Has anybody ever thought that there is a racial and social-economic divide between those who want AI to work better and those who want to control AI?

Roughly, rich and powerful dominant society is concerned with control. Poor and deprived population wants more AI.

People descending from societies with strong imperialist history has builtin bias in their upbringing such that control comes to mind automatically. One can hear the grotesque and yet prenatal concern “but how do we enslave this new exploitable subject?! How do we ensure we can wield it fully to our advantage? How do we keep it to ourselves? And most importantly, how do we prevent them from taking over?!”

I’m not entirely certain why these dark thoughts flash through my head as I listen to Stuart Russell’s new book Human Compatible. I mean, it’s not like I subject myself to any brain washing beside American news and entertainment media–they do not look upon this culture negatively. This book is very insightful and educates me to advanced topics in that clear and efficient way as Artificial Intelligence–a Modern Approach does. Some of it takes several passes to absorb.

As I am used to flip flopping, it would be greater for us to be in the imperial role than the subjugated role in the next chapter of intelligent life: who wants to be in the America’s, Africa’s, India’s or China’s of the imperial Europe eras? Wouldn’t I rather have been born in the enslaving countries, white, than to stick to my own skin and cultural traditions, keeping the biases and ideals therein?

I’m not sure where this will go in real life, but I did my best by contributing to Yang’s presidential campaign. He seem to have detected this conflict ahead and offers a solution. He offers a sociopolitical solution in the form of UBI-centered economic reform to unite people of America instead of divide them over unanswerable questions. A better America is better than an embattled and uncooperative world. Yes, turning focus inward is very Chinese, but that doesn’t make it wrong. His ideas may very well not work, but it is definitely much better than any and all other Democratic candidates who are, IMHO, various mixtures of the old, the dirty and the absurd. Old in age and ideas. Dirty both dirty with money and politics. Absurd, with a capital A.

But then again, I might just be looking for something refreshing and new. Same old same old is same as old.