Scale AI CEO To Trump: 'America Must Win the AI War' (semafor.com) 51
Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang is taking out a full-page ad in The Washington Post on Tuesday with a succinct message for the new US commander-in-chief: "Dear President Trump, America must win the AI war." From a report: The ad also pointed readers to a five-point plan that would reorient the federal government to invest more in the technology and overhaul priorities for that funding. In an exclusive interview with Semafor, Wang said he was motivated to make his recommendations by a new White House that is both planning to aggressively support new technology and courting input from the industry.
"They're listening," he said. "This incoming administration wants to move fast and take a lot of action and really be quite ambitious about a lot of these issues." [...] "What's undeniable, if you think about what the future is going to look like, is the degree to which the amount of computational capability you have will be directly related to how strong your AI capabilities are," Wang said before he arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Wang also recommends the US government should make a larger effort to cut the red tape on new energy production, inviting pent-up demand for private sector investment in the area.
"They're listening," he said. "This incoming administration wants to move fast and take a lot of action and really be quite ambitious about a lot of these issues." [...] "What's undeniable, if you think about what the future is going to look like, is the degree to which the amount of computational capability you have will be directly related to how strong your AI capabilities are," Wang said before he arrived at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Wang also recommends the US government should make a larger effort to cut the red tape on new energy production, inviting pent-up demand for private sector investment in the area.
There is no war (Score:4, Insightful)
Just please stop using that term. Competition or whatever you call it but it's not war.
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Just please stop using that term. Competition or whatever you call it but it's not war.
True, but consider AI the modern-day equivalent of nuclear weapons. Also consider what they're going to use AI for: war (real world/cyber) against other countries.
Remember, government/military contracts are quite lucrative!
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> equivalent of nuclear weapons
oh you mean fake government propaganda designed to scare the rest of the world into believing america is a "superpower" with "superweapons"?
Re:There is no war (Score:4, Informative)
No, the one where people believed Russia was the second best army in the world. The one where they have to grovel to China, Iran, and North Korea for supplies and troops. The one who keeps threatening people with nuclear weapons if they're not allowed to exterminate Ukraine and who whines louder at being the victim every time another oil refinery, ammo depot, or military airport goes up in flames as Ukraine defends itself.
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"...but consider AI the modern-day equivalent of nuclear weapons."
No. Thinking that way means you've already lost.
"Remember, government/military contracts are quite lucrative!"
So is the grift apparent in the article. We must win a war, so give us government money and free energy!
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Between cutthroat nations, I'm not so sure.
Right now the US is waging economic war against Canada, Mexico, Panama, and China (and probably others). It used to be a mix of cooperation and competition, but Trump is quite clearly of the mobster mindset - he wants 'protection' money.
Why would AI be any different? All of the major players are looking for an advantage to crush and dominate the others.
Re: There is no war (Score:2)
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It *IS* war. America will triumph. We will crush our foes, shit on their faces and have our hounds feed on their entrails. Slash europe open! Slice china's throat! Burn russia!
Pretty sure while Trump is in office it'll be piss in their faces. And maybe ask them to piss back in ours, if they attractive enough.
Re:There is no war [stop using the term] (Score:1)
Oh look, a war on hyperbole.
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That is true. Google is way ahead of everyone else. It is not even a competition. But I guess that counts as a win for the UK.
There is no AI (Score:2)
Just please stop using that term. Pattern matching software or whatever you call it but it's not AI.
No need for that (Score:2)
Trump doesn't read newspapers to begin with. If you need favors just buy some of his shitcoins or deposit some directly into the presidential wallet.
And to think Jimmy Carter owning a peanut farm was a big deal.
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. If you need favors just buy some of his shitcoins or deposit some directly into the presidential wallet.
If you need to get rid of one of those pesky constitution amendments, that's the ticket. Will the ruling be 6-3 or 5-4 in the supreme court, to affirm Trump's constitutional rewrite?
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Good thing you also need ratification by 3/4 of sates...
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Good thing you also need ratification by 3/4 of sates...
Do you see anywhere in the executive order that states Trump has 3/4 of the states to rewrite the constitution? All he needs is 5 votes on the supreme court.
Re: No need for that (Score:2)
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Good thing you also need ratification by 3/4 of sates...
Check around. There's a movement started to try to reshuffle state borders to make the red states bigger. Large chunks of Minnesota would move to Iowa and South Dakota, which is the one I'm aware of because I live in that area, but I understand that's happening in several other parts of the country. Gerrymandering districts is no longer enough for them. They're going for blood now. Thus far, most of the public have told them to eat shit before it even gets put into official process, but the attempts are out
Dog bites man. (Score:3)
AI company CEO comes out swinging for investment in AI.
Who could have predicted that?!
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AI company CEO comes out swinging for investment in AI.
Who could have predicted that?!
Probably not his AI.
With apologies to Dr. Strangelove (Score:3)
"Mr. President! We must not allow an AI gap!"
I'd rather if we're going to focus a strategy on something monumental, it be taking that fusion-ignition success and figuring out how to make it a workable power plant. At least that way we could afford to power all of the AI BS without wrecking our environment in the process.
Re:With apologies to Dr. Strangelove (Score:4, Informative)
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I don't see AI code generation being that useful (I've been trying to find a use for it, and it's fine if you're a very inexperienced programmer, but not that useful for someone who knows what they're doing).
I've tried using it for summarizing large amounts of information, and this has failed very badly because it's not accurate enough. In many cases it just makes up something, and it's really good at sounding plausible, but it's incorrect.
Obviously students are finding AI essay generation very useful, but
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Where I've been impressed with AI is in the generation of role playing game scenarios, and also AI image and video generation from prompts. Obviously deep fakes fall into this category too.
These are very limited scenarios, which is probably why it works.
For the role playing game, there's a large source body of work and the gameplay itself follows reasonably rigid published rules that a DM may or may not choose to violate.
For the image and video prompts, there's a large body of existing images and videos from which to pull. If someone narrows the constraints the back catalog can inform on what to present.
Deepfakes are probably even easier because one is using the actual appearance of a person
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La Presidenta has announced he's planning a Big AI Infrastructure Investment. He heard the term "infrastructure" in something Biden has done, the AI companies are showering him with money, and anything he does is an Investment. It was a short trip for him to glue those words together and tell Stephen Miller to have one on his desk in the morning.
If he were any more easily manipulated, he'd be Gumby.
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"Mr. President! We must not allow an AI gap!"
I'd rather if we're going to focus a strategy on something monumental, it be taking that fusion-ignition success and figuring out how to make it a workable power plant. At least that way we could afford to power all of the AI BS without wrecking our environment in the process.
I'm beginning to suspect that sucking up power at a "could destroy the environment even faster" rate is actually a feature of the AI craze, rather than a pesky problem coming along for the ride. Think of how many big energy providers will be making bank on this nonsense whether it pans out as promised or not. Power for the public to survive on, to heat and cool our homes, to cook, to keep food fresh, will start costing more just because of the "competition" of AI. It's win-win for the industrialists, and lo
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The real prize in a kleptocracy isn't the people's (meaning, not the government's) money in a social security 'bank', it's the military budget. The next killer weapon will be (almost) zero-cost electricity but the US is more interested in protecting the greed of billionaires.
A pure statistical engine cannot guess the answer to everything and the US DoD doesn't need that. Like most entities, they don't need an 'intelligence' that can summarize Shakespeare. The DoD has been investing in robot/drone vechi
Waste of money (Score:2)
They're going to blow it all on cheap labor to generate a monumental mass of useless training data to help LLMs win benchmarks on random tasks.
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Indeed. Oh, and look, they just found out that the benchmarks are rigged.
FUD as usual (Score:5, Informative)
The US has been spending 37% of the world's military budget [nationalpriorities.org], about the size of the next seven countries combined, year after year and still tell you that it's under threat, so to justify $870 billion for the military industrial complex [cbo.gov].
The US has been spying on the entire globe [bbc.com] and it keeps telling us about cybersecurity risks from its adversaries, so it can give $30 billion per year to the cybersecurity industry complex [csoonline.com].
And now the AI industry complex is vying for your tax dollars.
Don't we forget how much tax dollars have been wasted by believing in the FUD of Iraq WMDs [apnews.com]. Why is this country as a whole always fooled by fabricated stories [wikipedia.org] and keeps falling in scare tactic? Why do Americans feel so unsecured? Maybe because they are the one attacking others most often [chinamil.com.cn] and so always think others will attack them.
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So what I'm reading is that the USA has to spend 37% of the world's military budget because the next 7 countries can't be bothered. By having such a large military and navy, we provide a lot of regional security around the world. If we just decided to stop doing that, it would leave power vacuums that would quickly get filled by, most likely, China or possibly more regional powers.
I would rather the world police be something entirely done through the UN with all countries providing troops and equipment to h
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f we just decided to stop doing that, it would leave power vacuums that would quickly get filled by, most likely, China or possibly more regional powers.
Or a lot fewer wars would be launched and 20-30 million people would not have died [countercurrents.org] as the US could not do so.
Besides that's exactly what the United Nation, whose initial originators and security council include the USA, was set up for, why do we need a biased, double-standard, selfish, and hypocritical world police. This "world police" theory is just another prime example of FUD.
Re: FUD as usual (Score:2)
WW3 is inevitable (Score:2)
I feel like we are undoubtedly on a path to an eventual world war. It may take 5 to 10 years. Probably 10 years, because that's how much time China and Russia need to ramp up. If there was a WW today, the US would win easily. I see no other equilibrating mechanism. Oh the other thing is, globalism is inevitable but on a centuries time-scale (ie, in 400 years most people will be mixed and citizenships will be fluid or close to meaningless after global mass scale poverty is eradicated).
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I feel like we are undoubtedly on a path to an eventual world war. It may take 5 to 10 years. Probably 10 years, because that's how much time China and Russia need to ramp up. If there was a WW today, the US would win easily.
No one will win WWIII. The only options are die quickly in thermonuclear fire or die slowly in an irradiated wasteland/nuclear winter. Non-combatants in the southern hemisphere might get lucky.
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Modeling from the cold war suggests irradiated dust will poison the southern hemisphere within several months. Maybe, climate change has removed that unhappy future.
With US equipment based in Australia and Africa, and the Chinese in Africa and South America, it is unlikely the southern hemisphere will be untouched by a nuclear war.
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In order to win you have to be able to take and hold. The US was unable to take Afghanistan, what makes you think it can take and hold the world? The US is fragmented and it would probably do more harm to itself in the long run if it invaded another country especially if that country was allied with the US.
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WW3 cannot be "won". You can just die a little later than the others.
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Depends how long it lasts and how many nukes are "traded". A 2 megaton nuke (which is well above average for Chinese nukes) takes out about 20 square miles. (Paranoia about wind/weather is overblown.) The USA is about 4,000,000 square miles. We can clearly tolerate a few hundred, but my guess is the max anyone can hit us with is about 50 before they're eliminated. I'm not saying we won't see losses in the millions, but it's survivable.
Just stay out of the way (Score:2)
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Why Marc Andreessen was 'very scared' after meeting with the Biden administration about AI [yahoo.com]
After famed investor Marc Andreessen met with government officials about the future of tech last May, he was “very scared” and described the meetings as “absolutely horrifying.” These meetings played a key role on why he endorsed Trump, he told journalist Bari Weiss this week on her podcast.
He walked away believing they endorsed having the government control AI to the point of being market makers, allowing only a couple of companies who cooperated with the government to thrive. He felt they discouraged his investments in AI. “They actually said flat out to us, ‘don't do AI startups like, don't fund AI startups,” he said.
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Marc Andreessen was very scared because he is a libertarian maximalist who believes that rules should only apply to (other) people, and definitely not to him or his capital, and the Biden administration threatened to put some milquetoast rules in place to ensure AI has a few speedbumps to get over before it kills us all one way or the other.
They Want Corporate Welfare (Score:2)
That would mean stopping to waste money on AI (Score:2)
Somehow I do not see that happening in the US. With the demonstrated mental capabilities of the average US citizen, AI might actually be smarter, utterly dumb as it is.
Um, no (Score:2)
Maybe you guys could replace Donald Trump (Score:2)
Make ChatGPT the president. It'll let Trump go off and play golf and eat hamburders. You'll save millions on having to employ him. ChatGPT will probably do a slightly better job than Donald Trump. It will also make brain dead decisions that will kill us all in the long run, but at least it has decent grammar and more than a 10 word vocabulary.