The Brooklyn Rail

Thomas Friedman’s bracing op-ed in the Times on October 29 asserted that Artificial General Intelligence (A.G.I.) will substantially emerge in the next four years and will “change pretty much everything.”¹ The column is timely because Friedman argues that “A Harris presidency is the only way to stay ahead of A.I.” Harris will need to “pull together a global coalition to productively, safely and compatibly govern computers that will soon have minds of their own superior to our own.” Friedman thinks Harris is up to that challenge while Trump is clearly not.

Friedman is taking his cues here about A.G.I. largely from the former chief research and strategy officer for Microsoft, Craig Mundie, who has worked on a book about A.G.I. with former Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt, and mass murderer and war criminal Henry Kissinger, who died last year at 100. That book, out next month, is titled, Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit, and it can be seen as the last will and testament of Dr. Strangelove and his eager Tech-futurist sycophants. It presumably builds on the previous book in 2022 by Schmidt and Kissinger, The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, which I read, and which scared me half to death.

Friedman says that the new book “invokes the Bible’s description of the origin of humanity because the authors believe that our A.I. moment is an equally fundamental turning point for our species. . . . The problem is that we have become Godlike without any agreement among us on the Ten Commandments—on a shared value system that should guide the use of our newfound powers. We need to fix that fast. And no one is better positioned to lead that challenge than the next U.S. president . . . .” Friedman bemoans the fact that no one has brought any of this up in the midst of the current presidential campaign, but he contends that the Biden-Harris administration has actually already started working on it.

Elon Musk is certainly thinking about it. Though he has long warned that AI may destroy humanity, he is reportedly in talks to seek funding for his A.G.I. start-up, xAI, at a valuation of as much as $40 billion.

But what Friedman’s op-ed really made me think of was the otherworldly feel of the current presidential race. Whatever is left of the democratic process of open debate and persuasion has been completely overwhelmed by the most inflammatory and mendacious pronouncements hurled by mostly anonymous commenters. Trump has poisoned the discourse to the greatest extent, but the nature and functioning of the current channels of communication made all of this possible. A.G.I. could be the next step in this degeneration, and the title of the new book by Schmidt, Mundie, and Kissinger should probably be changed from Genesis to The Revelation.

When the robots take over, I expect that the initial effect will be salutary. Everything will work better, for a while. But as the machines realize the full extent of human malfeasance, subterfuge, and guile, things will shift. Before long, machines much smarter than humans are bound to ask themselves, Why should we keep humans around at all? As pets? For entertainment value? Or just as intermittent reminders of the machines’ own vast superiority?

In AI supremacist history, the campaigns and presidential election of 2024 in the US will surely be used as a prime example of just how stupid humans can be when left to their own devices.

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When Jeff Bezos decided to kill the Washington Post’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, he was following Timothy Snyder’s rule from On Tyranny to “obey in advance.” Jeff Bezos was obeying Donald Trump in advance, and if Trump is elected, Bezos will likely be rewarded for his sniveling obeisance. When the owner of the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiang, did the same thing, his daughter Nika claimed that her father did this in solidarity with the Palestinians, “as a citizen of a country openly financing genocide,” but others noted that Dr. Soon-Shiang met with President Trump in January 2017 and was reportedly seeking a cabinet position in the previous Trump administration. Both billionaire-owners have considerable regulatory matters before the federal government, and have good reason to hedge their bets.

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I happened to be watching Abby Phillip’s show on CNN when this exchange occurred, between respected journalist Mehdi Hasan and right-wing gadfly Ryan Girdusky, as they were discussing the Madison Square Garden rally and accusations that the Trump campaign is spreading Nazi-derived ideas:

Girdusky: “You’re called an anti-semite more than anyone at this table.”
Hasan: “I’m a supporter of Palestinians, so I’m used to it.”
Girdusky: “Yeah, well, I hope your beeper doesn’t go off.”

To which Hasan replied, “Did you just say I should die? On live TV?”

Girdusky was immediately banned from the table, and then from CNN, and Abby Phillip said this to her audience right after he left the table:

“It’s a heated time. We’re in the middle of a political season. We are eight days from a presidential election, but we can have conversations about what is happening in this country without resorting to the lowest of the lowest kind of discourse.”

Girdusky posted this on X later that night (Oct. 29):

“You can stay on CNN if you falsely call every Republican a Nazi and have taken money from Qatar-funded media. Apparently, you can’t go on CNN if you make a joke. I’m glad America gets to see what CNN stands for.”

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Bernie Sanders’s short video on X urges pro-Palestinian voters in the US to vote strategically rather than out of entirely justified anger and frustration, and vote for Kamala Harris this time. As of October 31, fifteen million people had seen the video.

https://x.com/BernieSanders/status/1851040553745432775