#695 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Thursday June 29)
Good morning,
Greetings from the Aspen Ideas Festival!
HEADLINES
I thought today would be a great time to do my periodic “best of” headlines. Here are the great and small:
The Supreme Court struck down the ludicrous “independent legislature doctrine.” In a rebuke of this new and dangerous way of interpreting the Constitution, the Supreme Court saved us from state legislatures run wild, when they upheld the decision in Moore v. Harper. In a nutshell, Republican legislators filed suit against the state Supreme Court for overturning a gerrymandering regime, arguing that the right to manage elections is vested in state legislatures, per the U.S. Constitution. As such, their argument went, the state courts had no right to judicial review. Needless to say, the potential negative ramifications are significant. As a result of this case, state Supreme Courts will have the ability to oversee election gerrymandering and election law activities by State legislatures. Judicial review has its place and state legislatures have guardrails—and thank goodness.
A leadership crisis and potential armed civil war in Russia was averted. Many pundits say this exposed weakness in Vladimir Putin’s regime. That may well be true but let’s not forget that autocratic leaders have averted overthrow before (remember the attempts on Hitler’s life). While Putin’s weakness may have been exposed, his resolve and readiness for future disturbance likely will be strengthened.
Ryan Seacrest is the new host of Wheel of Fortune, after Pat Sajak’s retirement. Great. Who cares?
Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a “cage fight” in Las Vegas. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is exactly what you’d expect—they would duke it out in a cage. Zuck apparently accepted Musk’s challenge. I don’t think it would ever happen. If it did, one can be sure Zuck would start with one brilliant idea to win but would then resort to an uninspired bout, behaving like an automaton thereafter. One also can be confident both of the pugilists would cheat…
Roseanne Barr, comedian and conspiracy theorist, isn’t sure Jews died in the Holocaust. Oy vey.
The U.S. Navy heard the implosion of the submersible shortly after the implosion. This bodes well for the Navy’s ability to identify threats below the surface of the water.
The Angels had a 25-run game last week, scoring 13 runs in a single inning. Over the course of the three-game series, the Angels outscored the Rockies 32-12. Despite the wide run differential, the Angels won only one of the three games of the series. They made history, as the team with the highest positive run differential (20) to lose a series in the modern era. One has to go back to 1897 to beat that ignominious record, when the Louisville Colonels won a series against the Chicago Colts, with a minus-23 run differential. Angels are breaking the wrong records…
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE—FULL SPEED AHEAD!
The Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival began with a film welcoming the participants. It was narrated by Walter Paepcke, the founder of the Institute. The only problem is that Mr. Paepcke died in 1960. His narration was created by taking snippets from recordings of his voice from the 1950s. Artificial Intelligence allowed for the creation of an amusing—yet frightening—“return to life,” uttering words Mr. Paepcke never uttered.
Obviously, the fact that we can create statements and speeches of people—alive and dead—to further any particular narrative is concerning. It is only a matter of time before our leaders’ voices are replicated, along with their moving images, to make them say anything. I believe we are on the cusp of a period when we will have to confront not simply disinformation—but disinformation that will seem to be uttered by people we consider trustworthy. How will we determine whether the video we see of the President of the United States actually is real or something created by Chinese bots intended on disruption? And how will any of us be safe from bad actors who put words into our mouths and expose us to risk?
There are some who, like the Luddites of yesteryear, want to put the brakes on the further development of Artificial Intelligence. Certainly, as fast as technology is progressing, the means to control the more nefarious uses of the technology tends to lag behind. But this doesn’t justify some of the calls to slow down the development of these technologies. Rather, it is a clarion call for the government and research institutions to work harder to build systems to keep AI within reasonable guard rails and create a system of “truth verification.” Scientific advances will continue regardless, whether restricted or not. More importantly, some of the “bad actors” out there, like China, Russia, and Iran, are not slowing their development and implementation of technologies. We shouldn’t either.
We need to work on reasonable regimes for controlling the effects of these technologies. We need to stay ahead of the curve in addressing the risks. We cannot run the risk of slowing down the development of technologies.
More on A.I. is coming in future Musings!
Have a great day,
Glenn