[ExI] Trump Says a Smart President Is All That’s Needed to Rein In A.I.

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 



 

> Presidents don’t make laws. 

 

>…The US Constitution says only Congress can declare war, but the president on his own initiative put this country at war…

 

Ja.  But it doesn’t say he can regulate AI.

 

>…The US Constitution says only Congress can inflict tariffs, but the US president on his own initiative has inflicted ruinously destructive tariffs on us and done so for reasons that are patently absurd…

 

It still doesn’t say he can regulate AI.

 

>…But as I said before when it comes to AI I'm not complaining because Donald is doing the right thing; yes he's doing the right thing for the wrong reason but it's still the right thing…

 

Sure, however… even if he desperately wanted to do the wrong thing, POTUS does not have the authority to do anything about AI.  That applies to his predecessors and successors, and this is very important.  Congress is in charge of making laws and regulations.  That they are not doing it doesn’t change the fact.

> The New York Times apparently thinks a POTUS is a king. 

>…That's because Donald thinks he is a king, and unfortunately he's not far wrong. 

 

John K Clark

 

 

I see, so the argument relies on the NYT imagining the office of POTUS has authorities it does not actually have, then criticizing the holder of that office for doing likewise: imagining he has powers he does not actually have.  Pick a side NYT: no kings or yes kings.

 

POTUS definitely does however have the authority to order the military to buy no products from any company which refuses to comply with requirements set by the military.  That authority is now used up for Anthropic of course, been there done that.  It could still be used on OpenAI and SpaceX as well, but hasn’t.  Yet.  Since that silver bullet has already been fired at Anthropic, which survived, Anthropic is free to do as they will.

 

This loops me back to Jacob Coxon.  If you and I went to work for Anthropic, or any of the AI companies, ya dang well know exactly what we would be doing, or I sure would: I would work like hell to master everything that Dario, Sam and Elon know about creating an AI and creating an AI company.  

 

OK, so imagine Coxon doing that (it isn’t hard to do.)  Then, as soon as he gets sufficient expertise, he starts a company, calls up the White House, tells them he is much more open minded about developing military AI technology than his former boss, and that he knows how to do AI weapons work safely, and of course we need to do that, otherwise the godless commies will get there first and we don’t want that to happen, for that is even more dangerous than a godful capitalist AI which kills everyone, etc.

 

I may be wrong.  But the whole scenario just feels a bit too plausible: smart, ambitious 27 year old guy, wants to play in the big leagues with Sam, Elon and Dario.  Is that so hard to imagine?  The first step is to quit the company, publish a big drama queen memo on how dangerous this AI business is, and how we need ethical competent people developing the technology, such as the newly-minted jAIcob Inc, and you may buy shares in my company now, etc.  I can imagine that.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

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