The most alarmist takes on AI are being stirred up by the very people who are developing AI. But, despite their fears about what AI might do, they are developing it anyway.
Some of these developers are cultivating the dark side of AI intentionally. Some have hidden agendas, and others are quite open about the carnage they are trying to inflict.
Cranach subscriber and fellow poetry lover Amaryllis drew our attention to an especially telling example in her comment to AI Watch, part 1, the section on the use of AI in the Iran war. Quoting a CNBC interview with Alex Karp, head of the company that supplies the government’s AI systems, via The New Republic, she comments:
Possibly related, on another kind of warfare: The CEO of Palantir says the quiet part out loud:
“This technology disrupts humanities-trained—largely Democratic—voters, and makes their economic power less. And increases the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters,” Karp said in a CNBC interview Thursday. “And so these disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society. And to make this work, we have to come to an agreement of what it is we’re going to do with the technology; how are we gonna explain to people who are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.”
And how do we justify reducing the power of women and making everybody’s jobs worse? Because it’s the American way!
“Why is it that we’re absorbing the risk of disrupting the very fabric of our society, including the most powerful parts of our society, if it’s not because it’s about maintaining our ability to be American in the near term and long term?”
Let me expand that last quotation to give the entire paragraph, which provides needed context:
“These technologies are dangerous societally,” Karp continued. “The only justification you could possibly have would be that if we don’t do it, our adversaries will do it. And we will be subject to their rule of law.… Why is it that we’re absorbing the risk of disrupting the very fabric of our society, including the most powerful parts of our society, if it’s not because it’s about maintaining our ability to be American in the near term and long term?”
Here are my reactions. Please give your reactions in the comments. . . .
(1) On the slight to the “humanities-trained”: Most of those currently losing their jobs because of AI are the ones who chose “practical” majors like business, journalism, and computer science. Of course, all “work with your mind” professions are said to be at risk from “AI minds” taking them over. Maybe the “humanities” could help us defend humanity.
(2) Karp thinks the rise of AI and the decline of the middle class will increase “the economic power of vocationally trained, working-class, often male, working-class voters.” Sounds like Marxism to me! But this is no revolution. The proletariat will continue to be in thrall, as the means of production will presumably be in the hands of the tech magnates. Karp overstates the “economic power” that he thinks blue-collar workers will attain. All of the “knowledge workers” in the middle class will have to join their ranks, flooding the job market and bringing down everyone’s wages.
(3) There will be no more upward social mobility. Used to, a person of humble origins could get an education, find a more lucrative profession, and rise into the middle class. But there will be no more middle class. Members of the middle class will have downward social mobility. Everyone will end up being the same. At least it will be egalitarian. Marx’s dream of the classless society.
(4) Democrats used to be the blue collar party, but now working-class voters constitute the MAGA base. Karp’s remarks are tuned to present-day politics. The Democrats will lose their jobs and their economic power! Trump supporters will rule! Is this why President Trump is such a big supporter of AI? Is Karp pandering to the president to keep Palantir’s lucrative contracts with the federal government, particularly the “Department of War”? But there are quite a few Republicans in the middle class who also, if Karp is right, face AI liquidation.
(5) Here we see a mash-up of the tech-bro and the manosphere-bro. AI will mean the loss of female jobs! And the rise of male jobs!
(6) But AI will mean that all people–no matter their sex, politics, or social standing”–“are likely gonna have less good, and less interesting jobs.” So why do we want this?
(7) What is the purpose of AI, what is the end in view, what are we trying to accomplish? Karp says nothing about that. He says nothing about how this technology will improve our lives, free us from labor, or make us happier. All that he says AI will do is “disruption,” a word he repeats in some form four times in two short paragraphs. Here he uses it twice in one sentence: “These disruptions are gonna disrupt every aspect of our society.” What is it going to disrupt us to? What will a post-AI disrupted society look like? Everybody will be stuck in “less good and less interesting jobs.” So why do we want this>
(7) Karp believes, ““These technologies are dangerous societally.” So why risk this danger to our whole society? According to him, there is only one reason: “The only justification you could possibly have”–the only justification–“would be that if we don’t do it, our adversaries will do it.” How does that justify endangering society? If we don’t endanger society, our adversaries–presumably, China–will endanger society? Does it really matter whether someone else destroys our society or whether we destroy it ourselves. Is there a version where we use technology so that we don’t endanger our society? Where we defend our society against our adversaries, whether foreign or domestic?
(8) And then he invokes patriotism: “We’re absorbing the risk of disrupting the very fabric of our society. . .because it’s about maintaining our ability to be American.” If the very fabric of America is ripped apart, how does that maintain our ability to be American? Isn’t he describing the destruction of America? He seems to be standing on the principle of “America First” apart from any content, any sense of what America is or means. Is it the American people? He is willing to take away their jobs and make their work uninteresting. Is it the American ideals of liberty, self-government, and constitutional rights? How would AI affect those? As long America is first in AI, it doesn’t matter what it does “to the very fabric of our society,” we win.
(9) Finally, I am staggered by the presumption of this one man, representative of the small number of other tech tycoons, who is claiming the power to disrupt “every aspect of our society.” Did we who constitute that society consent to giving this handful of individuals the authority to do this?
Photo: Alex Karp by UK Government, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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