The AI dooooooom thread

[Syt]

https://x.com/PalantirTech/status/2045574398573453312

Palantir
@PalantirTech
Because we get asked a lot.

The Technological Republic, in brief.

1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation.

2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible.

3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public.

4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

6. National service should be a universal duty. We should, as a society, seriously consider moving away from an all-volunteer force and only fight the next war if everyone shares in the risk and the cost.

7. If a U.S. Marine asks for a better rifle, we should build it; and the same goes for software. We should as a country be capable of continuing a debate about the appropriateness of military action abroad while remaining unflinching in our commitment to those we have asked to step into harm's way.

8. Public servants need not be our priests. Any business that compensated its employees in the way that the federal government compensates public servants would struggle to survive.

9. We should show far more grace towards those who have subjected themselves to public life. The eradication of any space for forgiveness—a jettisoning of any tolerance for the complexities and contradictions of the human psyche—may leave us with a cast of characters at the helm we will grow to regret.

10. The psychologization of modern politics is leading us astray. Those who look to the political arena to nourish their soul and sense of self, who rely too heavily on their internal life finding expression in people they may never meet, will be left disappointed.

11. Our society has grown too eager to hasten, and is often gleeful at, the demise of its enemies. The vanquishing of an opponent is a moment to pause, not rejoice.

12. The atomic age is ending. One age of deterrence, the atomic age, is ending, and a new era of deterrence built on A.I. is set to begin.

13. No other country in the history of the world has advanced progressive values more than this one. The United States is far from perfect. But it is easy to forget how much more opportunity exists in this country for those who are not hereditary elites than in any other nation on the planet.

14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war.

15. The postwar neutering of Germany and Japan must be undone. The defanging of Germany was an overcorrection for which Europe is now paying a heavy price. A similar and highly theatrical commitment to Japanese pacifism will, if maintained, also threaten to shift the balance of power in Asia.

16. We should applaud those who attempt to build where the market has failed to act. The culture almost snickers at Musk's interest in grand narrative, as if billionaires ought to simply stay in their lane of enriching themselves . . . . Any curiosity or genuine interest in the value of what he has created is essentially dismissed, or perhaps lurks from beneath a thinly veiled scorn.

17. Silicon Valley must play a role in addressing violent crime. Many politicians across the United States have essentially shrugged when it comes to violent crime, abandoning any serious efforts to address the problem or take on any risk with their constituencies or donors in coming up with solutions and experiments in what should be a desperate bid to save lives.

18. The ruthless exposure of the private lives of public figures drives far too much talent away from government service. The public arena—and the shallow and petty assaults against those who dare to do something other than enrich themselves—has become so unforgiving that the republic is left with a significant roster of ineffectual, empty vessels whose ambition one would forgive if there were any genuine belief structure lurking within.

19. The caution in public life that we unwittingly encourage is corrosive. Those who say nothing wrong often say nothing much at all.

20. The pervasive intolerance of religious belief in certain circles must be resisted. The elite's intolerance of religious belief is perhaps one of the most telling signs that its political project constitutes a less open intellectual movement than many within it would claim.

21. Some cultures have produced vital advances; others remain dysfunctional and regressive. All cultures are now equal. Criticism and value judgments are forbidden. Yet this new dogma glosses over the fact that certain cultures and indeed subcultures . . . have produced wonders. Others have proven middling, and worse, regressive and harmful.

22. We must resist the shallow temptation of a vacant and hollow pluralism. We, in America and more broadly the West, have for the past half century resisted defining national cultures in the name of inclusivity. But inclusion into what?

Excerpts from the #1 New York Times Bestseller The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West, by Alexander C. Karp & Nicholas W. Zamiska

[The Minsky Moment]

One People, One Culture, One AI.

[Syt]

One Vision?

Though the German version by Laibach might be more appropriate (it's a fairly decent literal translation by the Slovenians). It has a Riefenstahlian tinge.

[crazy canuck]

The Onion?

"14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war"

Are the tech bros really that historically illiterate?

[Sheilbh]

I am more hesitant on Trump or much of MAGA - but Thiel is definitely a fascist.

[Tonitrus]

One Vision?

Fried Chicken.

[Neil]

The Onion?

"14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war"

Are the tech bros really that historically illiterate?

It's true to some degree, but it's a little funny to see that in the same screed where they're saying that the age of the nuclear deterrent is over.

[crazy canuck]

The Onion?

"14. American power has made possible an extraordinarily long peace. Too many have forgotten or perhaps take for granted that nearly a century of some version of peace has prevailed in the world without a great power military conflict. At least three generations — billions of people and their children and now grandchildren — have never known a world war"

Are the tech bros really that historically illiterate?

It's true to some degree, but it's a little funny to see that in the same screed where they're saying that the age of the nuclear deterrent is over.

"To some degree" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your post.

[Neil]

American power did a lot to deter Soviet adventurism, which was a real concern. 

[Valmy]

Sure. 50 years ago. But I don't really see what that has to do with Silicon Valley and AI.

[Sheilbh]

I agree I think it is basically true. Although the Cold War included a lot of proxy or displaced great power conflict, which impacted many millions. The balance of terror with nukes definitely plays a role too.

But I agree not really sure I can see the connection to AI. Except on a very broad sense - Silicon Valley and the California model depends a huge amount on Cold War military Keynesianism funding a lot of its industrial and research base, of which this may just be the latest iteration. And arguably the services Palantir/AI provide are kind of an essential facet of hard power in the 21st century - therefore if you want sovereignty you need to get away from them and build your own (easier said than done - and probably only China and possibly Russia have that sovereign alternative).

[mongers]

I agree I think it is basically true. Although the Cold War included a lot of proxy or displaced great power conflict, which impacted killed many millions. The balance of terror with nukes definitely plays a role too.
....

FYP

[Sheilbh]

Absolutely but also more than just killed - people forced from their homes, states collapsed, impacts on people even outside the actual countries suffering the conflict etc.

[crazy canuck]

Absolutely but also more than just killed - people forced from their homes, states collapsed, impacts on people even outside the actual countries suffering the conflict etc.

Making the claim that American power has created "some version of peace" for more than a century ridiculous.

American power has been involved in a number of wars over the last 50 years that has greatly destabilized the world. American power caused the overthrow of a democracy elected leader in Iran, which is directly implicated in the war that is now occurring. American power is the opposite of a stabilizing, peaceful agent over the last century.

It takes complete historical ill literacy for somebody to think the claim has any validity. Well, maybe not complete historical literacy, but maybe significant historical blinders that focus only on the interests and goals of the United States.