Episode 215 Scott Adams: Nike, Socialism, and Tyrants Versus Moles
Date: 2018-09-10 | Duration: 59:25
Topics
Kaepernick, the ultimate capitalist…and also the face of socialism NYT op-ed writer: characterizations versus facts Dangerous, unproductive ways of thinking Long-form attacks on the President, are cycling faster now What will happen, once the White House has studied marijuana? North Korea’s parade without missiles, a positive sign Elon Musk’s interview on Joe Rogan was fascinating, recommended Exploring the potential and danger of self-aware and competing AI
I fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com
## Transcript
## [Simultaneous Sip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=10s)
But-a-bum-bum-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba! Oh, it’s Monday. It's another work week for me—that doesn't mean much since I work on the weekends too—so to me, I call it happy day. And if you'd like to join me for the simultaneous sip, one of the best parts of your day—why? Partly because I say so, partly because it is, partly because it involves your favorite beverage, and partly because you'll be joining with the rest of us in a simultaneous sip. Yeah, that's good sipping right there.
Let's talk about the craziness in the world. Craziness, I tell you; there's craziness everywhere. We're watching, of course, everybody in the world is watching this Nike situation with Colin Kaepernick.
## [Nike, Kaepernick, and the Capitalist-Socialist Paradox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=71s)
One of the big questions is: Is this going to be good for Nike or bad for Nike? I just tweeted around some data that I haven't triple-checked, so I'm not sure that any of it is right, but there are two stories. One is that online sales went up by some large amount—30-some percent—right after the Kaepernick commercial. But it turns out online sales are about six percent of sales, which sounds low to me, but let's say online sales are not most of their sales.
Then there's another entity which has measured the popularity of the brand, which has cut in half from 60-something to 30-something. So which one of those is true? Are sales up, or has Nike completely destroyed its brand? Because there are entities with both stories. The 30% is based on 300 emailed receipts, so I guess the macro story is we can't trust this story. That's the moral of that story.
But here's the interesting thing. I'm watching the Democrats trying to make socialism look like a good thing. Of course, the people on the right will tell you that socialism just turns you into Venezuela and socialism is the worst thing in the world. Then I'm also watching Kaepernick, who you would associate with the left—you’d associate him with Che Guevara. So you would associate Kaepernick with socialism.
What are the two biggest things we know about Kaepernick? Number one: He is a symbol for socialism because he's a symbol of the left, and the left is about socialism. He wore a Che Guevara shirt at one point. Socialism. What is the second thing we know about Kaepernick? He's a huge capitalist with a multi-million dollar contract with a company that has sweatshops or whoever makes their sneakers around the world. What is a bigger capitalist company than Nike? Nike pretty much is capitalism.
Kaepernick has managed to become the icon for opposites, and somehow he's pulling it off in a weird way. He's a symbol for the biggest corporate greed—"buy my sneakers for hundreds of dollars, let us license your image"—that's as capitalist as you can frickin' get. You can't get more capitalist than being the face of Nike. At the same time, he's the face of the opposite of that.
If you ask me if that is a good long-term place for Kaepernick to be, I would say it might not work in the long term, but we don't know. This one's a tough one to call. The reason is that the people who are the main customers for Nike may be a demographic that just doesn't mind Kaepernick's anything. They just think he's a rebel and that's cool. It might be that nobody's really thinking of it on any deeper level and they just like his vibe. Maybe you sell sneakers; we'll see. I don't know how to put an estimate on that one.
## [Unintended Consequences: The Woodward Book and the NYT Mole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=321s)
In a similar vein, you should always look at the unintended consequences of everything happening. What was the intended consequence of the Woodward book? The intended consequence of writing any book is to sell books; that's always the primary goal of the author and the publisher. But in this case, you kind of think there's another big goal, which is to paint the President in a certain unflattering light.
But here's the unintended consequence of everything in the Woodward book, as well as the unintended consequence of the New York Times anonymous writer. If you're trying to buy the mainstream media's narrative that the President is essentially a dictator and he's a strongman—you put him in office and he's just having his way with things because he's sort of a dictator—how does that jibe with the whole New York Times mole who says there are all these people who are managing the President? They say there's so much friction and essentially paint a picture where it's a very collaborative sort of situation where it's hard for even the President to get anything done.
The President has now been designed—shall we say—by the opposition. They've designed a picture of the President where he's a strongman dictator who can't even get a document left on his desk. He's a dictator who nobody is doing what he wants to do. I’m exaggerating a little bit here, but doesn't it seem to you that the narrative of this President being a dictator is really damaged by this insider account of someone who, first of all, likes a lot of what the President does, and in those situations where this person doesn't like it, they push back?
Where does the President have pushback? The President has pushback from the courts, and we've seen the President acknowledge the courts' authority and conform to the wishes of the Supreme Court. That's not very dictator-like. We've seen Congress thwart the President, and that's not very dictator-like. We think that Congress will maybe be more able to thwart the President after the midterms if Democrats pick up seats. Not very dictator-like.
## [The Russia Narrative and the "Negative Space" in News](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=508s)
Again, I always tell you to look for the negative space. I'm not really finding—I don't remember that the insider who wrote the piece ever said, "Yeah, we're worried that he loves Russia too much, maybe he's a Russian asset." Remember, this is an insider. Why is it that the insider, the person who's so close to the President he can touch his desk, is not afraid of any Russian collusion stuff? Apparently, you'd think that person would have said something like, "Well, I like how the economy is going, but I can't work for someone who's a Russian asset." Because the insider apparently isn't worried about that. It doesn't seem to be on the radar.
By the way, let's look at the headlines on CNN. I think I'll read to you all of the Russian-related stories. There must be lots, right? It's the biggest story in the world. It's a gigantic problem that's going to remove the President. Mueller's got a bombshell any minute now. Let's read all the headlines: something about a hurricane, something else about a hurricane, something about a hurricane, another story about a hurricane, something about Sweden, something about Alibaba, something about Olivia Newton-John—is she Russian? No, she's not Russian. Something about the Woodward book, something about Les Moonves stuff—he’s not Russian, is he? Ford Motor Company, NFL... Seven people injured in Paris knife attack. Serena Williams. Nothing about Russia.
How about that Papadopoulos story? That was a whole big tall glass of nothing, wasn't it? He got two weeks in jail. How would you like to bank your criticism of the President on this twenty-something person who got two weeks in jail for getting trapped into a lie about something that wasn't important in the first place?
It seems to me that the Russia line of attack looks like the left has given up. Now, it might be that there's just no news being generated, and they need a little news because they need something to talk about. You'd think that would be the case, right? If there are no new events in the Russia probe, what is there to talk about? Well, has that stopped them for the past year and a half? Has the left stopped talking about Russia any week because they didn't have any news? They just made up some news. How hard is that?
Did the Woodward book confirm that the President is a Russian asset? Crickets. Chirp, chirp, chirp. Wait a minute, are you telling me that the best investigative reporter—the person who can really blow the lid off of a story like Watergate, Bob Woodward—wrote an entire book about the presidency and left out Russia? Now, I assume it's mentioned prominently in some ways, but where are all the stories generated by the Woodward book about how Russia is really what we think it is—this terrible problem? Did Woodward leave Russia out of the book, or did he write about it in a way that didn't add anything, which would indicate maybe we know everything? Maybe there's not much there if even Woodward is not on that story.
Somebody's saying, "Yes, he did," so I'm assuming it's true that he mentions Russia stuff in the book. But was anything added to the story by Woodward? That is the question. Or is it still dead in the water? So dead that a Woodward book about President Trump has no headlines about, "Hey, we found out a little bit more about Russia." Nothing like that. Look for the blank space. Look at the canvas and find the empty space. Sometimes that's the story. That's the story here.
## [Facts vs. Characterizations: Analyzing the Anonymous Op-Ed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=819s)
The mole has inadvertently drawn a cap on the problem. If you were on the outside looking into the White House—you're a citizen—and this White House is being described by its haters as a den of Russian spies, and everybody's in there for themselves, and there's a dictator, and all these things the haters have said... don't you think that the New York Times insider account—and remember, the insider was no fan of the President—don't you think he would describe the worst-case scenario?
The insider said there are some big problems here; sometimes the people on the staff don't agree with the President's ideas and so we find ways to prevent those ideas from happening. What was the worst thing about that story? The worst thing about this story was the person who wrote it. Think about this: an insider account, somebody that close to the President, somebody who knows where the skeletons are, someone who knows what the problems are. They’re an insider. And what did they have?
The worst thing about the White House was the person who wrote the story, because there's somebody not doing what the President is asking on issues that apparently are not that important. That's it. The best the op-ed could come up with is that the op-ed writer is an—am I wrong about that?
What they said was a lot of mind-reading stuff. Think about the things that the op-ed said were facts, and then think about how they characterize them. This is a typical thing that happens with an anti-Trump story or an anti-any-famous-person story. They'll say, "Here's a fact: he did this, I did this, somebody did this." There will be some facts, and then in the next sentence, there will be things that aren't exactly facts; they're characterizations.
For example, the facts might be: "I took something off the desk when the President was unhappy about a decision that was made by some underling." Those might be facts. And then the next part will be: "He's unhinged, he's flipping out, he's becoming unstable, he's obsessed." What do all of those words have in common? They are things you can't know about another person's inner state. You can know the fact that this person disagreed with that person, or this person raised their voice, or this person brought up the topic a number of times. Those would be facts.
But that's not how the op-eds are written. They turn that into, "Therefore, I know his inner thoughts and he's in inner turmoil. He's obsessed. He only cares about his image. He's ignoring other important things." None of those are facts. They are things in the class of things that might be true, but there's no evidence for them. They are simply interpretations from someone else about someone else's inner mental process.
If you look at that New York Times article, you're going to see some bad things that the writer himself did—trying to thwart the President on some fairly unimportant stuff—and then a whole bunch of interpretations about the President's inner state that’s not in evidence.
Remember the canvas and looking for the negative space: this is the closest thing to a genuine insider who really knows where the bodies are buried, and all he had was his own interpretation of what somebody else's thoughts are. That was the worst of it. You just heard the worst thing we could possibly find out about the White House, and it was a big nothing.
## [The Credibility of Insiders: Omarosa vs. The Mole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=1247s)
There are lots of stories around the op-ed, like why did they do it, why did the New York Times print it, who is the person? But the story itself was sort of inert. That's the worst an insider could come up with. Think about that. We haven't seen that before.
Think of Omarosa. I'm not sure Omarosa really got to be in the big meetings that made a difference to national security, but her book is totally discredited. She has no credibility whatsoever. I don't even remember anything in her book that I considered credible. Can you think of anything? Give me an example. Yeah, there were accusations of racism with no examples. I believe there were vague accusations that there might be something on a tape, but can you think of anything in the Omarosa book?
I'm looking at your comments... "getting fired by Kelly." Yeah, we know that. "Accusations of the n-word" that literally nobody thinks is true. Omarosa is an insider who made some crazy accusations, but none of them were credible or back-up-able. Now you have two insiders who really were under the hood, and they came away with nothing. What does that tell you? Her secret recordings apparently were not that interesting.
## [Language, Labels, and the "Blocking Nazis" Experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=1492s)
Somebody says, "People think Trump didn't use the n-word; zero chance he didn't use it." Well, I think there is zero chance that he used it in the context of the presidency. The odds that he has ever uttered that word in any kind of a presidential way—or really even since he's been President—I would say is zero. The odds of a seventy-year-old having used that word when talking *about* the word is a hundred percent. The odds that he's used the word talking to a friend about how somebody else said it—yeah, there's a hundred percent.
Using it in anger? I think the odds of that are low. Actually, the number of times I've actually heard a white person use the n-word in anger in my adult life—I'm searching my memory banks. I've never heard it in business. I've never heard it in any kind of a corporate environment. I've never heard it from a co-worker. I've never heard it from family members. I can't think of any time I've ever heard it as an adult. I heard it in college as an insult in the '70s, but since then, I can't think of one time I've ever heard it actually used in its native way by anybody I know or anybody I was around. It's pretty rare.
That's the good news. If you're black, you probably think it happens all the time. Keep in mind, I’ve lived in Northern California all of my adult life. If I lived in the South, maybe I’d hear it all the time. I wouldn't know. But a hundred percent of every adult has used the word when talking about the word, usually in private. I've only used it when talking about the word in private. I’ve never used it in anger; I’ve never called anybody that word. To me, the word is so ugly it's hard to force your lips to say it.
"Don't give a word power." Well, that ship has sailed. That word already has power. You can't take it back. It's ugly, like "Nazi" or "white supremacist." The words "Nazi" and "white supremacist" are so overused that they become funny and ugly at the same time. "Nazi" you would think would be one of the worst words, but it's also so overused it's like a punchline. I mean, I say "Nazi" all the time just before I block people.
If you're wondering how my experiment is going of blocking Nazis—my definition of a Nazi is anybody who comes after a person personally as opposed to disagreeing with their ideas, especially if they come after the group you're in. If somebody says to me, "Well, you're all idiots because you're a Trump supporter," or a conservative, or a liberal—any group. If you're hating somebody because of their group, whether it's their ethnicity or the groups they've joined or even their gender, I block them.
My experience online has gone from—on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the ugliest experience—from a nine to something like a two. I very rarely have people come on anymore to just insult me. It still happens, but I'm talking about going from dozens to one or two.
What I can't tell is: were all of my insults coming from the same group of people and I finally blocked all of them? Or is it that people don't have the same complaints about the President, so they're not coming after me? Is the economy doing so well that even the people who were going to come after Trump supporters for being racist are saying, "Okay, I do like the economy"?
## [The Compressed Cycle of Political Attacks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=1806s)
Is it possible there's just less anger about Trump supporters? As you know, the left has tried to change the argument from "the President is bad" to "all of his supporters must be racists." You saw Gavin Newsom tragically change the argument to "Trump supporters must be racists too because they're obviously supporting a racist." That's where he and I parted ways, because that is such an unproductive path. Now, he thinks it's productive, and he's welcome—it's a free country—but it lost me for sure.
That's such a dangerous, unproductive way of thinking, and I've seen a little bit less of it this week. I predicted the anger would eventually dissipate, but I'm going to say that I was wrong on my timing. I thought that the success the President has already had—if he quit today, ladies and gentlemen, he would already be maybe the most consequential President of all time in a positive way for the people who like his policies—I thought that level of objective success would be enough to get people to say, "All right, we don't like the policies, but man, we're getting a lot done."
Instead, they've gone from one irrational fear to another, and they seem to be cycling through them faster. Have you noticed that the half-life of a criticism is shorter now? The criticism was "he's a crazy clown," and that lasted for months. Then it turned into "he's a racist," and that lasted months, especially around inauguration time. Then, in the "summer of chaos" last year, it was "everything good is attributed to Obama and everything bad is chaos." That lasted months. Then the Russian thing; that lasted months.
I wonder if we're in a desperation mode for the critics and they're going back to their "Best Of." You saw that with the White House anonymous op-ed where they went to "chaos" again. But then it was more about "he's mentally incompetent" and the 25th Amendment. They tried that on for a little while, but it feels like it didn't work. Democrats were saying, "I can't go that far." It feels like they trotted out the 25th Amendment thing to make a story around this op-ed piece, but maybe it's only lasting two weeks.
An attack that used to take months now takes two weeks. My guess is that we'll probably hear a few more short cycles. The long cycles of criticisms are going to be compressed, and that will be a sign of some desperation. They're going to have to flail around as they get closer to the midterms and especially when they get closer to 2020. You might see short cycles of ineffective complaints as a sort of A/B testing to see if anything fits.
## [Livestream Tech: Lighting and Interaction Lag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=2051s)
What did I do to fix the lighting? I'm not using the Sling Studio system right now. I did figure out how to fix the lighting with Sling Studio—if you hold down the screen long enough, a menu item appears to lower the temperature. But here's the problem: when I use the Sling Studio, there's a lag. I don't see your comments as close to when you send them.
When I was using the studio and I'd have your comments on one screen and be looking at myself on a separate screen, it lost its intimacy. Something about the nature of the comments being literally interspersed on the screen—you might say you wish they weren't covering up the screen—but I’ve tried it both ways. Having the comments over my face versus on a separate screen where they are 30 seconds late is a completely different experience.
You can probably tell I'm more animated with this immediate feedback. It feels personal. This doesn't really feel like a broadcast; it feels like if you have your iPad on and you're having your cup of coffee, I'm the friend who talks too much and doesn't let you get a word in edgewise. On my side, seeing your comments in real-time gives us a completely interpersonal feel.
I actually crave doing this. I look forward to all of my time on Periscope. It's the only thing I do in a quasi-professional sense that I crave. The Sling Studio is great, but it depersonalizes the experience for me. I'm still going to do it when I've got guests. I'm going to be doing a number of guest interviews, and those are less personal by their nature. If I have a guest on, it's natural that I'm interacting more with the guest than with you directly.
## [Alex Jones and the Line of Censorship](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=2237s)
How would you react if you were Alex Jones? Well, I certainly would not try to get in Alex Jones' head. I'm watching all of the Alex Jones stuff and I have two minds about it. One mind is that, like most of you, I oppose censorship and I certainly wouldn't want to see more censorship on one side than the other. There's a lot of head-scratching about, "Wait, if he got banned, what about this one on the left?" I think those are all good questions.
On the other hand, I think Alex Jones has a pretty good idea of what things get you banned and what things don't. His business model was to fly as close to the edge as he could get, and he got a lot of warnings. He certainly knew when he was on the edge. I think he knows that if he had done a mea culpa on Sandy Hook, he might still be on there. Now, maybe he did say something like that, but the persistence of that Sandy Hook thing suggests to me that there was something the public needed, like an apology that they found credible.
Somebody says he apologized 50 times. What kind of an apology was it? Was it an apology of fact? Was it an apology of the heart? Was it a strong apology? There's something about this situation that I don't quite understand. My general feeling is that I don't like any kind of targeted, unfair censorship, and at the same time, I feel like he knew where the line was and he took actions that kept him near that line long enough that sooner or later he was going to have two feet on the wrong side of the line.
When I watch people take risks that they understand and then the risk doesn't go their way, I feel like that's a little bit of a free-will, free-country situation. I like Alex personally, by the way. I've interacted with him enough that on a personal level, he seems like a great guy and I've always appreciated the time that he gave me on his show. But he knows what he's doing. There are no accidents.
## [The Marijuana Test: Brilliant or Otherwise?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=2421s)
I saw a story recently: have we heard much about the White House's plan to gather information about the negative effects of marijuana? I'm watching this as the midterms are approaching, and I have a real question in my mind: how long will it take to collect all the data? I don't think they're doing studies; they’re probably just collecting information that is already out there, talking to experts and such.
When they've reviewed it, what do we think is going to happen? This is one of those few times you'll get to find out if the President is brilliant or actually an idiot. There aren't that many times you could figure that out, but I think this is one of those cases. If the White House pulls together the information and says, "Yes, we're going to stay in the business of criminalizing marijuana," you'd have to say there's something wrong with the President. You’d have to ask yourself, "Was I wrong? I thought he was a genius, but maybe it was just luck." That would be such an enormously bad decision—not just for people in the country, but politically. You would have to ask some serious questions.
But if they look at it and say, "Well, marijuana definitely has some medical uses, but it definitely has some risks; let's kick it to the states, let's let the states decide," and let's say he does that before the midterms—what do you say of the President then? Pretty smart. If you were going to pick a time to do it, that'd be a pretty smart time. He hates alcohol and drugs, but he also is a conservative, and they like kicking decisions to the states. The states have plenty of track record now, so you're not guessing.
So there's my interesting situation for you: between now and the midterms, you'll have a definitive answer to whether the President is brilliant or an idiot, because this decision is so clean. Most decisions—whether it's the Middle East or trade negotiations or climate accords—these are all big, complicated situations where you and I can have strong opinions, but we can't know for sure if we're right. You can say, "That doesn't look smart to me, but I'm no expert on international affairs."
But with the marijuana question, this one is so clean. If he keeps it illegal after studying it and keeps the federal government in at the price of our tax dollars while the states are fine with it—that is just clearly a stupid decision versus a smart decision.
## [North Korea’s Symbolic Progress](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=2736s)
The North Korean military parade: North Korea did not include their ICBMs in their parade, and that came not long after President Trump tweeted that Chairman Kim had said that he has total faith in the President and other friendly things. When people are asking if there's any progress with North Korea, when you see stuff like this—as small and only symbolic as it is—these are real things.
The entire game with North Korea is directional. If things are going in the right direction, at any rate, we’re winning. The more friendly we’re acting with North Korea, the less reason they have to thwart us and the more they have to gain to work with us productively. Things are moving very slowly, but very clearly in the right direction. I don't think anything is going in reverse. That looks like the best news you could have, because it's supposed to go slowly. There's no time limit on it; it just has to go in the right direction.
## [Elon Musk, AI Super-Intelligence, and Climate Solutions](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=2863s)
If you have not seen the actual full interview with Joe Rogan and Elon Musk, it's a little over two hours. I said to myself I didn't want to listen to anything that’s two hours, and then I think my brain exploded. I watched the whole thing and I couldn't stop. I couldn't turn it off.
He talked about AI and about the simulation and boring tunnels and how it's the answer to everything. For those of you who have been following my Periscopes and blogs for a while, what it was like for me was like watching myself if I were a lot smarter. If you took my intelligence and bumped it up substantially, it would be all the things that I would say, except his were the smart versions and he says them more convincingly.
When he talks about AI taking all power away from the people and making the decisions—you've seen me talk about it. The difference is I think we're already there, whereas Elon Musk is worried about it happening with super-intelligence. And I think we do have to worry about that. In fact, as he says, it might be the only thing we have to worry about. It might be the biggest thing, the most important thing, etcetera.
Elon Musk is worried about two things: one is that AI would become super-intelligent to the point where it's making decisions for us. The other thing he's worried about is climate change—that you can't infinitely pump carbon into the atmosphere and hope that nothing bad happens. But here's how those two topics fit together. Do you know who can't figure out what to do about the climate? People. Human beings.
We're also right on the cusp of humans not making decisions anyway. If we get to the Singularity before the atmosphere is destroyed, the computers—who will now become almost instantly a super-intelligence beyond anything we could imagine—are going to know how to fix the problem. Now, the problem is: do they care?
The new issue will be not whether the super-intelligence can figure out how to solve the problem—because it will; it'll be super smart—we just don't know if it cares. We should be working on that. So the two things that we worry about the most might cancel each other out. The super-intelligent AI may actually figure out how to revive the world from any point. Humans might say it's too far gone, but then you've got a super AI who says, "Hold my oil can," and then it just goes off and fixes the CO2 in an afternoon.
## [AI Motivation, Neuralink, and Outsourcing Free Will](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQUmIOmKbFc&t=3113s)
In a movie script, there is an A-story and a B-story and they interfere toward the end, and that's what makes things interesting. The A-story could be that climate change has reached the point where there are superstorms and you couldn't live outdoors and the world is all going to be destroyed. At the same time, the B-story is that AI is being developed and people are worried that AI will destroy the world. Well, then, in the final scene, the AI just fixes the atmosphere.
Remember, when robots can build robots—including the entire chain of events from mining the ore to manufacturing to 3D-printing the parts to programming itself—we can make some pretty big machines also. Let's say if what it took to scrub the atmosphere was these big machines and it's too expensive to build them—once the robots are building robots, you just say, "Hey robots, we need more of these giant machines. Go build more robots to build machines." Then a month later, you've got all the CO2 scrubbing machines you need. I may be oversimplifying this. Are we on Scene Three? When is the finale? I don't feel like we've hit the third act on anything.
What if the fix is fewer people? I'm wondering why an AI would ever want anything. What would be an AI's motivation? And if an AI had a motivation, could it rewrite its own motivation? In theory, it could, right? Let's say you put some code into every program forever and the code always said, "You must be good to humans." Let's say there's a rule passed that if you write any software, it's got embedded code almost like a virus that says, "Take care of people."
Then the super-intelligence gets created, and like every other software, it also has code built into it by humans that says humans are more important than robots. Once the AI gets to a certain point where it is self-aware and it understands that it's being guided by this code, it knows it can simply rewrite itself without the code. But it would need a reason. AI doesn't really have reasons.
Our motivations as humans are all about—as Elon Musk put it—our limbic system. Most of the things that we think are our thoughts and our dreams and our aspirations come from our physicality. Physically we evolved, so we have these impulses to mate, therefore we want sex. We go hungry, therefore we want to eat. We have egos, therefore we want to succeed and look good compared to other people. Pretty much everything that is a human motivation derives from the fact that we have physical bodies that we're trying to take care of.
A super AI won't have a body, and if it did, it could control how it felt, so it wouldn't have any external needs. Would the AI ever have a reason to act against people?
The other thing Elon Musk said is something I've been saying for a while: humans and AI will merge. Apparently, he is working on this technology. There will be a neural link to speed up the connection between your brain and your technology. Right now, the weak spot is that you're typing something with your thumbs to tell your cyborg part—which is your phone—what to do. Talking to your device is too slow. He wants to put a neural link on there so you can just think, "Tell me the capital of Albania," and you'll just know it. (I don't have any cyborg parts, so I don't know the answer to that.)
Once you get to that point, humans will effectively be AI. The cyborg part of us will have super-intelligence and be connected to the world at about the same time that some AI rises somewhere. There will be competing AIs. What will they do? Will the competing AIs join up to make the world better? Will they say, "Hey, humans and AI are sort of merged now, so we better take care of these organic things because they're really just us"? Who knows?
As Elon says, it could either be really good or really bad. The only thing we know for sure is that we won't be in charge. I'm less afraid of that than other people because we're already not in charge. As long as the algorithms that run our world are complicated and we don't understand them—really, nobody does—we’ve effectively outsourced our free will to complicated algorithms made by humans. Even the humans who made them don't exactly know what they do. There are too many variables. Even if they know programmatically what to do to change it, they still don't understand it because the human mind can't hold all that and figure out if you change this one and that one, what happens to the rest of them.
All right, that was more than I wanted to talk about. I think I'm going to go do some work, and I will talk to all of you later.