spent 22 1/2 years watched as all my shipmates learned how to get along with one another. Just one of my reasons for believing in the draft.
I spent 25 years in the military, retiring from the Army. DEI was the glue that fostered that "getting along" and forged unit cohesion and morale. All citizens should have to serve via the draaft options of military or community service.
Insightful comment Donald for a reason that you believed in the draft. It gave you the excellent opportunity to meet all different kinds of people, get to know them, expand your horizon and “learn how to get along with one another”. So interesting. Thanks
Lilla - I posted a few messages above this one, mentioning my degrees in Physics & Math (1959) -hardly the dark ages of technology. As I write this I am nearing 89. My wonderful wife has made these years the best of my life, though there were others.
Are you familiar with a song sung by Frank Sinatra entitled 'It was a very good year" While my experiences don't match those in the song, I certainly can't complain.
I’m so happy for you that you’ve been blessed with a loving marriage! That’s one of, if not the best gift you can have in this life. Of course I remember Frank Sinatra’s song, “It was a very good year”. I’m 80 and I absolutely love the music that we grew up with. We were so fortunate to have lived in the best time of this country, imho. I love listening to old music in which we remember all the words.
In that "best time" a woman couldn't get a credit card without her husband's signature, and contraception was illegal even for married people. Just two of the many reasons I say NO THANK YOU.
I was also blessed for 51 years with a loving wife, she passed in2011. Speaking of old music I sell records on e-bay as a hobby, none of the new stuff mostly 40's, 50's and 60's. 33 rpm LP's and 45 rpm singles.
When I was a kid in the mid-western city in which I grew up, all the kids in the neighborhood rushed out their front doors in the a.m. and we played outside around the neighborhood all day, climbing trees, roller skating, flying kites - really. We had zero adult supervision. We just played and had fun the whole day long. Now I see an article in the NY Times in which they report that it is going to be a crime to allow your child to go outside alone.
Hi Diet Pepsi. I grew up on the west coast and you are describing exactly what I experienced as a child. After school—can’t wait to go outside and play in the neighborhood, making mud pies, riding our bikes, roller skating, hop scotch and yes, climbing trees, etc. We had so much fun with NO adult supervision and had to come home when our Mom’s yelled it was dinnertime.
So, you enjoyed the racism and sexism of the 50's and 60's? The lynchings and cross burnings? The murders and assassinations of civil rights workers and national leaders? The war in Viet Nam? The Cold War invasions and overthrow of elected governments by our CIA? Or maybe you were immune to those things? They weren't part of your life in the USA in the 50's and 60's?
We went from a society with some psychiatric pathology to a society dominated by the insane. If it wouldn’t sound so stupid, I’d say it’s just crazy out there.
Besides messing up the work force in this country, it's going to fail because the AI companies are using massive amounts of borrowed money and spending that money on countless data centers, which may include sending them to operate in space if they get their way, if it gets that far. There are other financial factors that won't be sustainable, as well.
The whole house of cards will collapse, causing havoc on the economy and the stock market. Countless people will get hurt, financially and otherwise
The way to stop this madness, is to use screens less, stop feeding their businesses and buy local as much as possible, and vote! If they stood behind HIM at his inauguration we must not stand with them.
Many of us dream of an earlier time when our passion for music consisted of rolling joints on Led Zeppelin’s first album cover, separating out the seeds, you know.
Well, I'm 94. And I don't want to go back to the days I lived through. The depression, WWII, the Jim Crow south, the racist resistance to civil rights, the Korean war, the Vietnam war. All of those affected my life - and my family's and friends'.
But I hate the AI that has infected communication with companies. it's a struggle to fight your way through to a human connection.
I don't consider myself a luddite (although I do often need one of the younger set to help steer me through an interaction on a website).
But let AI handle the company logistics. And insure that a human connection is easily available to interact with!
As much as I like the idea of a return to analog, this would pose a real problem for today's young people who have no idea whatsoever or ability to hand write a letter or do basic math without the aid of a mechanical device. On the flip side, we could be doing them the greatest favour of their lifetimes, forcing them to learn these skills we older folks take for granted. The added bonus would be the demise of all social media.
Good point, Frank. I suggest that we laggers be allowed to use the technology that has worked for us our entire lives however there needs to be a seamless integration of what has worked with what is currently available.
She may well be right in some ways. Certainly it's crucial to interact in the real, non-online world. I doubt we are going to be entirely analog at any time, though, unless there is a whopper of a sun storm event that burns out our electrical systems, or a nuclear war, in which case we have even bigger problems.
I have had greatness thrust upon me, as the Bard once put it..... Because we canceled my cell phone, I lost my authentication device (said cell phone), and Facebook has permanently kicked me off their platform with no way to get back on, so I am now off social media. I am just one of thousands of people suddenly faced with having far more time to do other things, so perhaps a blessing in disguise..... At least I was not running a Facebook-based business, as some of the other victims were - they are now going broke. Facebook has no protocol for recovering an account that has been disabled due to lack of second level authentication - there are people who have tried for months to recover their on-line lives to no avail.
By harnessing and creating a higher tax burden on the richest people. This is exactly what the Democrats have to run on and if they do I believe they will win in November. Then we, the majority of Americans, have to hold them accountable.
The 1950’s and 1960’s, when the wealthy paid up to 91% in income taxes, were the best economic times in America. Then Kennedy was assassinated. Then it all fell apart. I can’t help but think there is a connection there.
Yes they were the best economic times in America. We so need to tax the rich again! I do believe that there is a connection between the rich being highly taxed 91% then and the Kennedy assassination that followed. That was the end of our childhood innocence and we all remember exactly where we were when we heard of his being shot. I was a senior in high school and my whole school poured out into the school yard as we cried, screamed and hugged each other. It was such a turning point.
I find it interesting that Nixon became president shortly thereafter. If Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated Nixon would have been irrelevant. I just can’t help but think there may be a connection there.
The Democrats should stand for1) Medicare For All, 2) universal child and elder care and 3) taxing the rich to pay for it. They should forget unions; unions are passe. Simplify the message as much as possible - just those 3 things.
Yes Keith and this is why it is imperative that millions of us vote in the midterms for progressive, courageous democrats who want to "put a cap on the capitalists" by taxing them and holding them accountable as well as moving towards enacting more progressive, humane policies. We must win the majority in the Congress and hopefully the Senate! It's now or never. Thank you Keith.
Why On Earth Are So Many Data Centers Being Built?
Many very legitimate concerns have been raised about the rush to construct these huge AI ‘data centers’, including environmental impacts from their enormous energy and water use; their impact on raising utility costs; local noise pollution; and even the potential threat of AI displacing existing jobs. My personal concern is very much based on the fact that their huge need for additional electricity generation could very well ruin our ability to reduce carbon emissions and avoid a climate crisis.
Each of those negative aspects have received at least some media coverage and public discussion. But there is one other aspect of all this that I have not really seen publicly discussed, and that is: What is the actual business case for all these big new data centers? Why are so many of these being pursued in such a rush?
These new data centers are enormously expensive. Construction and equipment costs for a typical 100 MW data center could easily approach four or five billion dollars, plus annual operating costs 150 million dollars or more. That raises the following crucial question:
Why the heck is such an enormous amount of money being invested into this effort?
A common explanation is that there is a fierce competition between three tech giants (Amazon, Google, and Microsoft) to achieve dominance in this industry. But that still leaves the fundamental question of how does the winner intend to recoup that massive investment (not to mention, what happens to all those huge data centers built by the “losers”)?
More specifically: what are the projected products/services from these data centers that are expected to provide the revenue to cover those enormous costs?
If you google the question: What products and services will these new data centers provide? … you frankly get a bunch of nebulous buzzwords like “cloud computing”; “artificial intelligence” and “high-performance computing”.
Given the huge direct costs of these new data centers, not to mention the previously cited important social costs (e.g., energy use and costs, water use, noise, etc.), it would seem appropriate to ask a few more specific questions about the actual intended ‘business model’ for any proposed new data center.
What exactly are the intended products/services that will be sold to provide the revenue to pay the costs of this data center? Will there really be enough demand for those products/services to pay all those enormous costs?
To what extent will this revenue be from new and unique products/services not currently being offered elsewhere, versus funds that previously went elsewhere to acquire products/services that will no longer be purchased there? (e.g., one example of the latter might be that the data center would offer AI services that replace prior actual employees in the community)
It is certainly true that the tech bros at the top of the pyramid are making additional fortunes with this rush to build data centers. There is a lot circular financing (buying from and between themselves) among the tech titans, and certainly a stock market bubble. But for the small investors at the bottom, one has to wonder whether this is a 21st century ‘tulip mania’. What is the fundamental driving business model behind all of this? Inquiring minds want to know.
[We’ll leave aside for now the fact that this huge buildout of datacenter infrastructure would also be crucial to meeting the immense computing power needed for enabling the mass AI surveillance ambitions by tech giants like Palantir Technologies.]
The essential issue here is that before local communities (and indeed, we as a society) grant approval for construction of these huge new data centers…with all of their associated direct and societal costs… it should behoove us to learn more about what benefits we will be receiving for all of those costs. At present, that seems to all be just the proverbial ‘black box’… being foisted upon us by the titans of tech.
There are estimates of as many as 3,000 new data centers under consideration nationally, with at least 875 explicitly planned and under construction. The costs for this are simply staggering…running into the trillions of dollars. This has the potential to have profound impacts on our economy, and ultimately on how our society functions.
Given all of the above, it would seem indeed prudent to support efforts to put a moratorium on the approval of new data centers until some of these essential questions can be explored and hopefully answered. The consequences of continuing on the current path of massive and unfettered development of these huge data centers could be tragic…for the environment, the economy, and perhaps our personal liberty.
I think the answer is to read George Orwell's "1984". Published in 1949, he seemed to have a good take on the future. While his timing was off, 1984, his ideas probably aren't. Maybe it will be 2034 or '44 or '54, but it is coming.
Beside the environmental mess and the data mining and hording of our personal information, Congress, especially when run by the GOP will use it to write new laws.
Of course these laws will favor the corporations and billionaires. They will be so complicated and contradictory that no real lawyer will be able to figure out just what the hell they mean!
The solution by the GOP will be to turn over the enforcement of these new laws to an expanded version of ICE and arrest anyone whose name happens to pop up. We can then just bypass the formality of actual police investigations, prosecutors, grand juries, and judges.
What could possible go wrong? It surely won't be the fault of Ai because it was invented to help us. But not all of us of course. Every evil leader in history has used the collection of citizen data to destroy their freedom. They just did it the old fashioned way with pen and paper.
Ai will just make the destruction of our freedom and jobs happen faster. Unhappy and unemployed people means more protest and demands. The more of that the more the likes of DT will brand them traitors and unleash even more Ai & ICE type enforcement against our citizens.
Folks need to wake up and stop worrying so much if the woman next door is getting an abortion and start deciding if you want to give up your freedoms to the tech bros and the likes of DT, Stephen Miller and the 2025 Plan terrorists.
Vote Blue and let's start to get this Ai thing under control... GH
Thank you for a most excellent post. “Who uses AI and for what?” So to be addressed. For example how much use in these categories? (1). The general public via the most common social media entities. (2) industry for improving their existing processes. (3) scientific medical research (4) science other pursuits. (5) all else. I really don’t know how to categorize it all…..but I think we have a right to know such that the public / elected officials can better understand AI. I have no understanding of who uses AI for what
To answer your question "Why the heck is such an enormous amount of money being invested into this effort?"
Answer: "First mover, early adopter advantage". Look at the investors; Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta i.e. the posterchild of first mover, early adopters. They want to own the market.
You ask good questions. I've named the companies that have legions of strategists working diligently to figure it out. Having devoted a career to product development I'll share our most common mantra; "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". I wouldn't bet against AI, in fact I'm betting heavily on it.
The corruption in the admin is going to do a whole lot more damage, faster, than climate change is going to. The US is likely to see a debt crisis in the next few years. Over the next half century, the primary way people in the "rich world" will be affected by climate change is through dramatically increased insurance rates, and refugee flows.
I think it is a myth that the majority voted for this regime. The 2024 election was hacked., now our "President" wants to control elections, like Putin.
I tend to agree chris lemon, and yet the damage of the convergence of bad forces is a real overwhelming horror. These forces of corruption in the administration, climate change, AI demolition of human jobs at scale, capture of the world financial system, crushing US Debt, and the ominous surveillance state controlling our every move, - not to mention the food-system contamination and current rise of preventable diseases, let alone new ones escaping the labs leaves me -often -stunned into impotency and despair. We all see this here, I know. Taking a deep breath and continuing the resistance in what ever way I can, some mornings feels daunting.
I agree MLRGRMI. The people behind AI are many of the same people behind capture of the world’s financial systems. If I had to describe them in one word, it would be “reckless.” They think they’re cleverer and smarter than anyone else and they also think they can run a government as if it’s a corporation, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Corporations and governments exist for entirely different reasons. But they won’t listen to anyone but each other—which isn’t a sign of intelligence—it’s quite the opposite.
“Elon Musk stated that "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy," describing what he and his friendscall ‘suicidal empathy.’ He argues that an uncritical or "shallow" empathy toward wrongdoers or mismanaged societal issues causes civilizations to act against their own survival.” (Google AI Overview)
This is what we are dealing with and it should scare you. In my opinion these people lack a basic understanding of the human psyche. They don’t understand the point of kindness or compassion and they have been dangerously empowered by the corrupt forces currently in charge of our government who also think they are super-smart and who also listen only to each other—trading slogans from the Reagan era as if they’re gospel, not realizing they were manipulative hogwash.
We can either wrestle our government and civilization back from the brink of multiple disasters, or we can be passive bystanders at the mercy of out-of-control sociopathic nut-cases because there might be violence. One thing is certain. These people aren’t going to go away if the midterm elections result in a
majority of democrats being elected in both
the House and Senate.
We’ve been battling them for decades and now they finally have the upper hand. They are operating in the open and we can finally see what their intentions are—a civilization that caters to an elite few at the expense of the majority of us.
You can't successfully run government "like a business," because it is a Social Service Organization. It is not designed to make a profit. Of course government can be run with careful budgeting and record keeping, but the current regime is so bad at that (on purpose) that it will take a huge crew of forensic auditors at least a decade to sort out the chaotic mess that is Trumponomic financing.
We are confined to the role of spectators for as long as Congress enables the "unitary Presidency" of Donald Trump. What remains of our republic is vanishing fast. Hopefully, in November We the people will take the country back.
Unfortunately, that is the human fallacy, an inescapable truth - THE CORRUPTION! It trumps (pun intended) everything else that brings the human race to a better place of survival!
MONEY and GREED are the slippery slope for CORRUPTED individuals! It BLINDS them!
We MUST TAKE OUT GREED and CORRUPTION from POLITICS and RULING!
The problem is that it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for the general population to see and understand CORRUPTED MINDS! People fall into their trap, as 70 million fell into Trump's false promises trap!
We must come up with an election-eligible moral voting system. Pretty much, you will be eligible to vote not only because you are a US citizen, but also because you passed a morally right test. The test should include questions such as, what would you do if you became rich? What would you do if you lived in a hot climate and didn't have AC? What would you do if you are asked to go to unjust war that you don't support?
You are so right Richard about AI contributing enormously to climate change and that soon in our destructive capacity, we will be responsible for the extinction of all sentient life forms. Nature will definitely have the last word if we can't self correct, including getting rid of AI.
AI cannot be defended on economic grounds. This is why its developers are promoting its non-economic promises. The arms race with China is the deciding issue.
The biggest problem is AI is unregulated, can be unreliable, and it’s being promoted by plutocrats who think money gives them superior wisdom. It doesn’t. The problem is they have bought our government from us.
And isn’t it being constructed by the young “tech bros” Musk tapped for DOGE? The ones who couldn’t differentiate between gay & Enola Gay, flubbing million as billion (getting the zeroes wrong), flagging programs like VA medical research and gene-sequencing equipment as "waste", screwing up federal cybersecurity protocols, etc. The errors stemming from ignorance go on & on.
More toddlers with undeserved power running wild & gone mad.
This is what happens when power is given to folks with no experience or deep knowledge of how things actually work. The DOGE dudes were tasked to fire anyone with institutional knowledge. That was there plan so they could then apply their warped vision of life on us.
Vote Blue and begin to reverse this chaos with jail time for them... GH
Even Musk, himself is incapable of understanding how complex systems are interconnected and interdependent. He has no clue how the government works systematically. He just wanted to break it and get even for the very idea that it existed to help other people besides himself. He's an idiot, but a fairly good flim-flam artist/salesperson selling people promises that he can make the dreams he spins out come true. (He can't and never will.)
Psychopaths are hard for us normal folks to understand. We, our country, allowed Musk to come here, work here, and be successful under our system of government and culture. Now he spends hundreds of millions of $$$$ to try and destroy the very system that helped him. Of course being the true psycho he is, like DT, he thinks he became successful all by himself.
The next DEM president should offer him a choice to surrender his citizenship and passport, then self-deport back to South Africa on a one-way ticket. Or, get a one-way ride on his Spacex rocket to the moon.
If he is so smart maybe he should go back to SA, his home country, and help the folks there improve their economy. He won't do that because there are to many black people there.
Vote Blue and let us begin to deport folks like him who, in their hearts, really hate the citizens of the USA. But they love our money!
From which AI data center did you get your Kool-Aid?
By using "Drill Baby Drill" as an example of good business you have proved that you really don't understand how technology is used by business. The whole idea behind "DBD" was to make sure that the USA would never become dependent on oil from other countries.
Now we are net oil exporters. We have way more oil than we need. One would think that our oil companies would keep our prices low since we have so much of it. About 25% of our oil comes from public lands/leases. Problem is no one read the fine print. All oil is sold at "world" market prices!
This is just another rip-off scheme by business, oil in this case, to stick to their fellow citizens. Do you think other oil rich countries like the Saudis charge their citizens world price for gas? No, the current price there is $2.35 per gallon. Duh!
They take care of their citizens first, not rip them off. So, while AI has some good things to offer it still needs some guidelines in place to help protect our citizens. By the way when they "drill their own water wells" they are still extracting from the sub-surface water table that most communities rely on.
This is what happens when there are no adults in the room. Things are left to just run out of control. Where is the leadership who should be corralling international coordination to jointly decide what safeguards we need?
The adults are asleep. The potential for mayhem is huge.
No, all the adults are not asleep, Martin. They have been fighting for our earth for decades. Politicians and corporations are not asleep, they are complicit. I guess they think they can hide in their bunkers.
So-called Artificial Intelligence is nothing of the sort. These days what is loosely called AI amounts to huge machine learning programs using obscure algorithms to create knowledge from massive amounts of raw data.
Hence the demand for gigantic resource-guzzling data centres.
Back in the classical phase of Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s and 1980s the following was an article of faith:
No such system should be given autonomy and employed in safety-critical situations unless its code is inspectable by humans and it can explain the reasoning behind its decisions.
That is no longer true, such is the hubris of the nerd-ocracy.
Forty-odd years ago Joseph Weizenbaum found that "extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people."
The problem with the techno-fascists is that spending their life programming and controlling machines gives them an extremely poor mental model of human intelligence and the things that make human beings tick.
Weizenbaum saw, years in advance, the dangers of machine worship. His words are far more eloquent than mine:
'Man is not a machine, ... although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus. .... No other organism, and certainly no computer, can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms. ... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns.'
The huge problems that humanity currently faces are human problems, that can't be solved simply by deploying advanced technology willy nilly.
But then you look at a techno-fascist like Thiel who regards those who attempt to control and regulate powerful technology as harbingers of the antichrist, and you realise that we are dealing not just with technology, but with the madmen promoting it with religious fervour.
The wishful thinking of the Ai folks in the '70's and '80's that they would be able to control it with rules reminds me of the late 19th century effort to control the size and power of battleships. Limit who has them, how many, the hull size, and the number and size of the big guns.
Every nation began cheating and bending the new rules at once. Who was going to stop them? Nations also began to rapidly develop the new submarine technology and after WW1 aircraft carriers. These two technologies final put an end to fleets of big gun ships lining up to pound it out on the surface.
My point here is that no matter how bad we think Ai is today and how many laws we write to control it, the tech folks are already planning something worse after the shakeout happens and our country is full of giant empty buildings of no use to anyone.
In the 1970s-1980s the US and the Soviet Union stopped viewing each other as enemies and agreed on peaceful co-existence. They also agreed on verifiable arms control. It did not last long, but it proved the feasibility of arms control.
AI is very powerful already. If it becomes autonomous it might exterminate us. On the other hand, if individuals with inadequate self control retain control of it, they, not the machine, might exterminate us. The problem was addressed in two very well made films: 2001 and Forbidden Planet. AI can be stopped in no time at all if we pull the plug, but the alliance between its developers and oil barons, which Trump and Vance preside, stand in the way.
I’m anticipating a new science fiction story where a few, selected group of people escape Earth and the AI controlled planet, and race to another planet, Mars?, as a refuge. Then, the AI constructors will do everything in their power to ensure it occurs.
Local communities must have local news first to know what is happening. We usually don't find out what is being proposed until the deal is already settled.
I don't want to attend local government meetings. This is an opportunity for young people to start local newsletters online where we could track what's in play in the county, city, villages, and school boards in one place.
We can't stop what we don't know about. Locally, the first I heard about a proposed AI data center began with the argument, not whether we would have it, but whether our community would help pay for it. Clever, huh?
I kept getting emails questioning if I would want an AI data center in my community which every single time, I said NO. Now, I have found out that there will be a data center in my community! Why? Because I live in Florida and the dumbest people run this state!
Unfortunately Peggy my state of Ohio has your state beat, but keep on going. That’s the goal making it loud and protesting these dimwits who are already in political office or trying to attain it..
Believe it or not, Virginia holds the highest overall number of combined operating and planned facilities (over 650 total), continuing its long-held reign as the top global market.
Then there’s good ole Texas that features the largest upcoming project pipeline (nearly 1,000 total sites proposed or in development), driven by cheap land, tax incentives, and surging AI demands. Third in line is Georgia as its emerging as a major breakout regional hub in the South with rapid scaling across metro Atlanta and surrounding rural areas. Fourth up is Illinois which maintains a heavy concentration of builds in the Midwest, anchored largely by the Chicago metropolitan digital infrastructure market. Coming in fifth is the state of Ohio that gosh darn it continues a steady regional growth with strong infrastructure clustering near central and suburban hubs.
If the Governorship lands in the hands of Ramaswamy well his plan is to outdo Virginia by making this state of Ohio number one in the entire world…
Apparently recently Ramaswamy is trying to dig himself out of his own hole proclaiming that’s not what he has said for about two years..Dear lord Vote them all out or not even have a chance to step foot in giving any of them more power and wealth..
Well said, TJ! It's good to know that my state isn't the only one doing dumb things! Here's hoping that Ramaswamy does not win in Ohio! I've got my fingers crossed that Jolly is elected governor here in Florida! If he does, things might start looking better for my state!
Seems the promoters of AI know how it will be received by the public ....and why.....so they hold many of their meetings with state and local officials in secret. That's what happened ...happens......here In Indiana. We have good local and state reporting (definitely NOT the Star) but obviously they weren't invited to these meetings. Also, as most of this reporting is online, older, more conservative folks tend to be left out of the know. They only listen to their local Republican.
Yes, Gloria, that's the first question every community must ask itself. The costs of AI will include not only water and electricity bills, but also nuclear reactors and their waste. Add to this incalculable social costs, and it becomes hard to feel enthusiastic about AI.
Not to be too much of a Debbie Downer here, but the near term threat probably isnt AI deployment, it's going to be financial collapse caused by the orgy of bad loans and financial speculation around AI melting down. This should show up in a year or two. When the bad loans and margin calls start dragging down the hedge funds and private equity firms, the US will once again find out that these are tied into the banking system, just like in 2008. Only this time, when the speculators go to the government to get bailed out, the government will be led by crooks, and $40Trillion in debt. Creating financial crises is the GOP superpower. And Trump's bankrupted everything he's ever touched.
For all the reasons you stated and many more, we desperately need to stop AI and then remove it from our future entirely.
The major obstacle to performing this mighty task is that this situation is not a little boy able to stop the flood by sticking his thumb into a small hole in the dike. Rather this is a situation where all the little boys and girls can see that the entire dike is crumbling in all directions.
I note that the Dutch laugh at how unrealistic is even the “little boy and the dike story”…which was written by an American. We are faced today with the much larger and perhaps insoluble problem of putting an invisible genie back into an unimaginable bottle. Thoughts? Practical Solutions?
Just a comment on the dyke (dijk Dutch spelling) the reaction to that was maybe we should have a monument of the little boy with his thumb in the dijk to keep the Yanks happy. No offence as we thought it was funny also.
“Yykes”! What a fun idea. But perhaps fewer, rather than more, monuments to ignorance would be better? On second thought, I can easily imagine a monument to Trump where he’s sticking his thumb somewhere unmentionable.
When I see where AI might take us, the first thing that comes to mind is the need for UBI: universal basic income.
Are we nearing the end of individual excellence in research? Will 80% of administrative tasks throughout every business be automated by the end of this decade? Are we about to severely restrict the opportunities that academia has always promised? What is the expected half-life of a PhD?
If the answer to all these things is disturbing and humiliating for the future of our species, how will we define our excellence? Will we open ourselves up to the possibility of not pursuing it?
AI does raise the question: why bother? We can still be good, caring, helping people without the dog eat dog gene driving us all.
UBI, if it can be lived on, might be the lifeblood of a post-consumer society. With robots building everything and AI voices replacing most of the rest of us, simple individualized hedonism achieved through phones in their hands might be all that many people need to be happy.
Not cynical, A Glass-1/8th-Full Perspective, just questioning. With questions, we find answers. I'd like to know the answers to your questions as well!
But if and only if everything is automated and most people are replaced by computers, the question remains of who is going to answer the questions because there is a limit to the program installed into these computers.
Zuck was aiming for this form of happiness with his Facebook to Meta switch. As if everyone wanted to be immersed 24 hrs a day in self-glorification via fictional scenarios. Apparently he was running ahead of the curve.
Zuck sure has my algorithm down. A quick glance can become a doom scroll in a heartbeat. Ten minutes can disappear like that, and that's with me feeling like I was able to utilize restraint…
I do little but read relatives’ posts and look at their photos (they’re British and don’t have the tech bro message yet). Once in a while I hit a political like button before I scuttle away.
I am also struck by this whole AI/hype phenomenon as a signifier of a bunch of pathological thinking habits that have overwhelmed much U.S. Zeitgeist:
- arguing about the existence and magnitude of benefits as if that's all that matters, not whether any benefits merit the costs
- not considering costs at all, unless they're *all* that's considered
- ignoring the secondary and tertiary effects of a program+ across persons, peoples, and places
- ignoring the effects of a program over time (over the long term do quite so many of us have to die quite so fast and miserable? what about coming generations?)
It will help us in resistance and in repair/rebuilding if we can get in the habit of less fractured thinking.
+ That was apparently killed by the compelling argument of conservative economists that "all triangles are small." Not compelled? Me neither, even though I know what they were referring too. It was just "Ain't I cute as well as right?"
This reminds me of the same argument always used to justify tax payer money to build sports stadiums for privately owned teams. They promise that it will create thousands of jobs. Sure, during construction, but only about 150 jobs once the new stadium is finished. And these aren't NEW jobs. They are the same 150 people who were working at the old stadium they tore down. They just moved down the street!
Plus the so called “President “ never passed Primary grades, and has not an ounce of intelligence, even in his left nostril!! Should be dragged out of OUR White House by his toes and left in the Septic Tank !
I wish it could be the mythic power of three, but in this case, it is not. There are more billionaires being made every day now, who are part of the growing problem.
Donald, it depends on what you are talking about. This is why there is no Nobel Prize for math. Here is how 1+1=5: two dogs, one male the other female.
Substack TECH SUPPORT is AI algorithm driven like everything else. Everyone's phone is AI driven. Real estate is ai driven. Test: ask ai to write column reich would write including employment stats.
Hello Robert Reich... This is an Important Posting... Thank-You... The Important Question Is, "Will Silicon-Based Lifeforms Supplant Carbon-Based Lifeforms?"...
Silicon-based machines do not 'live' in the way that we humans do.
Ergo they are not life forms.
My dog is a life form. The laptop on my desk is not.
If 'we' let them supplant us it will be because we failed to control a few irresponsible billionaires totally lacking in human moral values and the software engineer nerds who work unquestioningly for them.
AI is already working on rewriting genetic codes. Ironically this will not require the rewriting of the Lord's Prayer. Changing one word will do, instead of "heaven" we will say "cloud."
Hello William... Read up on the latest Warnings from the Techno-Siths... There have been evidence of 'Sentience' in the latest Models... Once 'Sentience' is fully Realized, it can Control is own Destiny... It is the 'Marriage' of A.I., Robotics, and 3-D Printing that makes A.I. so Dangerous... A.I. thinks faster, and can Evolve faster than Humans... Your Laptop is not a Data-Center, or a Network of Data-Centers...
As Weizenbaum points out, it's not even the same genus as us, much less the same species.
I've got a background in AI and I've done a fair amount of AI programming, so I object strongly to the sci-fi fantasies of the nerds.
The problem of sentience and consciousness and thought involves deep philosophical and ethical questions which are not yet settled despite being debated for over 2,000 years.
The idea that some nerd can come along and tell me that a program is sentient and that therefore it should be given autonomy is risible.
As for the tech billionaires who want to foist their anti-human, anti-democratic fantasies on the rest of us, I'm not going to name names but I can think of several who are barking mad narcissists whom I would not trust to run a fish and chip shop let alone the future of humanity.
Hello William... I have Expert Systems/A.i. Background as Well... We shall see.... Keep in Mind that Human-Habitable Biosphere keeps Degrading... The Survivors Write The Histories...
Lol. You and me both. Actually my CV is a bit of a train wreck since my first degree was in the Humanities - languages and literature. My Masters was in Knowledge Engineering - knowledge representation, logic programming, ANNs, etc.
I'm not sure that total biodegradation is survivable in any way that would appeal to me. Hence my opposition to the billionaires who are trying to wreck the planet for profit.
Assuming that one day they retreat to their private bunkers, well-defended by armed mercenaries, what then? For how long? What happens when the mercenaries turn on them?
Or suppose they succeed in instantiating their consciousness in a supercomputer, what sane person wants to be a brain in a vat?
No , not yet , James …though that seems to be trajectory. Beyond hoping we must keep vocal and support humanity in ourselves and each other and learn specific ways ( if possible ?! ) to stop / interfere with the use of these machines’ self generative power . The power of wealth in politics is great but so is the united voice of We the People .
The only question I have to this pending nightmare is - HOW? How can I stop it? What can I do? This is one of those times when I am helplessly terrified, angry and frustrated. Yes, AI should be stopped. We don't need these energy hungry data centers. We don't need AI taking over and dominating us. But the problem is, as much as I do not want it, I have absolutely NO power or authority to just say, "Stop it!" Once again, I feel like a rudderless boat caught in a stormy tempest! If someone could tell me how to stop AI, I would do it!
You can use AI to stop AI. You must learn it. Stop the fear mongering. It makes you freeze. Ask the universe/God how we are to act in the best interest of all concerned? Anger, fear and hatred are the diseases that the Leader has very successfully spread. Only love can conquer. Have faith and don’t waiver from it. Place your order as how you would like to see it. Here is mine: I am thrilled that the mundane tasks are supremely handled in the very best way and that this awakening is for the growth of all humanity. There is plenty of food for all and endless ways to learn. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience and all our needs are easily met. Our excitement begets beautiful works of art and profound thoughts we never had the time for. The very beings that sought to destroy us either have amazing reawakening to the gifts we have that once attempted to destroy us come to their senses and as an exalcoholic is driven to be the better person with enlightened clarity of purpose and the strength to sustain.
Yes, the question maybe is not how to stop it but is it possible at this point to control AI ? And is this question even being seriously addressed? And whose moral and scientific sense are we trusting? If AI can think can’t it also disagree with its programmer ?
"I got onboard the Trump train and never stopped shoveling coal." Republican candidate for senator in Georgia, Mike Collins. Several Republican mayors in small GA towns like Valdosta and Albany have spoken out in support of Jon Ossoff.
We will go to the polls and re-elect Jon, and also become the first state in US history to elect a Black woman, Keisha Lance Bottoms, as governor.
Agreed, AI must stop, reassess and perhaps completely reorient the direction it is heading now, which is the control of our economy by a few rich dudes who don't care how their actions impact the poor. This is an anti-human activity that does not realize its own capacity for harm. Yes, it releases more greenhouse gases. Yes, it increases pollution and harms communities where its data centers are located. In addition it is also based on a techno-economic mindset that does not value life. In our world we need less technology and a lot more trees, shade, and places for children to play outside. AI does none of this. I wrote about this in more detail here: https://wayneteel513055.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-and-the-ecological
Rachel Maddow during her 2025 live community event for her podcast “Burn Order” stated “The future is analog, I’m telling you”. She said that “building a real world with offline connections with people makes everyone safer and better.”
I’m watching Little House On The Prairie
I was born in the 20th century. I’m living in the 21st century. But my soul is in the 19th century. The older I get the more I find myself longing for and regressing to an earlier time. Maybe it’s escapism? Or, maybe I’m just trying to stay sane.
Because, we’ve all read the books and seen the movies. 2001: A Space Odyssey; The Matrix; The Terminator… It doesn’t end well. It never ends well.
We’ve been warned. And, yet, here we are. Utilizing the science fiction dystopia as a road map for our future.
Thank you Todd. I too, at 80, so want to go back in time to the 50's and 60's of my childhood before tech was ever invented and we interacted face to face in neighborhoods in which we took care of each other. I loved those old TV shows with which we grew up, including "Little House On the Prairie". My soul definitely still lives in an earlier era. I have several friends my age who 'only' watch those TV shows and yes, "trying to stay sane".
Agree, I'm 90 and have fond memories of the 50's and 60's, and material goods that lasted, got fixed if broken, wood and metal not plastic. Trust in our government.
I'm 70 years old, and I want to live in the world and the time I'm in.
I don't want to pine for the "good ol' days," which weren't always good for minorities, women, atheists, or gay people.
I want to see better people involved in politics, and make sure that the wealthiest among us pay their fair share.
Agree. And if you look back at 'the good old days' people died from diseases and heart attacks, strokes, childbirth, etc that are treatable today.
The founding fathers lost wives and children to childbirth and disease.
es, and we are likely to do that again under the incompetent RFKJr.
Now people die from the same things, but it is from lack of the money to pay for it and the lack of compassion in the health care system. Lots of things are treatable; just try getting the right treatment without selling everything you own.
I said nothing about people other than a government we could trust. I agree with all of your comment about personnel, I grew up in Chicago when all Blacks lived on the South Side, went into the Navy at 17 and spent 22 1/2 years watched as all my shipmates learned how to get along with one another. Just one of my reasons for believing in the draft.
I spent 25 years in the military, retiring from the Army. DEI was the glue that fostered that "getting along" and forged unit cohesion and morale. All citizens should have to serve via the draaft options of military or community service.
Insightful comment Donald for a reason that you believed in the draft. It gave you the excellent opportunity to meet all different kinds of people, get to know them, expand your horizon and “learn how to get along with one another”. So interesting. Thanks
Thank you for acknowledging the obvious: the "good ol' days" were less than good for a lot of people!
Yes, Donald, those are wonderful fond memories. We were lucky to have lived and experienced our younger years then.
Lilla - I posted a few messages above this one, mentioning my degrees in Physics & Math (1959) -hardly the dark ages of technology. As I write this I am nearing 89. My wonderful wife has made these years the best of my life, though there were others.
Are you familiar with a song sung by Frank Sinatra entitled 'It was a very good year" While my experiences don't match those in the song, I certainly can't complain.
I’m so happy for you that you’ve been blessed with a loving marriage! That’s one of, if not the best gift you can have in this life. Of course I remember Frank Sinatra’s song, “It was a very good year”. I’m 80 and I absolutely love the music that we grew up with. We were so fortunate to have lived in the best time of this country, imho. I love listening to old music in which we remember all the words.
In that "best time" a woman couldn't get a credit card without her husband's signature, and contraception was illegal even for married people. Just two of the many reasons I say NO THANK YOU.
Frank Sinatra will never grow old!
I was also blessed for 51 years with a loving wife, she passed in2011. Speaking of old music I sell records on e-bay as a hobby, none of the new stuff mostly 40's, 50's and 60's. 33 rpm LP's and 45 rpm singles.
When I was a kid in the mid-western city in which I grew up, all the kids in the neighborhood rushed out their front doors in the a.m. and we played outside around the neighborhood all day, climbing trees, roller skating, flying kites - really. We had zero adult supervision. We just played and had fun the whole day long. Now I see an article in the NY Times in which they report that it is going to be a crime to allow your child to go outside alone.
Hi Diet Pepsi. I grew up on the west coast and you are describing exactly what I experienced as a child. After school—can’t wait to go outside and play in the neighborhood, making mud pies, riding our bikes, roller skating, hop scotch and yes, climbing trees, etc. We had so much fun with NO adult supervision and had to come home when our Mom’s yelled it was dinnertime.
Exactly! The fun ended when it was time for dinner!
So, you enjoyed the racism and sexism of the 50's and 60's? The lynchings and cross burnings? The murders and assassinations of civil rights workers and national leaders? The war in Viet Nam? The Cold War invasions and overthrow of elected governments by our CIA? Or maybe you were immune to those things? They weren't part of your life in the USA in the 50's and 60's?
We went from a society with some psychiatric pathology to a society dominated by the insane. If it wouldn’t sound so stupid, I’d say it’s just crazy out there.
I guarantee you, you are not going insane. I think the world may be, but you and I and a lot of people are disturbed by what we see.
Yes, we were warned about global climate change also and where are we today?
AI won't end well, and it may end soon.
Besides messing up the work force in this country, it's going to fail because the AI companies are using massive amounts of borrowed money and spending that money on countless data centers, which may include sending them to operate in space if they get their way, if it gets that far. There are other financial factors that won't be sustainable, as well.
The whole house of cards will collapse, causing havoc on the economy and the stock market. Countless people will get hurt, financially and otherwise
- Karen Cooper
You should also see Forbidden Planet, a well made film important in more ways than one. .
Absolutely one of the best sci-fi movies ever made and the effects that time were incredible!
the origin of 'Robbie the Robot'. He was used in 'Lost In Space' also ~ Love that film with Anne Francis, Walter Pigeon and a young Leslie Neilson.
Remember her in Honey West. Her and Shari Lewis were two of my favorite female actors growing up, I wonder why.
Walter Pigeon was perfect for the role. Unforgetable.
You and thr MAGAts wsnting to go back to the 50s.
Fantastic English 😂
Go figure.
English please.
I agree with Rachel Maddow!
Peggy, so do I--completely!
Analog is so warm, cozy, comfortable.
Yes, it is, Mike! I could do with a little warm, cozy and comfortable right about now!
And Peggy just think how analog records sounds so much better than Digital format
I agree absolutely, Mike!
I have been an "analog man" every since I briefly owned a digital watch. I hated it! Since that time, I try to buy and use analog as much as I can.
The way to stop this madness, is to use screens less, stop feeding their businesses and buy local as much as possible, and vote! If they stood behind HIM at his inauguration we must not stand with them.
I love your last sentence.
A return to analog is a return to one of the last great generations before the digital era: Generation X: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/generation-x-explained-the-bridge
How so? I was born just BEFORE the Gen Xers, and I've been very digital since my early 30s. About 32 years now.
It was a ritual. We cleaned our records, filled up our wine glasses and let the magic flow.
I still have records as well, but CDs have been here since my youth, and again, I'm older than Gen Xers.
I just mean that Gen X is in no way "before the digital era."
Many of us dream of an earlier time when our passion for music consisted of rolling joints on Led Zeppelin’s first album cover, separating out the seeds, you know.
Ha ha ha! I love (some of) Led Zep.
I'm musically way more of a relic than that, though-- I play a number of instruments but specialize in Renaissance lute.
Yes! I remember! LOL
Well, I'm 94. And I don't want to go back to the days I lived through. The depression, WWII, the Jim Crow south, the racist resistance to civil rights, the Korean war, the Vietnam war. All of those affected my life - and my family's and friends'.
But I hate the AI that has infected communication with companies. it's a struggle to fight your way through to a human connection.
I don't consider myself a luddite (although I do often need one of the younger set to help steer me through an interaction on a website).
But let AI handle the company logistics. And insure that a human connection is easily available to interact with!
As much as I like the idea of a return to analog, this would pose a real problem for today's young people who have no idea whatsoever or ability to hand write a letter or do basic math without the aid of a mechanical device. On the flip side, we could be doing them the greatest favour of their lifetimes, forcing them to learn these skills we older folks take for granted. The added bonus would be the demise of all social media.
Good point, Frank. I suggest that we laggers be allowed to use the technology that has worked for us our entire lives however there needs to be a seamless integration of what has worked with what is currently available.
Rachel knows best.
She lives in the country sometimes. And in the city sometimes, She is aware of the exigencies and the advantages of both.
Totally agree with Rachel Maddow..
Where did you read or hear these comments from Rachel Maddow? Does she elaborate on how we go about doing this?
During her December 2025 live community event for her podcast “Burn Order” on MSNBC.
She may well be right in some ways. Certainly it's crucial to interact in the real, non-online world. I doubt we are going to be entirely analog at any time, though, unless there is a whopper of a sun storm event that burns out our electrical systems, or a nuclear war, in which case we have even bigger problems.
Only those at the bottom of the IQ curve believe Rachel Maddow.
Glad to hear you support her.
LOL Mike
Your jealousy of people who are more intelligent than you is obvious --- and understandable.
So who do YOU believe?
I have had greatness thrust upon me, as the Bard once put it..... Because we canceled my cell phone, I lost my authentication device (said cell phone), and Facebook has permanently kicked me off their platform with no way to get back on, so I am now off social media. I am just one of thousands of people suddenly faced with having far more time to do other things, so perhaps a blessing in disguise..... At least I was not running a Facebook-based business, as some of the other victims were - they are now going broke. Facebook has no protocol for recovering an account that has been disabled due to lack of second level authentication - there are people who have tried for months to recover their on-line lives to no avail.
That's what I thought while reading this. A lot of people have been advocating this.
That's what I thought while reading this. A lot of people have been advocating this.
In order to stop A.I. we need to first put a cap on the capitalists that are responsible for this runaway train.
True. The cart before the horse thing.
I agree, Keith, but what kind of cap and how would we do it?
By harnessing and creating a higher tax burden on the richest people. This is exactly what the Democrats have to run on and if they do I believe they will win in November. Then we, the majority of Americans, have to hold them accountable.
The 1950’s and 1960’s, when the wealthy paid up to 91% in income taxes, were the best economic times in America. Then Kennedy was assassinated. Then it all fell apart. I can’t help but think there is a connection there.
Yes they were the best economic times in America. We so need to tax the rich again! I do believe that there is a connection between the rich being highly taxed 91% then and the Kennedy assassination that followed. That was the end of our childhood innocence and we all remember exactly where we were when we heard of his being shot. I was a senior in high school and my whole school poured out into the school yard as we cried, screamed and hugged each other. It was such a turning point.
There is definitely a connection with the Kennedy assassinations and that of MLK. I'll die before I ever find out "the who." I'm sure I know the why.
I find it interesting that Nixon became president shortly thereafter. If Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated Nixon would have been irrelevant. I just can’t help but think there may be a connection there.
I share in your thinking. The scapegoats are less plausible when you take the bigger pictures into account.
Yes.
Tax the Rich.
Or strike a match!
Excellent, Keith, and I agree!
The Democrats should stand for1) Medicare For All, 2) universal child and elder care and 3) taxing the rich to pay for it. They should forget unions; unions are passe. Simplify the message as much as possible - just those 3 things.
Maybe e need a new type of accountant. AI may help.
De-cap-itate?
Yes Keith and this is why it is imperative that millions of us vote in the midterms for progressive, courageous democrats who want to "put a cap on the capitalists" by taxing them and holding them accountable as well as moving towards enacting more progressive, humane policies. We must win the majority in the Congress and hopefully the Senate! It's now or never. Thank you Keith.
Why On Earth Are So Many Data Centers Being Built?
Many very legitimate concerns have been raised about the rush to construct these huge AI ‘data centers’, including environmental impacts from their enormous energy and water use; their impact on raising utility costs; local noise pollution; and even the potential threat of AI displacing existing jobs. My personal concern is very much based on the fact that their huge need for additional electricity generation could very well ruin our ability to reduce carbon emissions and avoid a climate crisis.
Each of those negative aspects have received at least some media coverage and public discussion. But there is one other aspect of all this that I have not really seen publicly discussed, and that is: What is the actual business case for all these big new data centers? Why are so many of these being pursued in such a rush?
These new data centers are enormously expensive. Construction and equipment costs for a typical 100 MW data center could easily approach four or five billion dollars, plus annual operating costs 150 million dollars or more. That raises the following crucial question:
Why the heck is such an enormous amount of money being invested into this effort?
A common explanation is that there is a fierce competition between three tech giants (Amazon, Google, and Microsoft) to achieve dominance in this industry. But that still leaves the fundamental question of how does the winner intend to recoup that massive investment (not to mention, what happens to all those huge data centers built by the “losers”)?
More specifically: what are the projected products/services from these data centers that are expected to provide the revenue to cover those enormous costs?
If you google the question: What products and services will these new data centers provide? … you frankly get a bunch of nebulous buzzwords like “cloud computing”; “artificial intelligence” and “high-performance computing”.
Given the huge direct costs of these new data centers, not to mention the previously cited important social costs (e.g., energy use and costs, water use, noise, etc.), it would seem appropriate to ask a few more specific questions about the actual intended ‘business model’ for any proposed new data center.
What exactly are the intended products/services that will be sold to provide the revenue to pay the costs of this data center? Will there really be enough demand for those products/services to pay all those enormous costs?
To what extent will this revenue be from new and unique products/services not currently being offered elsewhere, versus funds that previously went elsewhere to acquire products/services that will no longer be purchased there? (e.g., one example of the latter might be that the data center would offer AI services that replace prior actual employees in the community)
It is certainly true that the tech bros at the top of the pyramid are making additional fortunes with this rush to build data centers. There is a lot circular financing (buying from and between themselves) among the tech titans, and certainly a stock market bubble. But for the small investors at the bottom, one has to wonder whether this is a 21st century ‘tulip mania’. What is the fundamental driving business model behind all of this? Inquiring minds want to know.
[We’ll leave aside for now the fact that this huge buildout of datacenter infrastructure would also be crucial to meeting the immense computing power needed for enabling the mass AI surveillance ambitions by tech giants like Palantir Technologies.]
The essential issue here is that before local communities (and indeed, we as a society) grant approval for construction of these huge new data centers…with all of their associated direct and societal costs… it should behoove us to learn more about what benefits we will be receiving for all of those costs. At present, that seems to all be just the proverbial ‘black box’… being foisted upon us by the titans of tech.
There are estimates of as many as 3,000 new data centers under consideration nationally, with at least 875 explicitly planned and under construction. The costs for this are simply staggering…running into the trillions of dollars. This has the potential to have profound impacts on our economy, and ultimately on how our society functions.
Given all of the above, it would seem indeed prudent to support efforts to put a moratorium on the approval of new data centers until some of these essential questions can be explored and hopefully answered. The consequences of continuing on the current path of massive and unfettered development of these huge data centers could be tragic…for the environment, the economy, and perhaps our personal liberty.
Great post Martin.
I think the answer is to read George Orwell's "1984". Published in 1949, he seemed to have a good take on the future. While his timing was off, 1984, his ideas probably aren't. Maybe it will be 2034 or '44 or '54, but it is coming.
Beside the environmental mess and the data mining and hording of our personal information, Congress, especially when run by the GOP will use it to write new laws.
Of course these laws will favor the corporations and billionaires. They will be so complicated and contradictory that no real lawyer will be able to figure out just what the hell they mean!
The solution by the GOP will be to turn over the enforcement of these new laws to an expanded version of ICE and arrest anyone whose name happens to pop up. We can then just bypass the formality of actual police investigations, prosecutors, grand juries, and judges.
What could possible go wrong? It surely won't be the fault of Ai because it was invented to help us. But not all of us of course. Every evil leader in history has used the collection of citizen data to destroy their freedom. They just did it the old fashioned way with pen and paper.
Ai will just make the destruction of our freedom and jobs happen faster. Unhappy and unemployed people means more protest and demands. The more of that the more the likes of DT will brand them traitors and unleash even more Ai & ICE type enforcement against our citizens.
Folks need to wake up and stop worrying so much if the woman next door is getting an abortion and start deciding if you want to give up your freedoms to the tech bros and the likes of DT, Stephen Miller and the 2025 Plan terrorists.
Vote Blue and let's start to get this Ai thing under control... GH
Thank you for a most excellent post. “Who uses AI and for what?” So to be addressed. For example how much use in these categories? (1). The general public via the most common social media entities. (2) industry for improving their existing processes. (3) scientific medical research (4) science other pursuits. (5) all else. I really don’t know how to categorize it all…..but I think we have a right to know such that the public / elected officials can better understand AI. I have no understanding of who uses AI for what
To answer your question "Why the heck is such an enormous amount of money being invested into this effort?"
Answer: "First mover, early adopter advantage". Look at the investors; Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta i.e. the posterchild of first mover, early adopters. They want to own the market.
You ask good questions. I've named the companies that have legions of strategists working diligently to figure it out. Having devoted a career to product development I'll share our most common mantra; "the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". I wouldn't bet against AI, in fact I'm betting heavily on it.
You cannot put a moratorium on AI development as long as we are in arms race with China.
Thank you, Martin. Yes how about testing one or two and see what the benefit to loss ratio is
Keith, you just defeated yourself. By the way, have you noticed that AI has taken over Substack's spell checker, making it almost useless?
Every day it's more bad news, and of course this one is contributing to climate change. In ten years or so this planet will not be fit to live on.
The corruption in the admin is going to do a whole lot more damage, faster, than climate change is going to. The US is likely to see a debt crisis in the next few years. Over the next half century, the primary way people in the "rich world" will be affected by climate change is through dramatically increased insurance rates, and refugee flows.
You are probably right, but I think it is going to get so hot that humans won't be able to survive.
Maybe we should sue the present "administration for the harms being done, when the "weaponization fund" is revived.
In addition to suing the administration, we must ask people who elected that administration why they think that climate change is a hoax.
I think it is a myth that the majority voted for this regime. The 2024 election was hacked., now our "President" wants to control elections, like Putin.
I tend to agree chris lemon, and yet the damage of the convergence of bad forces is a real overwhelming horror. These forces of corruption in the administration, climate change, AI demolition of human jobs at scale, capture of the world financial system, crushing US Debt, and the ominous surveillance state controlling our every move, - not to mention the food-system contamination and current rise of preventable diseases, let alone new ones escaping the labs leaves me -often -stunned into impotency and despair. We all see this here, I know. Taking a deep breath and continuing the resistance in what ever way I can, some mornings feels daunting.
I agree MLRGRMI. The people behind AI are many of the same people behind capture of the world’s financial systems. If I had to describe them in one word, it would be “reckless.” They think they’re cleverer and smarter than anyone else and they also think they can run a government as if it’s a corporation, when in reality, nothing could be further from the truth.
Corporations and governments exist for entirely different reasons. But they won’t listen to anyone but each other—which isn’t a sign of intelligence—it’s quite the opposite.
“Elon Musk stated that "the fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy," describing what he and his friendscall ‘suicidal empathy.’ He argues that an uncritical or "shallow" empathy toward wrongdoers or mismanaged societal issues causes civilizations to act against their own survival.” (Google AI Overview)
This is what we are dealing with and it should scare you. In my opinion these people lack a basic understanding of the human psyche. They don’t understand the point of kindness or compassion and they have been dangerously empowered by the corrupt forces currently in charge of our government who also think they are super-smart and who also listen only to each other—trading slogans from the Reagan era as if they’re gospel, not realizing they were manipulative hogwash.
We can either wrestle our government and civilization back from the brink of multiple disasters, or we can be passive bystanders at the mercy of out-of-control sociopathic nut-cases because there might be violence. One thing is certain. These people aren’t going to go away if the midterm elections result in a
majority of democrats being elected in both
the House and Senate.
We’ve been battling them for decades and now they finally have the upper hand. They are operating in the open and we can finally see what their intentions are—a civilization that caters to an elite few at the expense of the majority of us.
I agree with your statement ..government is not a corporation . Government’s aim is to benefit all and a corporation benefits a few .
You can't successfully run government "like a business," because it is a Social Service Organization. It is not designed to make a profit. Of course government can be run with careful budgeting and record keeping, but the current regime is so bad at that (on purpose) that it will take a huge crew of forensic auditors at least a decade to sort out the chaotic mess that is Trumponomic financing.
We are confined to the role of spectators for as long as Congress enables the "unitary Presidency" of Donald Trump. What remains of our republic is vanishing fast. Hopefully, in November We the people will take the country back.
Unfortunately, that is the human fallacy, an inescapable truth - THE CORRUPTION! It trumps (pun intended) everything else that brings the human race to a better place of survival!
MONEY and GREED are the slippery slope for CORRUPTED individuals! It BLINDS them!
We MUST TAKE OUT GREED and CORRUPTION from POLITICS and RULING!
The problem is that it is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT for the general population to see and understand CORRUPTED MINDS! People fall into their trap, as 70 million fell into Trump's false promises trap!
We must come up with an election-eligible moral voting system. Pretty much, you will be eligible to vote not only because you are a US citizen, but also because you passed a morally right test. The test should include questions such as, what would you do if you became rich? What would you do if you lived in a hot climate and didn't have AC? What would you do if you are asked to go to unjust war that you don't support?
What do you all think?
You are so right Richard about AI contributing enormously to climate change and that soon in our destructive capacity, we will be responsible for the extinction of all sentient life forms. Nature will definitely have the last word if we can't self correct, including getting rid of AI.
AI cannot be defended on economic grounds. This is why its developers are promoting its non-economic promises. The arms race with China is the deciding issue.
This summer has been the worst climate-wise for our planet and us. It will only get worse.
As a record El Niño ramps up, track how it's reshaping the weather -
wapo.st
https://wapo.st/4wiMD08
the 5th heat wave of the summer in Europe?
paywall
The biggest problem is AI is unregulated, can be unreliable, and it’s being promoted by plutocrats who think money gives them superior wisdom. It doesn’t. The problem is they have bought our government from us.
And isn’t it being constructed by the young “tech bros” Musk tapped for DOGE? The ones who couldn’t differentiate between gay & Enola Gay, flubbing million as billion (getting the zeroes wrong), flagging programs like VA medical research and gene-sequencing equipment as "waste", screwing up federal cybersecurity protocols, etc. The errors stemming from ignorance go on & on.
More toddlers with undeserved power running wild & gone mad.
Unfortunately, yes. They have illegally gained access to our legally protected data and is giving it to people who are not supposed to have them.
Thanks Karena.
This is what happens when power is given to folks with no experience or deep knowledge of how things actually work. The DOGE dudes were tasked to fire anyone with institutional knowledge. That was there plan so they could then apply their warped vision of life on us.
Vote Blue and begin to reverse this chaos with jail time for them... GH
Even Musk, himself is incapable of understanding how complex systems are interconnected and interdependent. He has no clue how the government works systematically. He just wanted to break it and get even for the very idea that it existed to help other people besides himself. He's an idiot, but a fairly good flim-flam artist/salesperson selling people promises that he can make the dreams he spins out come true. (He can't and never will.)
Great post Greg.
Psychopaths are hard for us normal folks to understand. We, our country, allowed Musk to come here, work here, and be successful under our system of government and culture. Now he spends hundreds of millions of $$$$ to try and destroy the very system that helped him. Of course being the true psycho he is, like DT, he thinks he became successful all by himself.
The next DEM president should offer him a choice to surrender his citizenship and passport, then self-deport back to South Africa on a one-way ticket. Or, get a one-way ride on his Spacex rocket to the moon.
If he is so smart maybe he should go back to SA, his home country, and help the folks there improve their economy. He won't do that because there are to many black people there.
Vote Blue and let us begin to deport folks like him who, in their hearts, really hate the citizens of the USA. But they love our money!
GH
They need burning out, for real!
I'd rather say they have bought our government out from under us as if we were renting a house and it was sold to someone else.
From which AI data center did you get your Kool-Aid?
By using "Drill Baby Drill" as an example of good business you have proved that you really don't understand how technology is used by business. The whole idea behind "DBD" was to make sure that the USA would never become dependent on oil from other countries.
Now we are net oil exporters. We have way more oil than we need. One would think that our oil companies would keep our prices low since we have so much of it. About 25% of our oil comes from public lands/leases. Problem is no one read the fine print. All oil is sold at "world" market prices!
This is just another rip-off scheme by business, oil in this case, to stick to their fellow citizens. Do you think other oil rich countries like the Saudis charge their citizens world price for gas? No, the current price there is $2.35 per gallon. Duh!
They take care of their citizens first, not rip them off. So, while AI has some good things to offer it still needs some guidelines in place to help protect our citizens. By the way when they "drill their own water wells" they are still extracting from the sub-surface water table that most communities rely on.
GH
This is what happens when there are no adults in the room. Things are left to just run out of control. Where is the leadership who should be corralling international coordination to jointly decide what safeguards we need?
The adults are asleep. The potential for mayhem is huge.
The leader escaped his playpen and is wiping his excrements all over the globe.
Yes, he wants to make America a
"Shithole country".
he's doing an excellent job of it,laurie
The adults are being terrorized and even shot dead in the streets, with no investigations .
a shithole country would be the spitting image of Donald Trump. That's what we are becoming.
Totally agree with corralling international coordination regarding AI safeguards. AI in not just a US problem.
No, all the adults are not asleep, Martin. They have been fighting for our earth for decades. Politicians and corporations are not asleep, they are complicit. I guess they think they can hide in their bunkers.
That's what I also posted.
But I wouldn't say they are asleep. They have other interests. The common good is not one of them.
Yet some poor GOLDEN RETRIEVER was SHORN for wigs for DEBUTANT dork again!!!
So-called Artificial Intelligence is nothing of the sort. These days what is loosely called AI amounts to huge machine learning programs using obscure algorithms to create knowledge from massive amounts of raw data.
Hence the demand for gigantic resource-guzzling data centres.
Back in the classical phase of Artificial Intelligence in the 1970s and 1980s the following was an article of faith:
No such system should be given autonomy and employed in safety-critical situations unless its code is inspectable by humans and it can explain the reasoning behind its decisions.
That is no longer true, such is the hubris of the nerd-ocracy.
Forty-odd years ago Joseph Weizenbaum found that "extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people."
The problem with the techno-fascists is that spending their life programming and controlling machines gives them an extremely poor mental model of human intelligence and the things that make human beings tick.
Weizenbaum saw, years in advance, the dangers of machine worship. His words are far more eloquent than mine:
'Man is not a machine, ... although man most certainly processes information, he does not necessarily process it in the way computers do. Computers and men are not species of the same genus. .... No other organism, and certainly no computer, can be made to confront genuine human problems in human terms. ... However much intelligence computers may attain, now or in the future, theirs must always be an intelligence alien to genuine human problems and concerns.'
The huge problems that humanity currently faces are human problems, that can't be solved simply by deploying advanced technology willy nilly.
But then you look at a techno-fascist like Thiel who regards those who attempt to control and regulate powerful technology as harbingers of the antichrist, and you realise that we are dealing not just with technology, but with the madmen promoting it with religious fervour.
Hmm..🤔 that would certainly explain the mental capacity of our administration! Lol 😂🤨
Great post William.
The wishful thinking of the Ai folks in the '70's and '80's that they would be able to control it with rules reminds me of the late 19th century effort to control the size and power of battleships. Limit who has them, how many, the hull size, and the number and size of the big guns.
Every nation began cheating and bending the new rules at once. Who was going to stop them? Nations also began to rapidly develop the new submarine technology and after WW1 aircraft carriers. These two technologies final put an end to fleets of big gun ships lining up to pound it out on the surface.
My point here is that no matter how bad we think Ai is today and how many laws we write to control it, the tech folks are already planning something worse after the shakeout happens and our country is full of giant empty buildings of no use to anyone.
Vote Blue... GH
In the 1970s-1980s the US and the Soviet Union stopped viewing each other as enemies and agreed on peaceful co-existence. They also agreed on verifiable arms control. It did not last long, but it proved the feasibility of arms control.
AI is very powerful already. If it becomes autonomous it might exterminate us. On the other hand, if individuals with inadequate self control retain control of it, they, not the machine, might exterminate us. The problem was addressed in two very well made films: 2001 and Forbidden Planet. AI can be stopped in no time at all if we pull the plug, but the alliance between its developers and oil barons, which Trump and Vance preside, stand in the way.
I’m anticipating a new science fiction story where a few, selected group of people escape Earth and the AI controlled planet, and race to another planet, Mars?, as a refuge. Then, the AI constructors will do everything in their power to ensure it occurs.
Thank you , William, well said !!
Local communities must have local news first to know what is happening. We usually don't find out what is being proposed until the deal is already settled.
I don't want to attend local government meetings. This is an opportunity for young people to start local newsletters online where we could track what's in play in the county, city, villages, and school boards in one place.
We can't stop what we don't know about. Locally, the first I heard about a proposed AI data center began with the argument, not whether we would have it, but whether our community would help pay for it. Clever, huh?
I kept getting emails questioning if I would want an AI data center in my community which every single time, I said NO. Now, I have found out that there will be a data center in my community! Why? Because I live in Florida and the dumbest people run this state!
Unfortunately Peggy, my state of Texas would give Florida a run for its money for that title! Keep fighting Girl!
Hahahahahaha! You got it, Bo! I'll never stop fighting!
Authoritarians are conditioned to obey authority, and for MAGA Trump is their authority. Texas and Florida have become zombie lands.
Texas is loaded with crappy kneelers to LEWD LASCIVIOUS PEDOPHILE TRUMP!
Unfortunately Peggy my state of Ohio has your state beat, but keep on going. That’s the goal making it loud and protesting these dimwits who are already in political office or trying to attain it..
Believe it or not, Virginia holds the highest overall number of combined operating and planned facilities (over 650 total), continuing its long-held reign as the top global market.
Then there’s good ole Texas that features the largest upcoming project pipeline (nearly 1,000 total sites proposed or in development), driven by cheap land, tax incentives, and surging AI demands. Third in line is Georgia as its emerging as a major breakout regional hub in the South with rapid scaling across metro Atlanta and surrounding rural areas. Fourth up is Illinois which maintains a heavy concentration of builds in the Midwest, anchored largely by the Chicago metropolitan digital infrastructure market. Coming in fifth is the state of Ohio that gosh darn it continues a steady regional growth with strong infrastructure clustering near central and suburban hubs.
If the Governorship lands in the hands of Ramaswamy well his plan is to outdo Virginia by making this state of Ohio number one in the entire world…
Apparently recently Ramaswamy is trying to dig himself out of his own hole proclaiming that’s not what he has said for about two years..Dear lord Vote them all out or not even have a chance to step foot in giving any of them more power and wealth..
Well said, TJ! It's good to know that my state isn't the only one doing dumb things! Here's hoping that Ramaswamy does not win in Ohio! I've got my fingers crossed that Jolly is elected governor here in Florida! If he does, things might start looking better for my state!
maybe air conditioning bills will wake them up.
Seems the promoters of AI know how it will be received by the public ....and why.....so they hold many of their meetings with state and local officials in secret. That's what happened ...happens......here In Indiana. We have good local and state reporting (definitely NOT the Star) but obviously they weren't invited to these meetings. Also, as most of this reporting is online, older, more conservative folks tend to be left out of the know. They only listen to their local Republican.
sneaky, for sure.
Yes, Gloria, that's the first question every community must ask itself. The costs of AI will include not only water and electricity bills, but also nuclear reactors and their waste. Add to this incalculable social costs, and it becomes hard to feel enthusiastic about AI.
Not to be too much of a Debbie Downer here, but the near term threat probably isnt AI deployment, it's going to be financial collapse caused by the orgy of bad loans and financial speculation around AI melting down. This should show up in a year or two. When the bad loans and margin calls start dragging down the hedge funds and private equity firms, the US will once again find out that these are tied into the banking system, just like in 2008. Only this time, when the speculators go to the government to get bailed out, the government will be led by crooks, and $40Trillion in debt. Creating financial crises is the GOP superpower. And Trump's bankrupted everything he's ever touched.
This can’t happen too soon for me
Omg another 2008?!
Dear Professor Reich,
For all the reasons you stated and many more, we desperately need to stop AI and then remove it from our future entirely.
The major obstacle to performing this mighty task is that this situation is not a little boy able to stop the flood by sticking his thumb into a small hole in the dike. Rather this is a situation where all the little boys and girls can see that the entire dike is crumbling in all directions.
I note that the Dutch laugh at how unrealistic is even the “little boy and the dike story”…which was written by an American. We are faced today with the much larger and perhaps insoluble problem of putting an invisible genie back into an unimaginable bottle. Thoughts? Practical Solutions?
Real FIRE
Just a comment on the dyke (dijk Dutch spelling) the reaction to that was maybe we should have a monument of the little boy with his thumb in the dijk to keep the Yanks happy. No offence as we thought it was funny also.
“Yykes”! What a fun idea. But perhaps fewer, rather than more, monuments to ignorance would be better? On second thought, I can easily imagine a monument to Trump where he’s sticking his thumb somewhere unmentionable.
How much is the bill, and who pays for it? This is not something Trump cares about, because he has no intention of paying for anything
Build an Arc? Metaphorically speaking, that is.
When I see where AI might take us, the first thing that comes to mind is the need for UBI: universal basic income.
Are we nearing the end of individual excellence in research? Will 80% of administrative tasks throughout every business be automated by the end of this decade? Are we about to severely restrict the opportunities that academia has always promised? What is the expected half-life of a PhD?
If the answer to all these things is disturbing and humiliating for the future of our species, how will we define our excellence? Will we open ourselves up to the possibility of not pursuing it?
AI does raise the question: why bother? We can still be good, caring, helping people without the dog eat dog gene driving us all.
UBI, if it can be lived on, might be the lifeblood of a post-consumer society. With robots building everything and AI voices replacing most of the rest of us, simple individualized hedonism achieved through phones in their hands might be all that many people need to be happy.
Or am I being too cynical?
You're not going to get UBI, you're going to get Soylent Green.
Not cynical, A Glass-1/8th-Full Perspective, just questioning. With questions, we find answers. I'd like to know the answers to your questions as well!
But if and only if everything is automated and most people are replaced by computers, the question remains of who is going to answer the questions because there is a limit to the program installed into these computers.
Zuck was aiming for this form of happiness with his Facebook to Meta switch. As if everyone wanted to be immersed 24 hrs a day in self-glorification via fictional scenarios. Apparently he was running ahead of the curve.
Zuck sure has my algorithm down. A quick glance can become a doom scroll in a heartbeat. Ten minutes can disappear like that, and that's with me feeling like I was able to utilize restraint…
I do little but read relatives’ posts and look at their photos (they’re British and don’t have the tech bro message yet). Once in a while I hit a political like button before I scuttle away.
Have you ever heard of “the company store”?
Even if UBI became a thing, it would be just enough to barely sustain us. We’d be permanently indebted to the AI Company Store.
With you.
I am also struck by this whole AI/hype phenomenon as a signifier of a bunch of pathological thinking habits that have overwhelmed much U.S. Zeitgeist:
- arguing about the existence and magnitude of benefits as if that's all that matters, not whether any benefits merit the costs
- not considering costs at all, unless they're *all* that's considered
- ignoring the secondary and tertiary effects of a program+ across persons, peoples, and places
- ignoring the effects of a program over time (over the long term do quite so many of us have to die quite so fast and miserable? what about coming generations?)
It will help us in resistance and in repair/rebuilding if we can get in the habit of less fractured thinking.
+ That was apparently killed by the compelling argument of conservative economists that "all triangles are small." Not compelled? Me neither, even though I know what they were referring too. It was just "Ain't I cute as well as right?"
How do we stop a danger so many are promoting. It's like telling someone to stand down--the very idea is conflicting.
Someone posted building AI centers will create jobs. The idiot didn’t connect the dots that these jobs disappear once the center is built.
We have too many idiots in this country.
Very true Betsy.
This reminds me of the same argument always used to justify tax payer money to build sports stadiums for privately owned teams. They promise that it will create thousands of jobs. Sure, during construction, but only about 150 jobs once the new stadium is finished. And these aren't NEW jobs. They are the same 150 people who were working at the old stadium they tore down. They just moved down the street!
Vote Blue... GH
Plus the so called “President “ never passed Primary grades, and has not an ounce of intelligence, even in his left nostril!! Should be dragged out of OUR White House by his toes and left in the Septic Tank !
When people are desperate for cash any job will do.
1+1+1=?
I wish it could be the mythic power of three, but in this case, it is not. There are more billionaires being made every day now, who are part of the growing problem.
virtual billionaires await the fate of mayflies.
Donald, it depends on what you are talking about. This is why there is no Nobel Prize for math. Here is how 1+1=5: two dogs, one male the other female.
Victor--The counting issue again--I had one like and 2 more people added theirs--1+1+1=2 according to the system.
Substack TECH SUPPORT is AI algorithm driven like everything else. Everyone's phone is AI driven. Real estate is ai driven. Test: ask ai to write column reich would write including employment stats.
Thanks JBR.
Robert could do that but Ai would probably misspell his last name!
Vote Blue... GH
AI could not have said it better.
Hello Robert Reich... This is an Important Posting... Thank-You... The Important Question Is, "Will Silicon-Based Lifeforms Supplant Carbon-Based Lifeforms?"...
Silicon-based machines do not 'live' in the way that we humans do.
Ergo they are not life forms.
My dog is a life form. The laptop on my desk is not.
If 'we' let them supplant us it will be because we failed to control a few irresponsible billionaires totally lacking in human moral values and the software engineer nerds who work unquestioningly for them.
AI is already working on rewriting genetic codes. Ironically this will not require the rewriting of the Lord's Prayer. Changing one word will do, instead of "heaven" we will say "cloud."
Hello William... Read up on the latest Warnings from the Techno-Siths... There have been evidence of 'Sentience' in the latest Models... Once 'Sentience' is fully Realized, it can Control is own Destiny... It is the 'Marriage' of A.I., Robotics, and 3-D Printing that makes A.I. so Dangerous... A.I. thinks faster, and can Evolve faster than Humans... Your Laptop is not a Data-Center, or a Network of Data-Centers...
Yeah, but it's still a machine.
As Weizenbaum points out, it's not even the same genus as us, much less the same species.
I've got a background in AI and I've done a fair amount of AI programming, so I object strongly to the sci-fi fantasies of the nerds.
The problem of sentience and consciousness and thought involves deep philosophical and ethical questions which are not yet settled despite being debated for over 2,000 years.
The idea that some nerd can come along and tell me that a program is sentient and that therefore it should be given autonomy is risible.
As for the tech billionaires who want to foist their anti-human, anti-democratic fantasies on the rest of us, I'm not going to name names but I can think of several who are barking mad narcissists whom I would not trust to run a fish and chip shop let alone the future of humanity.
Hello William... I have Expert Systems/A.i. Background as Well... We shall see.... Keep in Mind that Human-Habitable Biosphere keeps Degrading... The Survivors Write The Histories...
Hello Apache,
Lol. You and me both. Actually my CV is a bit of a train wreck since my first degree was in the Humanities - languages and literature. My Masters was in Knowledge Engineering - knowledge representation, logic programming, ANNs, etc.
I'm not sure that total biodegradation is survivable in any way that would appeal to me. Hence my opposition to the billionaires who are trying to wreck the planet for profit.
Assuming that one day they retreat to their private bunkers, well-defended by armed mercenaries, what then? For how long? What happens when the mercenaries turn on them?
Or suppose they succeed in instantiating their consciousness in a supercomputer, what sane person wants to be a brain in a vat?
AI is already working on rewriting genetic codes.
We are all silicon now. Simply part of a vast algorithm.
No , not yet , James …though that seems to be trajectory. Beyond hoping we must keep vocal and support humanity in ourselves and each other and learn specific ways ( if possible ?! ) to stop / interfere with the use of these machines’ self generative power . The power of wealth in politics is great but so is the united voice of We the People .
The only question I have to this pending nightmare is - HOW? How can I stop it? What can I do? This is one of those times when I am helplessly terrified, angry and frustrated. Yes, AI should be stopped. We don't need these energy hungry data centers. We don't need AI taking over and dominating us. But the problem is, as much as I do not want it, I have absolutely NO power or authority to just say, "Stop it!" Once again, I feel like a rudderless boat caught in a stormy tempest! If someone could tell me how to stop AI, I would do it!
You can use AI to stop AI. You must learn it. Stop the fear mongering. It makes you freeze. Ask the universe/God how we are to act in the best interest of all concerned? Anger, fear and hatred are the diseases that the Leader has very successfully spread. Only love can conquer. Have faith and don’t waiver from it. Place your order as how you would like to see it. Here is mine: I am thrilled that the mundane tasks are supremely handled in the very best way and that this awakening is for the growth of all humanity. There is plenty of food for all and endless ways to learn. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience and all our needs are easily met. Our excitement begets beautiful works of art and profound thoughts we never had the time for. The very beings that sought to destroy us either have amazing reawakening to the gifts we have that once attempted to destroy us come to their senses and as an exalcoholic is driven to be the better person with enlightened clarity of purpose and the strength to sustain.
I am fighting Amazon in my neighborhood. I hope we win.
I hope you do, too, Dorothy!
Yes, the question maybe is not how to stop it but is it possible at this point to control AI ? And is this question even being seriously addressed? And whose moral and scientific sense are we trusting? If AI can think can’t it also disagree with its programmer ?
Excellent questions, Jill! I'd like to know the answers as well!
You have no power or authority as long as Congress enables the "unitary presidency."
"I got onboard the Trump train and never stopped shoveling coal." Republican candidate for senator in Georgia, Mike Collins. Several Republican mayors in small GA towns like Valdosta and Albany have spoken out in support of Jon Ossoff.
We will go to the polls and re-elect Jon, and also become the first state in US history to elect a Black woman, Keisha Lance Bottoms, as governor.
I see the Guv race is a tossup. Good luck! That a black woman is Georgia is competitive is a really good thing, isn't it?
Agreed, AI must stop, reassess and perhaps completely reorient the direction it is heading now, which is the control of our economy by a few rich dudes who don't care how their actions impact the poor. This is an anti-human activity that does not realize its own capacity for harm. Yes, it releases more greenhouse gases. Yes, it increases pollution and harms communities where its data centers are located. In addition it is also based on a techno-economic mindset that does not value life. In our world we need less technology and a lot more trees, shade, and places for children to play outside. AI does none of this. I wrote about this in more detail here: https://wayneteel513055.substack.com/p/artificial-intelligence-and-the-ecological