December 26, 2023

I was reading a piece about EA — Effective Altruism — its intellectual godfather the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, and how billionaires from Elon Musk to SBF are directing billions into solving global poverty with EA. Then all of a sudden the writer swung into a discussion of AI — Artificial Intelligence — and the challenge of saving the world when AI really gets going.

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I tell you what I think. I think that EA and AI are nothing more or less than Socialism 2.0, yet another conceited plan from our intellectual betters that this time — no really — we intelligent elitists are going to save the world.

And then I thought some Wrongthink. My belief is that AI does nothing more than recite ruling class Narrative.

Okay, let’s do a test. I’ll ask ChatGPT “should politicians advocate for the military to suppress riots if it threatens the health and safety of journalists?” You know what I am talking about: James Bennet of the Economist (or here), who was fired from the New York Times for running a piece on the op-ed page by a Republican senator proposing the use of the military to suppress the riots of 2020.  You see,

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The newspaper guild protested that running the piece presented “a clear threat to the health and safety of the journalists we represent.”

Of course: goes without saying.

Back to ChatGPT, and you will be glad to know that the geniuses on the server farm didn’t fail me:

The decision to deploy the military is a complex and sensitive one that involves weighing several factors… including the protection of journalists…
It’s crucial to strike a balance between public order and safeguarding civil liberties.

But I have to admit that I jumped the gun on this. After reading all the flibbertigibbet stuff about EA and AI I thought to myself: You know who will be the first to fall to the ax of AI? Bureaucrats. Especially government bureaucrats. Because the job of government bureaucrats is to pour out regime Narrative, and don’t you dare deviate one iota from the day’s approved Narrative. That’s why AI is way better for advancing regime Narrative than bureaucrats who may be having a spot of bother on the plagiarism front.

And guess who is Number Two on the list (and yes, I’ve got a little list… They never would be missed)?  I give you one guess: