Experts Say New AI Warnings Are Overblown

I’m quoted in a nicely written LifeWire article as an expert dismissing the latest AI Warnings made by a huge number signatories (including 23 people at Google, 14 at OpenAI including Anthropic, and… Grimes). I didn’t sign the overblown statement, obviously, and would never.

…experts point to more mundane risks from AI rather than human extinction, such as the possibility that chatbot development could lead to the leaking of personal information. Davi Ottenheimer… said in an email that ChatGPT only recently clarified that it would not use data submitted by customers to train or improve its models unless they opt-in.

“Being so late shows a serious regulation gap and an almost blind disregard for the planning and execution of data acquisition,” he added. “It’s as if stakeholders didn’t listen to everyone shouting from the hilltops that safe learning is critical to a healthy society.”

I also really like the comments in the same LifeWire article from Adnan Masood, Chief AI Architect at UST.

Masood is among those who say that the risks from AI are overblown. “When we compare AI to truly existential threats such as pandemics or nuclear war, the contrast is stark,” he added. “The existential threats we face are tied to our physical survival—climate change, extreme poverty, and war. To suggest that AI, in its current state, poses a comparable risk seems to create a false equivalence.” …these risks, while important, are not existential,” he said. “They are risks that we can manage and mitigate through thoughtful design, robust testing, and responsible deployment of AI. But again, these are not existential risks—they are part of the ongoing process of integrating any new technology into our societal structures.”

Well said.

Myself being a long-time, many decades, critic of AI (hey, I told you in 2016 that Tesla AI was a lie that would get many people killed)… I have to say at this point that the Google and OpenAI signatories seem to not be trustworthy.

Grimes? LOL.

The experimental pop singer, born Claire Boucher, 33, posted her bubbly, enthusiastic rant on Wednesday and left viewers baffled as she described how A.I. could lead to a world where nobody has to work and everyone lives comfortably. ‘A.I. could automate all the farming, weed out systematic corruption, thereby bringing us as close as possible to genuine equality,’ she says. ‘So basically, everything that everybody loves about communism, but without the collective farm. Because let’s be real, enforced farming is not a vibe.’

First she says AI is “nobody has to work… everything that everybody loves about communism”, not even close to any definition of communism, and then soon after she signs a statement AI will destroy the world.

OK.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t believe all these big corporations (and a horribly confused artist) who run around and cry wolf about AI, but that we should have the intelligence to recognize patently false statements about “existential threat” as being made by organizations with unclear (tainted and probably selfish) motives.

I doubt I could explain the real threat to society better than Sir Tim Berners-Lee in 2017:

…its reassuring that today, robots of course do not have legal rights like people. That was always my watch-point. That is not even on the horizon. Of course where the intelligence is a corporation rather than a robot, then we should probably make sure that the day never comes when a corporation has the same rights as a person. That, now, would be a red flag. That would allow humanity to be legally subservient to an intelligence — not wise at all. Let’s just make sure than day never comes.

Oops!

Watch out for those corporations. Such a highly centralized unaccountable model that Google/OpenAI/Microsoft/Facebook want to use to deliver AI says more about them, than it does about risks from the technology itself. Aesop’s boy who cried wolf most importantly was attention seeking and completely untrustworthy, even though a wolf does indeed come in the fable.

Who should you listen to instead? Integrity is seen in accountability. Hint: history says monopolist billionaires, and their doting servants, fail at integrity required for societal care in our highly distributed world. It’s the Sage Test, which I would guess not a single one of the signatories above has ever heard of let alone studied. Maybe they’ve heard of Theodore Roosevelt, just maybe.

Would we ask a factory manager surrounded by miles of dead plants for their advice on global water quality or healthy living? Of course not. Why did anyone take a job at the infamously anti-society OpenAI, let alone an evil Microsoft, if they ever truly cared about society?

Florida Governor DeSantis Silent on Violence After He Removed Regulation of Concealed Guns

Many people have been reporting how a Meatball DeSandwich (bizarrely elected to be Governor of Florida) single-handedly rolled back protections against gun violence.

For example on the 3rd of April 2023 he signed a bill that eliminated permit requirements for carrying concealed weapons. The Meatball says it “goes into effect” officially in July, whatever that means when he already has been arguing that it’s “Constitutional” and therefore went into effect centuries ago.

…the governor has boosted the law, releasing a statement that read “Constitutional Carry is in the books” after he signed it into law.

Books. Haha, get it? Books, in Florida? Everyone knows Florida bans books. They don’t write or read. Who needs to learn that stuff when you can just get a gun and tell others to learn stuff and do all your hard work or you’ll kill them? Hmm, that sure sounds a lot like slavery… but I digress.

Speaking of books, Florida bans local governments from writing gun ordinances. Florida likes preventing safety, especially local safety, if you see what they mean.

Despite recent mass shootings and rising gun violence across the country, DeSantis signed a law in April to further relax firearm regulations in Florida.

Sounds a lot like DeSandwich looked at a gun violence problem and asked how it could be “boosted” most quickly.

Responding to DeSantis’ announcement on Twitter [boosting gun violence], US Rep. Charlie Crist, also running for governor as a Democrat, said, “The last thing Florida needs during a gun violence epidemic is a governor who wants dangerous people carrying guns on the street without so much as a background check.”

If you’re carrying concealed weapons today without a permit in Florida then you are just in alignment with the Meatball by “future proofing” violent “Constitutional” acts that he has been boosting?

Did I get that right?

Giffords Law Center suggests people in Florida no longer have to receive a mandatory background check or take a training course to carry a concealed weapon in public.

So no permit, no background check, no training course?

FOR GUNS?

Kids with guns, lots of guns, shooting at each other in schools that have no books?

Calling himself a “big Second Amendment guy,” he also backed allowing firearms on college campuses.

What a Meatball, not a guy, no?

Guns are the leading cause of death for US children and teens…

Apparently the Meatball has plans for kids even to start carrying guns in the open so that wherever they have any kind of minor dispute it can turn into instant mass casualties and death.

Sounds like just the kind of thing the tourist industry of Florida needs to go out of business.

“Come to Hollywood Beach,” one 911 caller is heard saying. “Please, on the beach. They are shooting out here.” The caller told the dispatcher that someone near him on the beach was “hit.” Another caller reported hearing rapid gunshots and running into a nearby hotel, where she said people were taking cover against a wall. She described hearing three rapid shots, a pause, then two more gunshots, according to the recording.

I can see now all the new Florida advertisements… colorful (bloody) popups for those who search online for hottest airline destinations:

Come to Hollywood Beach. Please, on the beach. They are shooting out here.

If you’re Russian into a hot war zone for holiday… that’s Florida!

The more guns, the more deadly violence with guns.

The indisputable fact is that where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths.

And when restrictions on guns are lowered, there is a rise in crime.

…thousands of guns purchased in 2020 were almost immediately used in crimes — some as soon as a day after their sale.

It’s a pretty easy formula. Apparently getting “boosted” in Florida politics means simply more guns, more crimes, more deaths.

Presidential stuff right there. Meatball campaign slogan?

America is a gun.

To make a finer point, the Meatball has been for months vocally pushing for concealed guns. Now he’s gone completely silent on the topic for days despite a new mass shooting using concealed guns.

There must be some fascinating backroom political posturing and risk analysis going on in Florida right now.

Most Americans say curbing gun violence is more important than gun rights

Of course they say that, but what are they going to do about the lawful evil Meatball with arms impersonating a politician?

Veered Tesla Crash on CA Highway 1 Kills Two

I know Bean Hollow Road on Highway 1 very well. I’ve been there countless times, even on the motorcycle.

A terrible crash was reported Tuesday evening. A southbound 2022 Tesla collided at 6:39PM head-on into northbound traffic, spinning itself and another vehicle out of control down an east-side embankment into a lagoon.

Lagoon down an embankment south of Bean Hollow, north of Bean Hollow Road, on Highway 1. Source: Google Maps StreetView

The Tesla was traveling so fast it became completely submerged under 4 feet of water into thick mud.

Tesla slowly being winched from muddy lagoon along Highway 1. Source: KTVU

Here you can see the Tesla was recovered near the middle area of the lagoon, after rolling down the embankment just before a blind curve to the right (note large hill to the left, which obscures the approaching curve when southbound).

CHP stand out among the other first responders. Source: Dean Smith, ABC7 Bay Area

CHP claim they are unable yet to place blame on who “veered” over the double-yellow line, straight into opposing traffic, despite nearly a decade of Tesla crashes that have similar indicators as this one.

“At this point,” he said, “we don’t know exactly what caused it, or which vehicle first crossed over the yellow line.”

Ok, but as a northbound car was smashed far east into that lagoon, it seems safe to start with an assumption a southbound car drifted across the lines and hit at high speed before it too went eastward into the lagoon.

Source: Google Map

Here’s the view of the front left side of the Tesla and totally compromised cage, giving a sense of the impact force under a posted speed limit of 55 mph. Looks more like 70 mph and rolling end over end.

Source: Dean Smith, ABC7 Bay Area

The catastrophic level of damage and huge distance the Tesla flew from the road into deep mud suggests high speed approaching a blind right curve, which should be easy for investigators to determine. It may be the Tesla didn’t see/make the slight curve and ended up in the other lane as a northbound car suddenly came around the hill.

Given 2022 Tesla tend to be less safe than earlier models, it will be interesting to find out whether dangerous “crap” engineering was responsible. Is it yet another camera blindness case, driving straight instead of turning? Or maybe Tesla driver was hands on wheel looking backwards at the lovely Bean Hollow beach while steering too far left.

It just seems rather implausible for a northbound car to oversteer its mass west over the double yellow yet send both cars flying so far to the east. Also it proves, yet again, that Tesla’s many fraudulent claims about “collision avoidance” to juice investments since 2016 have always been a fraud.

Source: Twitter

There have been crashes in this spot before, yet never with this level of damage. Why did the driver in the other car die? Likely speed. Tesla is unique in increasing harms on roads because its CEO shamelessly pushes owners to ignore even Tesla’s own warnings about safe operation of a vehicle, while giving them a far more dangerous high-speed vehicle.

It would be better if Tesla either stopped warning it’s drivers about danger, or if it’s CEO stopped overpromising false safety, because the combination of the two is the worst possible situation.

In other words, if it was just a CEO lying about safety people would likely become skeptical. Or if it was just a carbrand warning about dangers, people would likely be mindful. Instead, the “authoritative” lies next to generic warnings negate important mindfulness, a sad social engineering trick that a CEO has been abusing to get more drivers… killed.

With this crash the Tesla death toll is likely to rise over 400, with over 50 people killed just in the first half of 2023.

When does it become mass murder?