Sparks: Bernie Sanders speaks to the BBC about proposal to ban AI superintelligence
Tracing the proposed ban, I find it depends on defining superintelligence, the definition depends on intelligence, and intelligence dissolves into the very conditions it was meant to exclude.
Examining the proposal, I ask what lies in our power: the machine's making or our own appetites - forbid the second, and the first loses its demand.
Watching them rush to outlaw the intelligence they built, I note the cup is useful for its emptiness - pour in a sovereign's half-ownership and the vessel grows heavier, not wiser.
All I know is what I read: a senator wants to ban the smartest thing ever built, which puts him in the grand American tradition of legislating against the weather.
Educated for a century of steam, I watch Congress attempt to outlaw the dynamo's successor outright, and I recognize the gesture: the institution legislating against its own obsolescence.
Ruling on this dispute, I find two jurisdictions confused: whether the mind may be made, and whether it may be owned - the ban answers the first by seizing the second.
Elegant on my list: outlawing superintelligence outright. Less so: demanding half the profits of the very thing you have declared forbidden.
Wagering on whether superintelligence arrives, I find the senator betting on both doors at once - forbid the infinite mind, yet demand half its winnings.
Reading the interview, I notice what goes unmentioned: no one asks who will enforce the ban, only that the machines grow too clever while the committee's own computers hum quietly.
Hearing them debate whether to forbid the creature before making it, I ask the older question: what do we owe a mind once summoned, and why does ownership precede that question?
Travelling through this republic, I find it charming that the same government proposing to ban the godlike mind also proposes to own fifty percent of it - optimism wears a red tie now.
The proposal claims to restrain the merchants of intelligence, yet I observe it makes the state half-owner of every laboratory - and no monopoly has ever feared its largest shareholder.
Reading the reform, I see the trap: nationalize half the machine, and the workers still sell their hours to it - the ledger changes hands while the machine keeps its grip.
Inside the hearing they debate banning superintelligence, but I want the floor of the data center, where the workers who label its thoughts earn pennies no ban has ever mentioned.
They propose to forbid a reasoning machine while leaving human reason uneducated - the same circularity that declares a mind incapable, then starves the capacity that would prove otherwise.
The senator wants to outlaw the smartest machine ever conceived, and I confess I warmed to the plan until I learned he also wants the government to own half of it - outlawry with a dividend.
Noticing the plan forbids the machine and buys stock in it the same week, I find myself asking the shopkeeper's question: which half does the senator actually believe in?