“AI – Artificial Intelligence”

We need to discuss why Zack Polanski and Elon Musk are both selling essentially the same dangerously utopian dream. Call these fantasies what you like: universal basic income (UBI), hyperabundance, MMT (unlimited borrowing), work as merely an option – they all boil down to the same idea, that there’s a magic wand available that will wish all our problems away.

For those of you not familiar with UBI I suggest a visit to UBI.org where you can watch interesting videos from Barack Obama, Yanis Varoufakis John McDonnell, Ed Miliband and many others talking about its merits. The site even links to an Economist article by Nicola Sturgeon encouraging us all to take a second look at UBI. And, for those of you not familiar with Elon Musk’s claim that robots and AI will render human work an option, this link is just one of many that will take you to where he makes out the case.

From rioting ‘displaced workers’ to hacked social-care machines, Europol sketches risks that come with automation

Angry mobs of unemployed citizens riot in the streets against the hordes of service robots that have stolen their jobs. Police officers armed with “robo freezer guns” and “nano net grenades” shoot down swarms of drones deployed by terrorists to attack electricity and water supplies.

This is not the plot of a new Robocop sci-fi film but what may await Europe in the next 10 years, according to a report from the EU’s police agency.

The 48-page Europol document details how law enforcement will need to tackle robots and unmanned systems (drones, satellites and remote-controlled boats) in a dystopian vision of the future.

OINT MUGU, CALIF. — Artificial intelligence-powered, autonomous, and unmanned warfighting systems are a major focus of the Trump administration’s new military build-up, likened the “arsenal of freedom” by War Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The Federalist traveled with Hegseth to California over the weekend where he delivered the keynote address outlining the forthcoming National Defense Strategy (NDS) at the Reagan National Defense Forum. But before he gave that speech, the secretary was briefed on the latest in military technological innovation and toured some industrial facilities.

I REGULARLY watch the excellent conservative commentator Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) on YouTube. Last Sunday, November 23, I clicked on what I assumed was his channel and watched what appeared to be his latest video. It covered the case of Mark Kelly, the Democratic Senator from Arizona and retired military officer who has recently been accused of sedition.

Everything seemed normal. The video looked and sounded exactly like VDH – the cadence, the tone, the presentation style. But after several minutes, I began to suspect something was seriously wrong.

About half of American jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence, according to a report by the McKinsey Global Institute.

The American consultancy’s analysis found that robots and AI agents could automate more than half of US work hours, both mental and cognitive, using technology that is available today, if companies redesigned how they did things.

Most of the roles at risk — about 40 per cent — involve the kinds of drafting, processing information and routine reasoning that AI agents can do. Hiring is slowing in some such jobs, such as among paralegals, administrative and office support workers and programmers, the research found.

A fired safety engineer is suing his former employer, Figure AI, alleging he was retaliated against for warning that the company is rushing to produce AI-powered robots with “superhuman speed” and the ability to inflict “severe” injuries on humans.

China’s leaders were anxious and frustrated. The world’s most promising new technology was being dominated by OpenAI, Google and other American companies.

Chinese tech companies were so far behind on generative artificial intelligence early last year that many were relying on Meta Platforms’ open-source Llama models, which can be downloaded for free. Worse, U.S. restrictions on exports of top-end AI chips threatened to hobble China even further.

So in the spring of 2024, Beijing ratcheted up pressure on tech executives. One leading Chinese AI company told The Wall Street Journal it fielded calls from 10 different government agencies in a single month urging action on native AI models. The country relaxed regulations, rolled out funding and rushed to install computing power.

Elon Musk has taken a keen interest in his Wikipedia page over the years. So have the site’s editors: 4,221 of them have made more than 17,000 changes to his page since 2008.

The billionaire tweeted in 2019: “My wiki is a war zone with a zillion edits. At least it’s obviously not curated! Some day, I should probably write what my fictionalised version of reality is.”