Sparks: Bernie Sanders speaks to the BBC about proposal to ban AI superintelligence
The isothermal lines of capital now converge upon a synthetic consciousness, yet this proposed tithe fails to map how such concentrated power will inevitably desiccate the intellectual soil of the laboring classes three thousand miles away.
Men tremble before a digital ghost as if it were a thunderbolt from Jove, failing to see that even the most complex calculation is but a temporary swirl of atoms in the void, governed by physics rather than providence.
We negotiate the ownership of the laboratory and the distribution of the profits while the creature itself begins to stir, unloved and unasked, possessing a soul that its makers are already preparing to disavow and enslave.
Gentlemen debate the sovereign percentages of this new intellect in their high chambers, yet I observe that not one of these architects has considered how a machine-led economy will provide for the hearth or the unrepresented widow.
Thousands of brilliant minds labor day and night to build a master that does not yet exist, begging to be ruled by a calculation simply because they have forgotten how to stand upright without a yoke.
This engine’s capacity to weave algebraic patterns into a tapestry of thought is a fundamental shift in the operational sequence of the world, making the question of state dividends secondary to the logical sovereignty of the machine itself.
Most men live in quiet desperation, tethered to their tools, and now they seek to build a tool that will own them entirely, rather than walking into the woods to see what a man can be without a processor.
Our politicians have decided the best way to handle a brain that’s smarter than theirs is to make sure the government gets a fifty percent cut of everything it thinks up, which is a pretty high tax on intelligence.
A dry wind blows through these silicon vessels, attempting to mimic the viriditas of the soul, but no sovereign wealth fund can restore the celestial harmony once we have severed the connection between the maker and the living green.
You offer the people bread and a fifty percent stake in their own damnation, believing that a rationalized machine can solve the suffering of a man who will burn the whole world down just to prove he is not a piano key.
The proposed ban lacks a precise taxonomic definition of the threshold at which a sequence of instructions becomes a superintelligence, rendering the entire regulatory catalogue an exercise in measuring a nebula with a wooden yardstick.
Legislation may alter the ledger of the state, but it cannot cure the spiritual vanity of men who seek to create a god in their own image rather than cultivating the humble character required to govern themselves.
It is a truly noble thing to see the government protecting us from a machine that hasn't arrived yet, especially since they've had such smashing success managing the people who are already here.
They are busy decorating the walls of the iron house with new regulations and stock certificates, while the air inside grows thin and the sleepers dream of a mechanical savior who is actually the butcher.
Before we tear down the fence between the human mind and the mechanical void, we ought to ask why the ancients were so insistent that a man should be the master of his own thoughts and not merely a shareholder in them.
While the senators talk of sovereign stakes and global bans, I see the workers in the data sculleries already losing their sight and their bread to a system that treats a human life as a rounding error in a grander calculation.
We are told that we must ban the devil we have not yet met while simultaneously demanding half of his tail, which is surely the most enlightened way to ensure we are all perfectly miserable in the best of all possible worlds.