American Killer Robots and Snake Oil: The Real AI Grift

This has been dominating all of my social media all weekend and maybe I've gotten too cynical in my old age, but I'm not buying it.

For one, I grew up in the 80s which wasn't all kids on bikes at malls like in Stranger Things. We had the cold war and were forced to watch The Day After in school about a nuclear holocaust and told we'd likely see nuclear war in our lifetime.

My Baptist church was sure either nukes or the rapture was imminent, and then there was Y2K in 1999/2000 that was supposed to end the world and nothing happened. So excuse me if I'm not shaking in my boots over AI tech bros screaming that the digital sky is falling. I think its all some kind of marketing scheme.

I mean, If you claim your product makes customer service emails 12% faster, nobody cares. But if you stand in front of Congress and solemnly warn that your product might accidentally summon a god-like intelligence that vaporizes humanity, investors throw billions at you. It’s the ultimate humblebrag: “Our tech is so terrifyingly powerful, we might not even be able to control it.”

Its all pretty brilliant when you think about it. Think about all the free press they have gotten over this. Every single major news outlet is talking about it non-stop. I'm sure they are getting more money from investors because the well was about to run dry, and now they have this "We need more investment or the world will end!!!"

Not to mention, what they are asking for is tighter regulation on start ups and new companies. What does that mean. It means everyone will have to hire compliance departments and legal teams. Struggling start ups do not have that kind of cash flow. The big guys just want to raise the barrier to entry for this.

Not to mention, I sometimes use Google Gemini to help with my website with trouble shooting and sometimes brainstorming blog ideas. I have to fact check a lot of things it tells me because it gets things wrong at least not a lot, but often enough I will double check if its an important detail.

And you're telling me this thing will be Skynet in a few years? Now, AI can be a powerful tool and I think there is a lot of potential for good. I think especially in medical research it will be able to cure diseases and create vaccines.

BUT....it can also create new viruses and biological weapons. So this is why we do need guardrails. It has long been my opinion that AI as it is should have never been released to the public so quickly. Legislation just hasn't caught up to it and its the wild west.

Doesn't it strike anyone as weird that the 5 big tech billionaires who are pushing the most for AI are all warning about it now? I don't trust anything these people say. I thought we hated billionaires anyway. None of them are altruistic. If they are warning about something it is because they are going to lose money or market share. I think they want to make it harder or impossible for new startups to come in to the industry.

The way things go viral now, its not hard to start a nationwide panic. Ted Cruz said on a podcast this morning (I saw it on live TV so I don't have a link) that we need to keep pressing forward with AI to beat China. And if we are going to unlease killer robots, its better they are American killer robots than chinese ones. I cannot make this shit up. Our leaders are so comically bad at being bad guys it would be funny if they weren't actually in charge of shit.

What will save us is these people's incompetence. Even the tech bros, none of these billionaires or politicians are that smart. They have money and can surround themselves with smart people, but listening to them talk, they all sound like clowns.

While everyone is hyperventilating over AI killing everyone, they'll push for and probably get some kind of anti-monopoly exception that allows them all to join forces for one big AI thing that will make them tons of money and still just be a fancy version of chat GPT.

I mean, maybe they can generate some images as your kids as penguins that looks more realistic, or a video of a dog jumping out of an airplane and parachuting into the Grand Canyon. Old people can't tell the difference already anyway.

I know this is one of my more spicy articles, but I see so many smart people flipping out about this, I just had to say something, and I didn't wan tot post it direct to meta which is moderated by AI.

I'm not fully anti-AI. I think it has its uses and does need regulated, but not the way the tech dudes are asking. Like I said, this is all smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand. Follow the money and see what is really happening. I'm not even a conspiracy theorist in most cases, but this whole thing just smells too funny that all these guys came out at the same time saying the same thing about doomsday.

It's times like this we need to be more discerning than ever. Not just because of AI fake news and deepfakes, but because of the snake oil salesmen wielding it in our midst. I have been called crazy before for not believing in public hysteria and will probably be again, but I have to put this out there. Maybe I'm wrong, but if the world is gonna end from AI, I just wish they would get it over with already. No point in dragging this shitshow out any longer than necessary.

But I think we are going to be ok. Just listen to what is being said then watch their actions and the politicians response, and know these people do nothing for the greater good, ever. See who benefits and what kind of money or stocks or friendly regulation is coming down the pipe. I bet I'm not wrong.

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