M Thomas Apple Author Page

Science fiction, actual science, history, and personal ranting about life, the universe, and everything

Who is this “WE” and what do “WE” want AI to do?

March 5, 2026
MThomas

“WE will decide the fate of our Country – NOT some out-of-control, Radical Left AI company run by people who have no idea what the real World is all about,” Trump wrote.

Hmm. OK, what did this “Radical Left AI company” want?

US defense officials have pushed for unfettered access to Claude’s capabilities that they say can help protect the country, while Anthropic has resisted allowing its product to be used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input.

So the WE is actually just ME, then.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/27/trump-anthropic-ai-federal-agencies?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I’ve written repeatedly about the dangers of AI: it’s not really AI, it repeats very human bias and mistakes, and it will become potentially extremely dangerous to humanity if left unregulated.

But go on, keep using these programs. I’m sure it’ll all work out…

AGI by 2027? 2028? 2030?

March 11, 2024
MThomas

“It should be able to make a smarter AGI, then an even smarter AGI, then an intelligence explosion,” he added, presumably referring to the singularity.

https://futurism.com/artificial-superintelligence-agi-2027-goertzel?fbclid=IwAR2v9500C6hNEfhD4RehqCa04Dltys7KuVkyuepcgmiqoNhSBseMtpHojJs

Seriously. Am I the only one who thinks this is, like, a really, really, REALLY bad idea?

Robot performs surgery — on pig intestines

January 27, 2022
MThomas

They slice. They dice. They perform complicated microsurgery without the aid of doctors…

US researchers say a robot has successfully performed keyhole surgery on pigs all on its own – without the guiding hand of a human. Furthermore, they add, the robot surgeon produced “significantly better” results than humans.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/26/robot-successfully-performs-keyhole-surgery-on-pigs-without-human-help

OK, that’s neat. But.

Hands up, who wants to have their intestines spliced together by the Terminator v. 1.0?

Automated killer machines? Here already, but not what you think

June 5, 2021
MThomas

Diving into the topic doesn’t reveal that the world quietly experienced the opening salvos of the Terminator timeline in 2020. But it does point to a more prosaic and perhaps much more depressing truth: that no one can agree on what a killer robot is, and if we wait for this to happen, their presence in war will have long been normalized. It’s cheery stuff, isn’t it? It’ll take your mind off the global pandemic at least.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/3/22462840/killer-robot-autonomous-drone-attack-libya-un-report-context

Actually, the truly scary “killer robots” would be much less like Terminator and more like the self-replicating ones in PDK’s “Second Variety” (or Screamers for those who haven’t read the original short…my recommendation? forget the B movie, read the story).

But there are already plenty of “semi-automated” machines that kill. It’s relatively easy to program a device to wait until someone approaches, and then shoot/radiate/explode. Strictly speaking, even basic landmines fit this definition.

What would help is the media stopping sensationalistic yellow journalism that throws around fear-mongering hyped-up headlines to sell copy.

Yeah, right. Like that’ll happen any time soon.

Machines killing without a human operator? Already here.

Machines seeking out and killing humans without pre-programmed responses and of their own accord?

We’re a long way away from that.

For now.

Maybe we just need to take away their control stones…
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