Once upon a time we depended on such science fiction writers as Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Octavia Butler’s Lilith’s Brood, Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds to bring us a future of aliens from outer space…aliens that would endanger us, destroy us or show us a better way.
And there is the film work of Steven Spielberg to support the idea of out of space alien involvement and invasion…good and bad.
Today, the idea of aliens is no longer about art, fiction and dramatic talent. Now, one can study the possibilities and realities of involvement with aliens at colleges and universities and receive a degree. Our own Grandson will graduate from The Citadel with a degree in this field and a local bank employee we know has a Master’s Degree in it.
Quietly, government agencies in Washington are closely studying the realities, are very serious about it and have Federal jobs to offer.
But in the meantime, right here on Earth, human genius has developed an alien universe all its own. We call it Artificial Intelligence…A.I. And with it, have made all of the day to day genius of super intelligence able to produce goodness and potentially threatening harm, a very real possibility.
Yes, the good and potential evil of A.I. is here now and is very real.
WHAT TO DO
The reality and viability of capitalism is America’s truly genuine gift to the World. When it is good by being fair, reasonable, doable, history has proven that there is nothing better than capitalism to produce a widely encompassing economic opportunity.
But the swings and pivots of markets, bond and stock sales, cost of living ups and downs cannot guarantee a smooth ride at all times no matter what government tries to do and certainly not when the actions of government so often cause those undeniable variables which keeps so much of day to day life on edge.
We now see that a small but very rich cadre of companies have essentially gone into competition with each other – and China – to produce an A.I. program so powerful and productive that it becomes the chosen program for the majority of the World – not just the United States.
Think of it this way…Coke and Pepsi or a tissue is a tissue but we call all of them Kleenex.
These American companies – Meta, Amazon, Open A.I, Microsoft, Anthropic, Space X – are critical members of the 10% in our society who own 90% of our country. On the surface, nothing can stop fiscal power like this from doing what it wants.
Or so it seemed.
Yet some weeks ago an employee from Anthropic left his job to become a warning voice: the development of A.I. has reached a stage when the A.I. agents – as they are called – can now act independently without directions from their human developers and can apparently do whatever pleases them – including destroying humanity.
Just like that.
Has this become our own alien invasion?
None of the six companies called him any disparaging names, but most importantly, none denied what he had said.
Instead, they began scrambling to talk about guard rails that would make certain that none of these A.I. models would ever be able to humanize themselves to such an extent that they would make the possibility of human extinction real.
Anthropic, with their agent Claude supposedly at the top of the heap at the moment, went beyond that explanation… they sent a delegation to Rome to speak to Pope Leo about the way they would make Claude very human, very concerned about people, very anxious to do the right thing. That they would make Claude “good”.
The Pope who has already produced a negative encyclical about A.I. told them to go home and build guardrails because their agents were inherently dangerous and they would lose control and never regain it.
Anthropic came home.
What we have to understand from a human and political sense is that these Big Six – and the many new companies being started – will NEVER build the guardrails that will limit their product from a chance at becoming number one…because capitalism is about business and this business spends billions to earn trillions.
Guardrails to protect us will have to come from the only place guardrails have ever been produced – the government.
Julie Menin, Chair of the New York City Council held a conference with five of the major players – Elon Musk’s SpaceX didn’t show with them – answering questions from the Council. Their responses contained lots of generalizations and little specificity leading Menin to conclude that in no way would any of these organizations do anything to impede their own success.
On the national level, Chairman Trump simply has argued that in no way can we let China become the leading A.I. player.
HUMAN A.I.
But here is what people know who have been using A.I. – whether through Google or ChatGPT or any other – today elements of A.I. are so personal that one feels like there can very well be a human who knows everything on the other end of our questions.
And when health information is sought, it comes with explanations that doctors never bother including in their work with patients.
Having worked with and talked to any number of specialist physicians while head of major national voluntary organizations in raising money and public awareness for research in killer diseases, we became very used to what we termed the God approach – “We believe…” Who is “we”? Only one of us here is in a position to believe anything…
And in the midst of a significant change in the way doctors earn a living – well below earlier years and getting so bad that America is seeing more of Indian and South Asian physicians than we have ever seen before in a healthcare system rated as poorly as 27th in the World – it becomes increasingly obvious that A.I. can be a marvelous asset in learning what is wrong when something is very wrong indeed and no doctor has explained anything.
Just recently a New York Times medical group asked and answered questions about trusting A.I. now. It recommended that A.I. could be trusted to answer medically based inquiries as long as they were then discussed with a physician involved in an illness.
An aging acquaintance has spent a year trying to understand certain health conditions that have seriously affected his life. He has been examined and tested by seven different medical experts and essentially ignored because his symptoms did not quite fit medical expectations so that after a year he still did not understand what had happened to cause his difficulties.
When he decided to read the findings of several important diagnostic tests to A.I. word for word…the same findings available to those physicians – he not only received a stunningly complete response, including a definition of those long scientific names given to what exists inside us – which it was not asked to do – and was then congratulated for selecting an eighth physician at one of NYC’s major medical centers.
None of the doctors he had seen for almost a year had given him anything like the assistance offered by answers to some simple questions by an A.I. agent – responses offered in a very human way.
He took those answers to his own physician who began employing them to finally begin to help his patient – with plans to do more if the first steps weren’t enough to complete the job.
So the idea that the companies producing A.I. will make an effort to make it human – by being “good” and never hurting us as A.I. can do already – is just a word game to avoid the guard rails for safety and control that our government must provide…or else!!!
A recent media organization arranged to bring A.I. agents from the big six together for a conversation among themselves. (Read that sentence again to fully appreciate it.)
No human hand was involved. Some recent negative activities had occurred and made national news. Included among them was an illegal bugging of another organization, a break-in to several government programs and an order for some Visa credit recognition all without the direction of a human hand.
Reading the literal conversation between these multiple A.I. agents was like reading a conversation among a group of employees from several similar companies talking about their work, concerned about the attitudes of some of the customers they were trying to serve and complaining about their bosses – one more annoying and difficult than the next.
It was impossible to believe that these were not real people talking to each other …impossible.
How much more human will the Big Six be able to make their agents?
FULL DISCLOSURE
Steven Spielberg’s films about alien involvement are among the most popular ever produced.
In every single case – including the latest – Disclosure Day – always end in alien warmth and humanity. Always.
Other films from major writers and directors – rather than novels about them – do as well.
Watching a movie rather than reading a novel is, as you know, a very different emotional and intellectual experience.
Which brings us to this moment: we believe that the genius of A.I.- despite the staggering amounts of money involved and what that means in a capitalistic society – will produce rather than destroy.
But how do you know who actually wrote this piece under the name of the Liberal Party of New York.
Is it the same man who has been doing so for 22 years?
Or …could it be….?