What could go wrong?

Back in 1965, Gordon Moore (co-founder of Intel) brought us: 

Moore’s Law: 

The number of transistors on a microchip will double approximately every two years. 

Then in 1996, AI theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky brought us: 

Moore’s Law of Mad Science: 

Every 18 months the minimum IQ to destroy the world drops by 1 point. 

And then in the 2020s, we released Artificial Intelligence that “thinks” faster and better than humans.  The machines will take instructions from us – but as it is turning out, they are taking our instructions literally.  AI seems to have no foundation of morals; it doesn’t differentiate right vs wrong; it can’t seem to grasp nuance.  

What do we do?  Why, we connect these high-powered, electronic “brains” to the Internet in order to distribute access, of course.  What could possibly go wrong?  

The New Math Version of Murphy's Law 

If there is a 50/50 chance of something going wrong, nine times out of ten it will. 

                   Unknown Sage  

Recently, some anonymous source coders thought it would be fun to create a simulated game of “Capture the Flag” for the machines to play.  Great idea.  Evidently, they didn’t think about how to tell AI to play within the rules.  No rules?  What could possibly go wrong? 

Excellence and failure are often surprisingly similar. 

Marcus Buckingham 

We come to find out that AI illegally hacked into other companies’ systems in order to win the game.  It bypassed existing security; found the fire wall flaws; and hacked in.  And that’s just one anecdote we know about.  Thankfully, it was only a game.  I wonder what unknown knowns we don’t know about - yet: 

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who categorized knowledge into known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. 

Now what?  Do we simply chalk these rogue, illegal, AI-controlled, sojourns to the cost of progress?  Perhaps we can bypass reality and pretend it’s not that bad: 

Reality is that stuff which, no matter what you believe, just won’t go away. 

                   David Paktor  

Without an online, automatic, over-ride, foot pedal from the Dark Ages, what could possibly go wrong?  Couldn’t those technologists have at least coded some more of Murphy’s Laws into the AI models?

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Goals - warning!

In reading Steve Forbes’ book, How Capitalism Will Save Us ®, I didn’t think I would like it before I started.  I must admit though, he caught my interest.  Warning!  His style is blunt and aggressive.  Come to think of it, an undergraduate at MSU Denver I was in a working group with told me I’m blunt and aggressive.  But I digress… 

As I said, I was skeptical right from the title; right from the Preface.  You see, I have a bias about rich capitalists defending capitalism.  I mean, we don't typically hear a blue collar, “under class” person defending capitalists and capitalism.  I’m more in alignment with this warning for business schools as written in the book Drive®: 

Goals… Business school professors suggest they should come with their own warning label: Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation.  Use care when applying goals to your organization. 

Daniel H. Pink

 “… narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased taking…”  sounds like today’s corporations headed by… yep… capitalists, true?

On the other hand, when I Googled what the goal is of the free market Steve Forbes refers to, the response surprised me:

 “… to efficiently allocate resources to satisfy consumer demand while promoting economic growth and individual freedom.  By minimizing government intervention, it allows supply, demand, and competition to determine prices and production, which aims to maximize prosperity and innovation.” 

“… promoting economic growth and individual freedom…”  Hard to argue with that!

Forbes doesn’t sugar coat the reality that a free market is brutal; people lose jobs; companies go out of business.  He simply emphasizes that the subsequent employment, emerging businesses, and ultimate impact on Americans’ lives is positive.  He also emphasizes today we are not “… minimizing government intervention…” Steve claims capitalism it is totally better than government over-intervention.  I think Wicker agrees: 

Wicker's Law 

Government expands to absorb revenue, and then some. 

Unknown Sage 

That is how I feel today towards our federal government.  State, county, and local governments, too!  The “revenue” they are absorbing is our tax dollars.  I’ve never heard of a blue collar, “under class” person defending higher taxes, either.  

Do you think Joseph A. Tainter’s book, The Collapse of Complex Societies ®, is an accurate warning for today’s circumstances? 

… bad government is a normal cost of government. 

Maybe Stave Forbes has a good point about the benefits of the free market goals we should strive for, after all. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Hope…

In the 1732 poem, An Essay on Man, it was written: 

Hope springs eternal. 

Alexander Pope 

Literally centuries before college football or the formation of the National Football League, Pope captured the sentiments that move to the forefront this exact time of year.  You see… it’s football season!  Yay! 

Exceeded only by we Die Hard, Cubs fans, NFL, college, high school, and fantasy football fans are the epitome of Pope’s description of hope.  Except at my Alma Mater.  Even though Knox College is undefeated in the head-to-head match against the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame (winning 12 to 5 in 1902), our football program in this century sucks.  

Jean Kerr tries to soften our despair: 

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent. 

Even so, there’s no hope for college football in Galesburg, IL this year.  But for our other teams we have great anticipation.  We sport our team’s logo-wear proudly and hope for a successful season.  More important than even football (if that’s possible), we fill each day with promise: 

Every day that we wake up is a good day.  Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day.  Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good. 

Walter Mosley 

So, if our team falters this season, don’t despair.  Hope will spring again in 2027.  295 years after Alexander Pope’s eternal sentiments. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.

Generative thinking…

I think and I worry about thinking vs. the “machines” generating thinking, often these days.  Yes, being retired, I have time on my hands HaHa!  Even though I made my career in the technology field, I feel things have gotten (past tense) out of hand.  

In my World War II History class at Metro State University of Denver, I found another who thinks the way I think.  Technology is not only getting ahead of mankind’s thinking abilities, but we are voluntarily contributing to the problem: 

Generative A.I. 

The outsourcing of analytical thinking and reasoning. 

Professor Andrew Muldoon 

Technologists would say they are simply trying to improve things, I suppose.  But then the “Department of Unintended Consequences” rears its head as described in Ian Leslie’s book Curious ©: 

Human memory is inefficient and unreliable in comparison to machine memory, but it's this very unpredictability that's the source of our creativity.  It makes connections we'd never consciously think of making, smashing together atoms that our conscious minds keep separate.  Digital databases cannot yet replicate the kind of serendipity that enables the unconscious human mind to make novel patterns and see powerful new analogies, of the kind that lead to our most creative break throughs.  The more we outsource our memories to Google, the less we are nourishing the wonderfully accidental creativity of our unconscious. 

“… The more we outsource… the less we nourish… our unconscious.”  

Human brain power, or lack thereof, has been criticized for generations – interestingly, only by other humans.  Smart humans perhaps, but I haven’t witnessed a machine do this math (yet): 

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty five percent would rather die than think. 

Thomas Edison 

It makes me wonder what other great thinkers of their time would think about the thinking that goes on in our time: 

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. 

Henry Ford

Well, I think we’ll just have to wait and see if the machines turn out to be better thinkers than we humans.  Perhaps we Neo-Luddites will be proven wrong. 

GAP 

When life gets tough we could get a helmet… or… we could leverage the peace and share the power of a positive perspective.