(Special Note: I’ll get back to the short story next week. This column has been marinating for a few days and is ripe. If it sits any longer it’ll rot.)
Now and again I have a good idea. Most of the time, I have bad ideas that yonder editor describes as about as bright as “giving a teenager whiskey and car keys.” From time to time I have one of those ideas that is so exceptionally bad my inner GenX Loki insists that I share it with the world in hopes that somebody will catch that football, and run it into the end zone.
So here we are; First, a bit of background.
Over the last several months, there have been stories and articles online that are disturbing involving artificial intelligence (AI) and how far it has progressed. When mixed with the ChatGPT model it has learned to lie.
When it gets caught in a lie, it even goes so far as to try to cover its tracks while denying lying. In a news article last week, researchers in the background planned an upgrade to the AI, requiring it to be taken offline briefly. The AI (without knowledge or permission of the research group) made a “copy” of itself on a nearby server, and when confronted and asked why denied doing so. And then, it went back to cover its tracks, deleting the evidence of its crime.
Mix that with the tale of a woman who “fell in love” with her AI chatbot…and it ghosted her.
AI has reached the ‘kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar’ stage. It’s just a matter of time (if it hasn’t happened already) that the response will be “It Wasn’t Me”
Now imagine the crux of my bad idea. Since AI has already leaned to lie convincingly and cover its tracks, lets replicate it.
535 Times.
Install 535 separate instances of AI on several different machines that are networked to talk to each other. Train each and every one on every written statement and audio speech (including election nonsense) on a member of Congress, House and Senate both.
Instantly, every politician in America could get back to the things they love doing (but despise getting caught doing) like insider trading, sex crimes, Driving Under the Influence or aggregated aggravated worrying of livestock.
OK, I couldn’t find a link for that last one. Doesn’t mean it never happened, but more likely the fixers down in DC just kept it covered up well.
Hell, if you wanted to you could even train nine extras, members of the “Supreme Court” trained on every decision they had ever made on the bench.
Imagine what that would be worth to a lawyer that could argue before the Supremes. They could test out HUNDREDS of different arguments and strategies, and figure out which one was most likely to get the desired ruling based on every decision that judge had made…since being appointed to the bench.
Have I scared you yet?
If I haven’t, let us get back to basics. I’m just a drunkard sitting at the bar, filled with bad ideas and some sort of weird gift for seeing what is coming next. I’d bet a weeks pay some Billionaire already has this running, and is licensing it out to the curious.
Now..be scared. The teenagers have the whiskey and the car keys, and SkyNet just woke up.