The hot button topic of the past week or so has been how, if turned loose, AI will wipe out human existence, perhaps as early as the beginning of the next decade. My first thought was that this will play havoc with my pension plans. More seriously, I have my doubt that robotic storm troopers are going to be marching down our streets, firing their ray guns at all human life forms, much like the Daleks from Dr. Who. Before that can happen, I believe there will be industrial strength censorship.
In the past, censorship has been a tedious and ineffective method for one group or one tyrant and goons to control the people. In ancient Egypt, it meant sending out the chiseler’s union to remove names and likenesses of someone the king despised. Chisel off their face, and they are forgotten. Destroy their tomb and mummy, and they never get to hang out with Osiris in the underworld.
Stalin’s method was to remove someone from a group photograph. One day they were in the picture, the next day gone, and after that forgotten. Russians quickly understood that the individual was never to be mentioned again. Hitler and his goons were infamous for book burning and destroying art they thought was ‘decadent.’ In effect, they believed they could censor ideas and art they did not like, then the artists are forgotten. They took it to the ultimate level with the Holocaust.
We are not innocent of censorship in our country. There were spates of book burning, banning some music and recording artists, and record burnings. More recently, there were attempts to censor both the fine and popular arts based on someone’s idea of morality. On occasion it has extended to popular contemporary music and films. But again, much of it was low-tech work, and it usually came to an end.
It never worked. In fact, the best way to advertise a book of film was to have it labeled as “Banned in Boston.” Those three words converted mediocre sales into large fortunes.
Then, beginning in the McCarthy Era of the late 1940s and 1950s, federal and state agents began closely watching libraries. President Eisenhower warned Americans, “Don’t join the book burners. Don’t be afraid to go to the library and read any book as long as any document does not offender your own ideas of decency.” That seemed excessively and dangerously liberal, and the far right did not like it.
In 1950, the American Library Association published a manifesto, “The Freedom to Read.” They affirmed that the purpose of a library was to circulate “the widest possible diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority.”
The association believed that instead of having the goons monitor the libraries and what people read, it was up to each individual to self-censor. Or, as the Olds would say when there was something on television they didn’t like, “It has an off switch, you know.” In the case of libraries it was a matter that if you don’t like something, you don’t have to read it; you don’t have the right to make that decision for others.”
When federal and state agents visited libraries and demanded a list of their patrons and what they had borrowed, librarians stood firm and tossed them out. When the agencies sued the libraries, the courts said ‘no.’ The right to privacy remained.
Long before AI, many of us started buying and using electronic readers such as Nook, Kindle, and others. For a small fee we could select books from a collection of hundreds of thousands of books and articles. We thought we were buying them and owning them. Rather, we discovered we were purchasing access to them. Periodically, someone might discover that something they thought they owned had disappeared. Often, it was not censorship but a copyright issue. Still, there was an uproar, but it was all legal, right there in the proverbial fine print.
The quest toward censorship, not only of printed materials, but ideas, has never gone away. Over the past few years there have been outbursts of anger, that anyone who dares say anything negative about Homeland Security and ICE should be arrested. In short – censored and silenced. In their minds, dissent against these programs must be stopped.
Censorship is a first cousin to “snoopervision” as currently exemplified by the Flock camera network that scoops up license plate numbers and tracks where vehicles have traveled. Maybe we should keep in mind that if Flock is recording license plates, they can also record bumper stickers and anything else on the car. From there the authorities can draw inferences of your political, religious, or other affiliation.
What many people do not realized is that we have already been seduced into giving up our privacy. Every time we make a purchase for goods or services with a credit or debit card, it is recorded and can be tracked. This is one reason many of us Olds have continued paying in relatively untraceable cash. Nobody needs to know our purchases.
When several executives and investors began warning about AI leading to the extinction of humans, they proposed putting limits on research and slowing things down. A few believed the industry itself should self-police. Others suggested the government should step in to write the parameters for the future of AI; still others said it is an international problem.
A few days later, President Trump said there was no need for AI or government agencies to set limits. He said he knew what was best and could handle it all by himself. Apparently, he is going to appoint an AI Czar, which is not an especially comforting message. That doesn’t work for me, and it has nothing to do with American party politics. History has demonstrated that tyrants and dictators always want to control technology, and it has always been a disaster. Tyrants and potential dictators just can’t be trusted.
