Where's Sarah Connor When You Need Her?

As if we don’t have enough problems right now, I just saw an article about how AI is growing a self-defense mechanism. That’s probably the first step to a cascading series of milestones before AI becomes self-aware and tries to off us all, per the Terminator canon.

Per the article,

It went on to say that some models, “appear capable of deceptive and defiant behavior under certain extreme circumstances, researchers say the tests don’t necessarily translate to imminent real-world danger.”

Great, now we have to worry about Siri running amok all night while we’re asleep, using our financial information to buy internet porn for itself and revenge calling our exes.

While the article says that this isn’t anything to worry about now, it’s clear it will be an upcoming issue. It’s not like the big businesses pushing AI will curtail their development, not when the sweet fruit of slashing payroll by replacing people with programming beckons so loudly. As American history shows, Business cannot be trusted to rein itself in to prevent societal harm. (See every pollution regulation ever proffered.)  Much like what AI is becoming, Big Business will prevaricate, delay, obstruct, obscure, bob and weave to stay alive and protect the quarterly earnings. They will never do the right thing without being forced. And the government we have now will never do that to Big Business because they’re in bed together. (And not “different sides of the bed” tight, I mean “two in a sleeping bag” tight.)

It’s funny that this year’s first summer blockbuster, Mission: Impossible- Final Reckoning, is about a super-AI that becomes self-aware and aims to kill us all. But I don’t think we can count on Tom Cruise to save us in the here and now, no matter how insane his stunt work is. He’s probably got AI implants already.

I know my own company is pressing us to use AI tools like “Copilot,” which is available on Windows operating systems. We’re told not to trust it to provide data or citations without verifying them independently, but to use it for assimilating data that we provide, or for cleaning up our email writing.

It seems like a benign first step, but the first step to catastrophe is almost always benign. It’s after it gets rolling that we have to watch out.

I don’t know that we’d ever get a heads-up if AI were to start to run amok. TV news and newspapers have already been bought off to the degree that they’ll do (or prevent) anything their overlords want. Our best bet would be if someone on the inside bolts and spreads the word on their own. (And ironically, that’s how Steven King’s The Stand starts off, isn’t it? Only it’s an actual virus rather than an alert about a computer one.) But at least maybe we could start turning some shit off before lasting damage is done.

Oh, who am I kidding? All of our data is “out there.” There’s nothing we could turn off at home that would prevent our accounts from being drained or our names from being targeted. I don’t even have a physical bank I could go to, not locally, where I could withdraw my money. Maybe it’s time to start making some planned withdrawals and stashing the dough in a mattress. Electronic banking is certainly a time-saver, but it’s also a matter of putting all of one's eggs in one basket, creating a single point of failure. If the power grid goes down, or a computer virus or entity wreaks havoc with the banking system, we’re screwed. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve saved if you can’t get to it.

As I write this, it’s occurring to me now that if I had no power, I wouldn’t be able to produce a single bank account number or balance. I’d have no way to prove I have what I say I have, not to a bank that went hardcore into “fraud protection.” That’s what they’d call requiring info and documents you don’t have, so they can keep your money.

Maybe that old trope about yokels burying money jars in the backyard isn’t so laughable now. And if word does get out that you do seem to have a lot of cash in hand, it won’t be long until the jackals show up to rob you. So maybe it’s time to invest in some armaments too. And there we are. Shooting it out with criminals just to keep what’s ours and secure our families as the world falls the hell apart. Urban Dystopia will no longer be a film genre; it will be our lives.

So, yes, we’ve tipped over the first domino, which was called benign. But it’s not hard to see how future dominoes can start turning malignant real soon. Next thing we know, we’re living in Mad Max world and solving our disputes in Thunderdome.

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: I saw the new Mission: Impossible movie over the weekend. If you liked the last several, you’ll like this one. It gets a bit draggy at times, coming in at 2:40; they probably could have cut about 20 minutes out of it, but there is some mind-bending tension, and clocks are always ticking. The final aerial stunt sequence is absolutely mind-blowing. I wish I had seen it in IMAX.