AI and the Rise of Techno-Fascism in the United States

Summary

Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Overcast | Pocket CastsWith all the hype and hysteria around AI, it’s important to remember that AI is still just a tool. As powerful as it is, it is not a promise of dystopia or utopia.Host Garry Kasparov is joined by cognitive scientist Gary Marcus. They agree that on its own, AI is no more good or evil than any other piece of technology and that humans, not machines, hold the monopoly on evil. They discuss what we all need to do to make sure that these powerful new tools don’t further harm our precarious democratic systems.The following is a transcript of the episode:Garry Kasparov: In 1985, at the tender age of 22, I played against 32 chess computers at the same time in Hamburg, West Germany. Believe it or not, I beat all 32 of them. Those were the golden days for me. Computers were weak, and my hair was strong.Just 12 years later, in 1997, I was in New York City fighting for my chess life against just one machine: a $10 million IBM supercomputer nicknamed Deep Blue. It was actually a rematch. I like to remind people that I beat the machine the year before in Philadelphia.And this battle became the most famous human-machine competition in history.Newsweek’s cover called it “The Brain’s Last Stand.” No pressure. It was my own John Henry moment, but I lived to tell the tale. A flurry of books compared the computer’s victory to the Wright brothers’ first flight and the moon landing. Hyperbole, of course, but not out of place at all in the history of our love-hate relationship with so-called intelligent machines.So are we repeating that cycle of hype and hysteria? Of course, artificial intelligence is far more intelligent than all chess machines. Large language models like ChatGPT can perform complex tasks in areas as diverse as law, art, and, of course, helping our kids cheat on their homework. But are these machines intelligent? Are they approaching so-called AGI—or artificial general intelligence—that matches o...