By now, I assume most “everyone” has read or seen stories about the uncontrolled development of AI. They speak of installing “guardrails” as a virtual safety net—no worries!
This is just another example of semantic subterfuge, another example in our recent lexical cultural-political-semantic wars of malfeasant misdirection, redefinition, cancellation, or antiquation.
Guardrails and safety nets don’t prevent calamities. Their presence and carefully selected location indicate a high expectation or potential need for their purpose. Guardrails exist to contain and mitigate damage after the “accident” has occurred.
Somehow, the discussion about concerns over AI's uncontrolled development has turned that fact on its head. AI, its products, or consequences are not an “accident.” I cannot believe the public and government are swallowing the hokum of the “guardrail” metaphor, first “proposed” by AI companies themselves to control the narrative and appear concerned, contrite, and responsible as they burn through unfathomable amounts of capital, energy, water and other resources—including the materials they have stolen to train their monsters that do not work as advertised and will not provide the glorious future they would have us believe is just around the corner. And the legislative capture campaigns continue…
There is concern that they’re running out of content to scrape and are looking to source more. Their models are not fully trained and will fail to meet their and their investor’s and stakeholders’ wild expectations. Investors are taking notice, and the oligarchs are running scared as they see a brick wall looming in their not-so-distant future, resulting in collisions and consequences (circular “training.” already obvious) that no guardrails can contain. Should this happen, I predict massive government bailouts in the future. The AI-government-industrial complex cannot allow them to fall behind, let alone fail, because of what goes on behind the scenes under the guise of “national security.” This stuff was weaponized from its inception, long before it was introduced as toys for public consumption. The genie is out of the bottle, and the toothpaste is out of the tube. There is no putting it back.
As I write this, there is a simmering new panic in the Western AI-world: The latest Chinese models appear to be leap-frogging over the best that America, the presumptive world leader, has developed. Evaluating whether or not that crafted appearance is true or false isn’t as crucial for many as fomenting furtive panic to gain clicks, likes, viewers, and subscribers. Common sense and thinking beyond the immediate narrow tunnel vision on a particular subject—always in short supply—is visibly non-existent, as the flood of commentaries posted by people of alleged higher knowledge has demonstrated (lots of obvious blind mirroring to appear in-the-know and relevant). Unless you are deeply knowledgeable about all the tech and committed to taking sides on what it all means (I’m not), I would strongly recommend avoiding all but the headlines..and taking them with a block of salt.
The geniuses who created all this, no doubt, foresaw all these problems and have them in their complete predictable control. So say authorities from some of the source(s) I read regularly. Others have a distinctly contrary opinion. Others are trying hard to broker a truce between the warring factions. There is a palpable sense of “my genie is better than your genie.” That’s not just a wishful metaphoric comment; it’s the basis of all “this.”
Who appears to be in the lead should not be the paramount concern. It should be that what they produce—all of them— is dangerously, demonstrably inept. The only question that matters is the “intel”— recognizing and evaluating the relative degree of their intrinsic danger and the decisions being made based upon a cascade of dubious data, content, and assessments—and an eye on maintaining the ruse to keep the taps flowing that supply an endlessly necessary flow of capital. The decisions that industry, governments, militaries, and economies will make are based on the belief they have no choice but to develop and depend on this tech is evident because “everyone” is “all in.” No one can risk being left behind. Reality is whatever the AI says it is and all must act on that assumption.
Once you’ve fallen in, the guardrails don’t matter. Never did.
Guardrails…just more semantic twaddle.