Often when people describe SI or similar, there is a frame often taken which describes a machine so smart and capable that it becomes uncontrollable. The hypothetical is easy to understand but it requires too many assumptions and an allergy to nuance/complexity to be believable for me.

The more realistic outcome, and in my opinion the more scary argument to not proceed without guardrails is that SI is achievable and is built without its owners and operators losing control: the worlds most powerful, privately owned super weapon that operates as an infinitely capable forgery within the Internet, a plane that we all share and depend on despite its opaque downsides with respect to an inability to verify authenticity.

We didn't need AI for FTC astroturfing to influence regulations back in the net neutrality days. We didn't need AI to disrupt meat space by creating and scheduling a protest and counter protest across the street from one another. We didn't need AI to mold public opinion, even in times when that new form was more distant from the truth.

What made these influence ops difficult to conduct safely (read: without being caught) is what made them rare (relative to today): they are plays of big risk for big reward. But over time social media commoditized it, and in doing that made it easier to do and more centralized, the most glaring example being TikTok and the bipartisan effort to ban it.

Now, buying US phone numbers from startups that run racks of "phones", buying swarms of pre-warmed social media accounts, and other unscrupulous methods of masking inauthentic behavior has become an accepted organ of the VC space. The industries cultural vibe of "fuck you, you can't stop the future" turns criticisms into marketing.

While we get placated with fears of nuclear or AI induced disaster and stories about machines that may now be alive, the psychosis is taking hold which has shifted the conversation away from examining what is happening from the perspective of accountability to a perspective akin to watching a chemical reaction take place.

The noise has created a permission structure to behave in ways that are otherwise unjustifiable. And baked in are the roots for excuses to be made when the inevitable realizations down the line.

In the mean time, we are supposed to be having this public discourse about what is happening and what should happen next. I trust that these AI companies see using their super weapon today, here and now, in order to pave the way to a more secure future down the line.

Sorry that I used your post to soapbox. I agree, the goal is flawed indeed.