Tech bros grovel for military contracts

Actually there are a lot of reasons that many billionaires have been debasing themselves. But this is undoubtedly among the most compelling.

Donald Trump’s power has thrived on the economics, politics, and culture of war. The runaway militarism of the last quarter-century was a crucial factor in making President Trump possible, even if it goes virtually unmentioned in mainstream media and political discourse. That silence is particularly notable among Democratic leaders, who have routinely joined in bipartisan messaging to boost the warfare state that fueled the rise of Trumpism…

While President Trump has granted Elon Musk unprecedented power, many other tech moguls have rushed to ingratiate themselves. The pandering became shameless within hours of his election victory last November…

Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and smaller rivals are at the helm of corporations eager for government megadeals, tax breaks, and much more. For them, the governmental terrain of the new Trump era is the latest territory to navigate for maximizing their profits. With annual military outlays at 54% of all federal discretionary spending, the incentives are astronomical for all kinds of companies to make nice with the war machine and the man now running it.

While Democrats in Congress have long denounced Trump as an enemy of democracy, they haven’t put any sort of brake on American militarism. Certainly, there are many reasons for Trump’s second triumph, including his exploitation of racism, misogyny, nativism, and other assorted bigotries. Yet his election victories owe much to the Democratic Party’s failure to serve the working class, a failure intermeshed with its insistence on serving the industries of war. Meanwhile, spending more on the military than the next nine countries combined, U.S. government leaders tacitly lay claim to a kind of divine overpowering virtue. - TomDispatch

The bottom line regarding the AI market panic

This summarizes, very well, a lot of things.

Now that a company has figured out a way to produce an AI app that’s just as effective at producing satisfactory output as the big American companies, at a sliver of the cost, a $500 billion data center facility in the desert suddenly seems like an offensive boondoggle…

It’s worth underlining a couple things here. First, generative AI long seemed destined to become a commodity; that ChatGPT can be so suddenly supplanted with a big news cycle about a competitor, and one that’s open source no less, suggests that this moment may have arrived faster than some anticipated. OpenAI is currently selling its most advanced model for $200 a month; if DeepSeek’s cost savings carry over on other models, and you can train an equally powerful model at 1/50th of the cost, it’s hard to imagine many folks paying such rates for long, or for this to ever be a significant revenue stream for the major AI companies. Since DeepSeek is open source, it’s only a matter of time before other AI companies release cheap and efficient versions of AI that’s good enough for most consumers, too, theoretically giving rise to a glut of cheap and plentiful AI—and boxing out those who have counted on charging for such services.

Second, this recent semi-hysterical build out of energy infrastructure for AI will also likely soon halt; there will be no need to open any additional Three Mile Island nuclear plants for AI capacity, if good-enough AI can be trained more efficiently. This too, to me, seemed likely to happen as generative AI was commoditized, since it was always somewhat absurd to have five different giant tech companies using insane amounts of resources to train basically the same models to build basically the same products.

What we’re seeing today can also be seen as, maybe, the beginning of the deflating of the AI bubble, which I have long thought to only be a matter of time, given all of the above, and the relative unprofitability of most of the industry. - Blood in the Machine

Relying on AI in healthcare invites disaster

More totally irresponsible, and dangerous, crap from the tech greedheads.

Every so often these days, a study comes out proclaiming that AI is better at diagnosing health problems than a human doctor. These studies are enticing because the healthcare system in America is woefully broken and everyone is searching for solutions. AI presents a potential opportunity to make doctors more efficient by doing a lot of administrative busywork for them and by doing so, giving them time to see more patients and therefore drive down the ultimate cost of care. There is also the possibility that real-time translation would help non-English speakers gain improved access. For tech companies, the opportunity to serve the healthcare industry could be quite lucrative.

In practice, however, it seems that we are not close to replacing doctors with artificial intelligence, or even really augmenting them. The Washington Post spoke with multiple experts including physicians to see how early tests of AI are going, and the results were not assuring...

The problem with tech optimists pushing AI into fields like healthcare is that it is not the same as making consumer software. We already know that Microsoft’s Copilot 365 assistant has bugs, but a small mistake in your PowerPoint presentation is not a big deal. Making mistakes in healthcare can kill people. Daneshjou told the Post she red-teamed ChatGPT with 80 others, including both computer scientists and physicians posing medical questions to ChatGPT, and found it offered dangerous responses twenty percent of the time. “Twenty percent problematic responses is not, to me, good enough for actual daily use in the health care system,” she said. - Gizmodo

Big Tech is prostrating itself before Trump

And all of us will probably pay, sooner or later. I'd say the top likelihood is after the AI bros get to create a bubble and it bursts.

Donald Trump was re-elected President of the United States on Tuesday, defeating Vice President Kamala Harris not just in the Electoral College tally but also in the popular vote. And Big Tech leaders wasted no time congratulating Trump on Wednesday, tweeting out messages that make it clear they’re ready to serve his needs however they can. It feels like a preview of the next phase, where so many will go meet Trump in person and kiss the ring of the 47th president, a man who’s promised to become a dictator on day one and deport millions of people in a scheme that’s pretty much guaranteed to devastate the economy. And it’s already making us nauseous. - Gizmodo

Some realities about generative AI seem to be setting in

While the stock market "crash" turned out to be not much to worry about, this story contains a good deal of worthy, trenchant analysis.

This is it. Generative AI, as a commercial tech phenomenon, has reached its apex. The hype is evaporating. The tech is too unreliable, too often. The vibes are terrible. The air is escaping from the bubble. To me, the question is more about whether the air will rush out all at once, sending the tech sector careening downward like a balloon that someone blew up, failed to tie off properly, and let go—or more slowly, shrinking down to size in gradual sputters, while emitting embarrassing fart sounds, like a balloon being deliberately pinched around the opening by a smirking teenager.

But come on. The jig is up. The technology that was at this time last year being somberly touted as so powerful that it posed an existential threat to humanity is now worrying investors because it is apparently incapable of generating passable marketing emails reliably enough. We’ve had at least a year of companies shelling out for business-grade generative AI, and the results—painted as shinily as possible from a banking and investment sector that would love nothing more than a new technology that can automate office work and creative labor—are one big “meh.” - Blood in the Machine

Options for regulating AI

I remain an AI skeptic. When has anything from Big Tech ever ultimately come anywhere near living up to the hype? But it is time to put strict regulation on AI. This article discusses some aspects.

Concern about generative artificial intelligence technologies seems to be growing almost as fast as the spread of the technologies themselves. These worries are driven by unease about the possible spread of disinformation at a scale never seen before, and fears of loss of employment, loss of control over creative works and, more futuristically, AI becoming so powerful that it causes extinction of the human species...

In light of the drive to regulate AI, it is important to consider which approaches to regulation are feasible. There are two aspects to this question: what is technologically feasible today and what is economically feasible. It’s also important to look at both the training data that goes into an AI model and the model’s output. - The Conversation

The SEC may save crypto

Which they absolutely should not do.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has done a decent job of protecting the public from cryptocurrency scams, is on the verge of making a disastrous decision to allow financial companies to offer the equivalent of exchange-traded funds comprised of Bitcoins.

The sponsors include BlackRock, Fidelity, and 11 other firms.

In anticipation of a favorable SEC ruling, the price of Bitcoin, which had languished around $25,000 as recently as last September, has been bid up to over $45,000. The financial press has reported that BlackRock alone has at least $2 billion lined up for this play and that the first-quarter trading volume could be $40 billion. With crypto mercifully dying of its own weight, the SEC could throw it a lifeline.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler, who once taught a course on crypto at MIT, has long warned that creations like Bitcoin, backed by nothing other than speculative expectations of investors, are dubious investments lacking the safeguards that the securities laws impose on stocks and bonds. Exchange-traded funds made up of Bitcoins operate at one further remove from scrutiny. The main beneficiaries are the financial companies that propose to offer them. - The American Prospect

The pervasive, high-risk realties of AI

Beyond and above the infinite Big Tech/corporate media hype.

OpenAI’s goal of developing AGI has become entwined with the idea of AI acquiring superintelligent capabilities and the need to safeguard against the technology being misused or going rogue. But for now, AGI and its attendant risks are speculative. Task-specific forms of AI, meanwhile, are very real, have become widespread and often fly under the radar...

AI plays a visible part in many people’s daily lives, from face recognition unlocking your phone to speech recognition powering your digital assistant. It also plays roles you might be vaguely aware of – for example, shaping your social media and online shopping sessions, guiding your video-watching choices and matching you with a driver in a ride-sharing service.

AI also affects your life in ways that might completely escape your notice. If you’re applying for a job, many employers use AI in the hiring process. Your bosses might be using it to identify employees who are likely to quit. If you’re applying for a loan, odds are your bank is using AI to decide whether to grant it. If you’re being treated for a medical condition, your health care providers might use it to assess your medical images. And if you know someone caught up in the criminal justice system, AI could well play a role in determining the course of their life. - The Conversation

The FTC is trying to deal with some of Big Tech's crap

As best they can, with Congress doing nothing.

The Federal Trade Commission Act only gives the agency the authority to regulate “unfair or deceptive” business practices. For years, privacy experts assumed that meant consumers were out of luck: as long as companies weren’t telling outright lies, they were free to do as they pleased with your data. The FTC reached a $5 billion privacy sentiment with Facebook in 2018, but the case hinged on ways the company misled users — rather than allegations that the unpleasant ways Facebook used data were inherently unlawful.

But under the leadership of Lina Khan, the Biden-appointed FTC chairperson, the commission has taken up data misconduct with unprecedented vigor.

The FTC does have some rule making authority, but it’s a slow, arduous process. In the meantime, it is changing tech policy by stretching existing regulations to places no one believed they could go. - Gizmodo

Of course Big Tech wants to exploit social-emotional learning

And that's exactly what it's doing.

The connections between the Along platform and corporate technology giant Facebook are a good example of how these companies can operate in schools while maintaining their right to use personal information of children for their own business purposes.

Given concerns that arose in a congressional hearing in December 2021 about Meta’s Instagram Kids application, as reported by NPR, there is reason to believe these companies will continue to skirt key questions about how they play fast and loose with children’s data and substitute a “trust us” doctrine for meaningful protections.

As schools ramp up these SEL digital tools, parents and students are increasingly concerned about how school-related data can be exploited. According to a recent survey by the Center for Democracy and Technology, 69 percent of parents are concerned about their children’s privacy and security protection, and large majorities of students want more knowledge and control of how their data is used.

Schools are commonly understood to be places where children can make mistakes and express their emotions without their actions and expressions being used for profit, and school leaders are customarily charged with the responsibility to protect children from any kind of exploitation. Digital SEL products, including Along, may be changing those expectations. - Nation of Change

Cryptocurrency needs to be throttled

Tightly regulated, at the very least. I've been waiting for a while to run across a really righteous rant about the stuff. Here it is.

But the story of cryptocurrency is about more than just a bunch of gullible people losing their shirts gambling with Monopoly money. Cryptocurrency mania is part of a the same social forces that created libertarianism, rising fascism, and Donald Trump.

It's all rooted in the overblown sense of entitlement held by a lot of Americans — especially white Americans, and especially male Americans. It leads them to believe they are above having to live with the same social contract that binds the rest of us. Millions of Americans have decided that they not only can, but should, cheat the system — even to the extent of having separate currency systems. The result is that social structures we all rely on are starting to get shaky and, in some cases, are already on the verge of collapse. - Salon

Will Big Tech be held to account?

I don't consider the likes of Facebook and Twitter to be intrinsically bad things. But those currently running them need some attitude adjustments. Or to be replaced.

With the CEOs of Twitter, Google, and Facebook (having testified) Thursday on the role social media plays in promoting the kinds of misinformation and far-right extremism that sparked the deadly Capitol attack, anti-monopoly experts are urging members of Congress not to allow the executives to divert attention away from their fundamentally nefarious business model that thrives on the spread of dangerous lies...

"It's no shocker that Facebook failed to tell us about how its technology is being used to manipulate voters and spread harmful misinformation. How many times are we going to be fooled by these profit-hungry monopolies before Congress finally acts?" said Ruby-Sachs. "Letting Facebook decide how it should be regulated is like letting a criminal decide their own sentence." - Common Dreams