MI6 chief: Tech giants are closer to running the world than politicians
inews.co.uk

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21 points

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nabla9

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11 hours ago

5 comments

MisterTea ・ 10 hours ago

It feels like it has always been moving towards an oligarchy. For decades companies have been lining politicians pockets so why not save that money, effort and time and simply cut out the middle man?

  • ux266478 ・ 9 hours ago

    Probably the fact that the politicians hold actual power of force, control of ownership, etc. Nobody alive today in a first world country has lived to see what happens when their own government's blood is up. Prigozhin had a personal army and he still got blown out of the air.

    If the MI6 chief believed what she was saying, she wouldn't be conducting a press conference.

AndrewKemendo ・ 7 hours ago

This is exactly why I left the US intelligence community and all public service starting in 2011.

It’s all about the data. Used to be that the govt had the best data about the world and could theoretically use it to help the citizens (though almost never in practice). That flipped around the year 2000 and the Govt spent a decade to catch up to the ISPs post 9/11. However the govt investment into data/AI couldn’t match private investment even barely. I saw this up front and personal and NOBODY in congress or the White House cared about data or AI - arguably they still don’t and have no real data/AI talent left in the government.

It was very clear by then that Automation broadly was going to consume the planet, and that whomever controlled the data flow behind it would control the levers of power, overthrowing the veneer of “rule by the consent of the governed” (which is an impossible fantasy that can’t actually ever exist).

When Hintons lab won ILVRC in 2012 based on a data focused approach - that was the time that everyone should have sat up and realized what was about to happen. Many in AI did exactly that and that’s why we’re in the state of tech we are in.

Kurzweil predicted it, everyone in the singularity and transhuman communities saw it and the rest of the world has not changed their behavior and have accelerated this process.

Unless society as a whole gets her act together and organizes this planet for the benefit of humans and ecology, this is not going to the way anybody wants it.

Everything that removes the last vestiges of human directed action and control is accelerating rapidly.

metalman ・ 7 hours ago

trade a i for an n,....closer to ruining the world, they trade off so it looks like two teams and yell at each other to make it look good, but it's amazing how many of them stay on the same island, at the same time.

  • AndrewKemendo ・ 4 hours ago

    I can confirm that at the congressional working level the difference in public statements have zero reflection on how the parties work together.

    Namely, neither the Republicans nor Democrats have done anything whatsoever to reduce or curtail the powers of the federal or state government.

    In every possible case where senators and Congress broadly are voting for more powers to spy, kill and otherwise dominate, they vote together the overwhelming majority of the time.

    Is that to say that AOC and Crockett are “the same” as Tommy Tuberville?

    No but those are the extreme outliers you see in public because they put on a show, and you only hear about a few.

    Ultimately the U.S. citizens who vote are ignorant, spiteful, petty, and narcissistic. No different than any other country.

    So unless that changes (it biologically can’t) then any effort to proactively solve it are futile in the long term