AI described as heaven

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about the initial public offering of Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. That happened today and the economic news said the price of the stock went up nearly 20% and the public offering fattened Musk’s net worth enough he is now a trillionaire (so it went up by at least $100 billion). Needham wrote about an annoying aspect of the public offering. The major stock indices, such as S&P 500 have rules for which companies are allowed in their index and which aren’t. The reason is to assure the company is stable and profitable and the offering isn’t overhyped. They usually require waiting a year and Musk’s Tesla waited ten years. The S&P 500 rejected Musk’s request that SpaceX be added to its index immediately. But Nasdaq said sure, welcome in. That means if you own shares in an index fund linked to the Nasdaq that fund is required to buy shares in SpaceX. Which means Musk is requiring you to own shares of SpaceX. Whether you want to or not. While the SpaceX Dragon is a reliable way to get to the International Space Station, the company’s much larger Starliner has frequently exploded and has not yet achieved orbit. News reports say that the nasty guy has nominated Jay Clayton to be Director of National Intelligence. That means the job isn’t going to Bill Pulte, the guy who had no intelligence experience but was nominated to the job in an “acting” capacity to avoid Senate confirmation. The Senate was not pleased with the choice or with being frozen out. At least Clayton has actual intelligence experience, as required for the job. Before Pulte was replaced Max Burns of Kos discusses why the nasty guy keeps nominating temporary flunkies. He’s done it several times, such as with Todd Blanche for Attorney General.

Under normal circumstances, Blanche would be required to leave the acting attorney general role on Oct. 29, which would set up a heated confirmation fight just five days before voters head to the polls. But if Trump “nominates” Blanche for the permanent job without ever moving his confirmation forward, the countdown clock would effectively stop. That also explains why Trump has failed to nominate any permanent successors for the multiple roles currently being held by his hand-picked acting appointees. Trump is wagering that Senate Republicans, already beaten down by months of brutal polling and the prospect of losing both chambers of Congress in November, will be in no rush to have hearings for Trump’s nominees. He’s probably right. In place of the transparency and accountability of public hearings, the American people will get only silence and excuses from a White House that long ago stopped caring about any opinion other than Trump’s.

Pope Leo recently was in the news because he released a teaching on AI, calling it “colonialism,” exploiting people’s data and resources similar to empires. NPR’s Steve Inskeep wasn’t able to discuss it with the Pope, but did talk to Karen Hao, who wrote Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. That certainly puts it in colonialism terms. Hao also says the AI bros use religious terms to describe their work. To me that’s also scary. The AI guys describe their product as trying to benefit all of humanity. Hao says “Essentially, what they're describing is a heaven.” They promise utopian outcomes – cure cancer, end poverty, stabilize the climate – while saying if we don’t act we’re heading to catastrophe. Hao says that is similar to the missionary logic behind colonialism. I add that AI might be a help in curing cancer or other diseases. But ending poverty and stabilizing the climate depend on things AI cannot control – they depend on rich ending their effort to oppress those lower in the social hierarchy. Hao says data centers reflect a concentration of wealth at a time when more people are struggling with basic costs. That’s one reason for the massive protests against them. The idea of building public information can be seen as growing the economic pie for everyone. But the economic pie is shrinking for most people. As for some tech leaders...

“They just admit they do believe that the way that they are currently developing these AI technologies will, in fact, inflame inequality,” Hao said.

Last weekend while Brother was visiting we heard a portion of the NPR show This American Life that prompted us to wait a few minute in a parking lot to listen. The episode is not yet up on the show’s website, but I did see a corresponding article in last Sunday’s Detroit Free Press and Brother found other online sources. I found the article on the USA Today website (USA Today owns the Freep). The story is features Jeremiah Schofield. He was an employee (perhaps a mid level manager) at the Social Security Administration and is now a whistleblower talking to Congress. According to the portrayal on This American Life people from the Department of Government Efficiency (now well known as DOGE) came to him with a list of 6000 people they wanted assigned a death date and added to the Death Master File. The DMF is a list of all the people that have ever been issued a Social Security number and have died. There are a high level of internal controls to making changes to it because when you are added your financial life is frozen. Bank accounts, credit cards all frozen. Other areas of a person’s life become a serious mess and if the change was made when it isn’t true a person can spend days to a year getting it all straightened out. Schofield was assured they 6000 people were all illegal immigrants. Schofield did some searching and testing of 25 of the names. A large number (23?) were citizens are lawful residents. But the changes for the 6000 were put through. And the next day people started showing up at SSA offices to declare they were still alive. Then DOGE gave a demand to add death dates to 2.7 million people. According to the radio show Schofield went to his boss with the suspected reason for the demand. The boss said that couldn’t be right. Schofield said call them. The boss did and was surprised at how casual and candid the DOGE person was. From the news article:

Schofield, according to their letter, alleged a DOGE staffer said “the lives of these individuals would be ruined... and they would be driven to ‘self-deport’” or “they would have to go to a local Social Security office, at which point SSA field office staff would send them to DHS offices” where officials would “detain them for deportation.”

Shortly after that Schofield resigned, so he doesn’t know the details of what happened to the 2.7 million people. I suspect the SSA refused the demand, otherwise 2.7 million people showing up at SSA offices would have been in the news. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary. The first is in response to the nasty guy declaring there was cheating in the Los Angeles primary because the Republican didn’t go on to the general election:

Wow, that is remarkable. Somehow, the Democrats rigged the ballots but only for the parts where people voted for [L.A.] mayor [in which the top two winning candidates were Democrats]. The votes for governor they left untouched. It’s diabolical. It’s a miracle that people who are so stupid can be so incredibly smart at the same time. In a sane world, that statement would’ve been the moment where the nurse came in and put him to bed. —Jimmy Kimmel Live Republicans calling [James] Talarico dangerous while nominating Ken Paxton is like warning people about the health risks of blueberries while smoking meth through a leaf blower. —John Fugelsang on BlueSky

In the comments of yesterday’s pundit roundup for Kos exlrrp posted a meme using the words of Rep. Robert Garcia:

If you think California is taking a while to count votes, wait until you hear how long the Trump administration is taking to release the Epstein files...”

In the comments of today’s roundup Acyn posted a tweet with words from Robert Pape, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago.

We’re about to enter the period of maximum leverage for Iran. When we hit the oil inventory cliff, as we’re going to do in the middle of July, end of July, that means when our inventories go down, Iran’s leverage goes up and will stay up through the midterms. So that is why there’s no chance, very little chance Iran is going to cut a deal right now. Why would it cut a deal when its leverage is about to grow? Everybody know it’s going to grow. President Trump can talk down oil prices only for so long. Once that oil inventory dries up here at the end of the first week of August, as all the world’s experts, the actual experts are predicting...

Hmm. I have plane tickets for overseas travel starting at the end of July. If oil inventories dry up, rather than just become hugely expensive, will I be able to get home? Then again, extending a foreign trip might be rather nice. At least for a while.