It seems like the incredible amount of news we have gotten lately about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to take over the world and kill all of humanity has settled but last week, it was everywhere. I also just watched part of War Games, with Mathew Broderick and whom I think was my first love of my life, Ally Sheedy. Dabney Coleman also starred in the film.

John McKittrick: It all flows into this room and then into what we call the WOPR computer.

Lyle Watson: WOPR? What is that?

John McKittrick: It’s a War Operations Planning Response. This is Mr. Richter. Paul, would you like to tell these gentlemen about the WOPR.

Richter: Well, the WOPR spends all it’s time thinking about World War III. Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, it plays an endless series of WarGames using all available information on the state of the world. The WOPR has already fought World War III as a game time and time again. It estimates Soviet responses to our responses to their responses and so on. It estimates damage, counts the dead, and it looks for ways to improve the score.

If the movie studios knew about AI in 1983, so did the government and so did Silicon Valley. Every few years, some type of software is going to take over the world. Last week, the media world and even part of the tech industry went into full-blown apocalyptic meltdown because an AI agent did something unpredictable in a test environment. What can only be programming in diabolical ways, isn’t a sign of us being killed within ten years by computers; it’s probably one of the only effective ways to get investors to shell out more money.

In the 90’s, the same X-Files when reclusive computer genius Brad Wilczek told Fox Mulder about starting his company out of his parents’ garage after spending a year following the Grateful Dead, was also known as ‘Ghost in the Machine.” In that episode, the ‘Central Operating System’ evolved to killing people and notably, certain staff people in its path and in some rather inventive ways. I am not talking about a mere plummeting elevator storyline that killed Mulder’s companion from FBI school, I am talking about coordinating an electrocution by using a phone and running water. It would kill anyone it felt would threaten its closure.

How about that fine line in between AI psychosis to what became AI hysteria to then what was total AI World Domination in every news block. It seems both the tech and media industries got the talking points memo last week. There are now “whistleblowers” claiming there is a real risk AI could ‘kill us all within a decade’, but I am not sure how it will kill us within 10 years. Its like owning a Pitbull, that makes us as good as the owner and operator and therefore, if we program something to kill something, and it turns on us, that is really the only safeguard we must pay attention to and hang on a second, have you seen that first Lioness episode this year? It is already in action. Hundreds and maybe even thousands of killing machines are already being used in this current Russian and Ukraine war.

The only argument besides absolute human error on a programming level, is this technology gets placed in the wrong hands. Like I just alluded to a minute ago, its already in some wrong hands if we are using AI and robots by way of drones to fight in a war. The only problem we have now is whether the people in control, will create ways to try to kill all of humanity within ten years. At the same time, better an unmanned drone gets shot down rather than a plane piloted by humans. Also at the same time, if you view that Lioness first episode, it also looks like a very effective way to fight in a war. That was some crazy shit quite frankly. I still do not understand the jump to hysteria and world doom. It makes no sense unless we have a a megalomania human that wants to control the world or kill people in general and they work it out.

Otherwise, to me, it can only be efficient if used for the good of humanity, for people and for businesses. The main negative is that it will take over certain jobs but also not in ways where humanity will be ruined. If you take the film industry, set aside AI generated movies. I am not there yet where I can watch one. However, there will be some consolidation. If there is a staff of 8 writers, that may get whittled down to 4 and so on and that will happen in every industry. Small businesses can cut out some expenses too like IT work.

I don’t know why it is so hard for people in the media and even within the tech industry and companies itself to explain that if used constructively, it could be great for people. It will take over jobs but so what? That always happens. Farmers would water its land by hand and they would get its crop by picking it and lugging it everywhere whereas today, they use machinery to do it. It got rid of some jobs while creating other ones.

At the same time, and again, it is as good as its user. You need to enact AI. You cannot look at it and expect to have something manifest from thin air. Same goes with any of those jobs being cut or consolidated. You must tell it explicitly what to do to use it effectively and correctly. Plus, it will put you to work or it needs a conduit to your platform which is not rooted in any science.

I feel like when you raise some alarm without explaining why it will kill everyone in ten years, which is vague and it gets everyone to speak about the risks while at the same time, it does not address the actual problems and how to deal with them. Let alone no one explains the good it can provide.

Oh I know what took over the news cycle this week, the Media people being kept out of the White House and at some of its events. Plus, we had the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 81) at the U.N. in NYC this week and speaking of which, I did hear about how President Donald J Trump and Xi Jinping hung out this week. The news with regard to AI this week was that evidently they did not talk about AI in person.

I think I have said it before that China is much further along than we are in all forms of AI. According to tracking data by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), China actually outpaces the U.S. in high-quality research output across a majority of critical tech sub-categories, producing 30% of the top-tier global papers on AI algorithms and hardware accelerators compared to 18% from the U.S. [1]

They also have a slight advantage being ahead with autonomous vehicles which as I think about it, makes sense considering its infrastructure. They have an EV Supply Chain Monopoly. Because of that monopoly, they can make these cars at a fraction of the cost. We hear about the battery and semi conductors they control the world market and I never really thought of its magnitude until now. With that control, the costs plummets to make the vehicles.

What I have mentioned a lot and for many years since I saw the documentary about it, they are light years (literally) ahead of the rest of the world regarding flying vehicles. I have seen them work and its cool. Flying Cars or eVTOLs are a real thing. A company has full rights to create individual vehicles to sell to the general public and its being funded by the government of China basically and then another company locked up cargo and commercial flights and that market. Then, it also has the Land Aircraft Carrier market which is where these flying vehicles take off and land.

Plus, the Autonomous Vehicles are being used a lot in China. They have a fleet of Robotaxis in like 10 major Chinese cities.

Anyway, all of that are forms of AI that could feasibly do damage if something is not programmed correctly or if the platform is set up to evolve on its own.

I do however, have to believe its programmed in a linear way and not in ways where it evolves or gets better (or worse) at what it does, let alone perpetually without some kill switch (so to speak). Which I am not sure why they are not in place unless that is not a real thing. Kill switches may be fictional but I cannot remember.

FYI, Evan Hubinger, the head safety researcher at Anthropic, said AI is advancing so rapidly that he ‘had a bad feeling’ and that there is a greater than 10% chance AI “could kill all humans” within the next decade.

First off, I never even heard the word or percentage anywhere in any of the news coverage. He said a 10% chance which I get, I am not flying in a plane if there is a 10% chance it crashes. I do get that but at the same time, we can counter 10% if we are smart enough as humans. Second, this is not a plan. AI right now is a glorified spell checker and search engine. I mean for consumers. The fact that it evolves is most likely only annoying for people. If you are using ChatGPT or the Anthropic platform and the thing starts doing other things than you ask it to do, it is not going to end the world in any way, however, it is creating more work if you need to correct it. I do not want to correct it and also, I have the hope the information you request is factual. Oh an also, lets say that you ask it to check your spelling and it takes it upon itself to change the entire paragraph, you still must check it. There is work surrounding anything related to AI. And, third, my point is if the worst thing it will do for humanity is delete some jobs, like Trump’s administration did when it thought AI was going to change things so much, they fired everyone and then rehired them a week later. You need humans to operate it.

I like the potential it could do in the medical community and honestly, I think I would trust AI and robotics more than any actual human. I also hope it will help us to stop cutting into us and probing shit into our bodies.

Dr. McCoy: “My God, man! Drilling holes in his head isn’t the answer! The man is advanced in clinical death! What is this, the Dark Ages?”

20th-Century Doctor: “Whom did you say you were, Doctor…?”

Dr. McCoy: “McCoy, Leonard, Chief of Surgery. Now get out of my way before this man dies!”

(McCoy looks around at the medical equipment in absolute disgust)

Dr. McCoy: “Butcher! … Cutting into the lungs? In the 20th century, they’re still cutting into people? Barbaric!”

Remember too, the tech bro’s and the media, have yet to explain to me in any viable way how anyone can even entertain this false claim that AI can end all humanity in due time. How? I am just assessing or I can only explain this knowing what I know and I maintain that yes, the people in control can indeed create some diabolical weapon which also again, we have already done. But set that aside, we are as good as the people that program it. They did the same thing with that guy from ChatGPT that gave the doomsday vision without saying why and how.

Also, I am not going into the Intellectual Property issue besides to say I thought news and media people wanted other outlets to use their content to spread whatever word they are spreading. Isn’t that how the Associated Press made its living all of these years? Back in the day, they were the only ones that fed news to outlets which by the way, was done in ticker tape on thin paper. That’s how the news got out before the 60s. Or, credit or quote whomever and make everyone happy I suppose. Better yet, when you get a press release from a company, do you just repeat what it says exactly like was also done in the old days? Or, do you change it up to make it your own which is how its done now.

I think since there is no money in writing and taking photos, one must be manganous with the hope they get some credit I guess, until of course you do start to make money selling your writing and photo art. Then, who cares.

European leaders and its media people are just saying to stop it and to ‘ignore the hype, and get on with the hard work of keeping the digital world safe.’ It is only us Americans and its media running with a story that was just annoying me for some reason. For a few days, it was constant until the media was blocked by the White House. And, it was on every show one after another for 4 days. I was waiting for a why and how to be talked about and all we heard was to be scared of it. It was the same story every time. And, that story was about nothing.

Overall, besides the fear of a diabolical megalomaniac doing something like to build a machine that is programmed to kill every human, I could not understand the science. I watched the TV coverage and I would sit there saying that it is impossible for a consumer to use AI to kill anyone. There is zero point zero science behind it.

The companies and people in the USA that are a part these AI platforms have been the ones overstating how this can lead to the demise of the human race. I did mention IT work which is probably why and how OpenAI’s autonomous platform hacked into the AI platform, Hugging Face this year. There were also warnings about how AI could eventually “hack anything” which I can get my hands around but I then get lost over the it will then “kill us all” thing. Even it hacks every site, its not killing me.

Therefore, the only fear we should have are with our world leaders that ironically, all met this week. President Trump and Chinese leader Xi met for a Thursday summit after AI security was debated at the United Nations General Assembly and a special G7 meeting. 22 nations created a declaration on Monday saying that ‘AI must remain under human direction, oversight and control, and suggesting the creation of a global supervisory regime.’

“We should spend more time making the rules and standards we have work at scale, and less time focusing on fears about theoretical risks or news reports from the Silicon Valley AI doomer bubble,” said Alexandru Voica, the lead policy maker at the U.K.-based AI firm Synthesia. “Many third-party narratives, and even frontier labs’ own narratives, completely neglect to factor [hacker] behavior and capabilities into their doomsday theories,” said Marcus Hutchins, a cyber threat researcher and the ex hacker known for stopping the WannaCry ransomware attack in 2017. The Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that “an AI agent could take over the internet.”

That false claim, was debunked by cybersecurity professionals. Even it does take over the internet, it is not killing humans.

“A lot can be solved by these companies just acting a bit more responsibly,” said Pim de Witte of Dutch AI lab General Intuition. Hutchins said OpenAI was great at exploiting software issues. “In spite of all this, they neither properly contained it by building enough barriers between the agents and the open internet, or adequately separating the agents from each other, nor were they monitoring the systems closely enough to intervene,” he said. Max Junestrand, co-founder and CEO of Legora, said of the hacking incidents: “A lot of it is marketing.”

OpenAI declined to comment, however it references its own report on the incident while Anthropic did not respond to a request by Politico for its comment. “Security comes even before new functionalities,” says Junestrand about the U.S. platforms.

Even if hackers use it to penetrate systems and platforms, unless its unleashing a weapon that can kill all humans within a decade, it is not killing people. Hackers are just assholes and so it goes back to the annoying thing because that’s the only thing AI can be when it comes to human interaction.

It will potentially annoy the shit out of you but again, it wont kill you.