Oh I completely agree that we are turning everything to shit in about a million different ways. And as oligarchs take over more, while AI is a huge money-maker, I can totally see regulation around it being scarce or entirely non-existent. So as it’s introduced into areas like the DoD, health, transportation, crime, etc., it’s going to be sold to the government first and it’s ramifications considered second. This has also been my experience as someone working in the intersection of AI research and government application. I immediately saw Elon’s companies, employees, and tech immediately get contracts without consultation by FFRDCs or competition by other for-profit entities. I’ve also seen people on the ground say “I’m not going to use this unless I can trust the output.”

I’m much more on the side of “technology isn’t inherently bad, but our application of it can be.” Of course that can also be argued against with technology like atom bombs or whatever but I lean much more on that side.

Anyway, I really didn’t miss the point. I just wanted to share an interesting research result that this comic reminded me of.