Putting The Stargate AI Hype Into Perspective (Stream)

You’ll do yourself, and the world, a tremendous service when every time you see or hear “AI” you substitute “computer model”.

This is because “AI”, so-called artificial intelligence, is a computer model; rather, many such models. And when you hear “computer model” instead of “AI” you’re much less apt to become excited or nervous, and when you speak the substitution it becomes much less easy to boast, or to have the boast taken overly serious.

With that in mind, let’s look at the buzz around the government’s new Stargate Project. Not the old Star Gate Project from the 1990s ran by the CIA on the prowl for psychics, with a particular concern for what the Chinese and Russians were up to. The new Stargate (sans space) is about computer models, with a particular concern for what the Chinese and Russians are up to.

Three big things and one small one were announced for Stargate, not counting new jobs. There isn’t a government program created that doesn’t promise new jobs or a soaring economy, so this can be ignored.

Eye See You

The first big thing mentioned was ubiquitous constant surveillance. Oracle’s Larry Ellison, who’s in on Stargate, is keen on this. He said “citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly reporting and recording everything that’s going on.” He also said computer modeling finagling these streams of data will make judgements and be “unimpeachable”.

Which is false.

The NSA, and therefore other intelligence-connected entities, have been spying on, well, everybody since the moral panic over terrorism. Ellison is right that, if he is allowed, computers (inside and outside government) will record everything, just as they now track everywhere you go, everybody you contact for how long and where, and much more, if you have carry a “phone.”

Ellison wants to expand this surveillance on the idea that utopia can at last be reached once computer models are put in charge of processing the recorded images and sounds. Yet if you’ve ever watched an American sporting event with an interminable official time out, referees studying a replay from every conceivable angle and coming to a decision half the crowd disbelieves, you’ll understand why Ellison’s sources will be highly impeachable.

Yet lest we be too sanguine, let us recall Cardinal Richelieu who said “If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him”. AI can, if allowed, automate this process.

Boastful Promontory

The second thing promised is computer general modeling—a term which doesn’t get the juices flowing. Sounds a lot slicker without the substitution: Artificial General Intelligence, or so-called strong AI. Which are computer models that, somehow, become “self-aware” and possess intellects and wills as we do.

This claim is a bluff. This is a deep and complex topic, and….go to The Stream to read the rest. It’s free and don’t cost nuthin.

THIS IS A SPECIAL ARTICLE THAT APPEARS AT THE STREAM. THIS IS ONLY AN EXCERPT.

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