Artificial Intelligence Will Not Take Over

 ... before deliberate ignorance and subsequent decay hits.

I was on a Catholic men's retreat this past weekend where we talked about Christian Nationalism and how we can use the Latin Mass to expand our reign of terror. While there, I spent some time chatting with a pair of high school teachers. One had 24 years of experience, the other had 18. They talked about the decline in student work and capabilities, mostly due to using technology as a crutch. The kids read less and rely more on the Internet. As a result, they struggle with the most basic of concepts and tasks.

Developing skills requires work. The more work your devices do for you, the fewer skills you will have. It's that simple. A while back, when I was working with ChatGPT, I watched a video where a video editor talked about using ChatGPT to write Adobe After Effects scripts for him. The scripts produced title animations. He admitted he didn't know the scripting language and realized that ChatGPT meant he didn't have to learn it.

He was belligerently ignorant. In the video, he snarled at ChatGPT when it gave him code that didn't do what he wanted. To me, it was a perfect example of what my teacher friends are seeing at a much larger scale. The effects of AI will be Jackson, Mississippi writ large.

Jackson, Mississippi is out of drinkable water. Yes, there were some floods recently, but Mississippi averages about 55" of rain every year, so floods are something for which you must plan. What happened?

I did a little digging and discovered that it was well known that Jackson Water's maintenance was shoddy. There had been statewide efforts in the last decade to try to give them help, but the place is badly run and it all went for naught. For example, Jackson Water contracted with Siemans to get smart metering going. That ended up in a lawsuit. Jackson Water's billing system is dysfunctional as well with about $100,000,000 in unpaid water bills. Some customers get no bills, others get outrageously wrong ones.

In short, there's a human capital problem at Jackson Water. One of the articles I read hinted at the state having to send in its own technicians to do the work that Jackson Water's people couldn't do. Once you strip away the red vs blue and black vs white garbage, you get down to the real problem. The employees at Jackson Water just aren't up to scratch.

I've read essays where the authors worry about AI taking over because it will become smarter than humans. Fair enough. From what I've seen, it's already there. That's not what is going to get us. Long before it gains end effectors capable of turning its "thoughts" into actions, our cities will fall into ruin because we're not producing a new generation of competent, productive citizens.

How will ChatGPT work if the water doesn't come out of the tap?

Chicago's gorgeous downtown area was overrun and mauled by packs of black teenagers over the weekend. Watching the videos of the event, I wondered who would ever come back to that area. Why play Russian Roulette? You have no idea when it will happen again.

Is Chicago sitting on a pile of money so it can rebuild the Magnificent Mile once the "teens" are done wrecking it? Err, no.

Here's more data.

In the 2010s, Chicago saw a small population increase of around 2 percent, but the number of municipal employees fell by almost 5 percent, owing to the pension crowd-out effect, in which rising pension costs squeeze other city priorities. Chicago’s pension spending has nearly tripled in the past ten fiscal years, from around $15,700 per full-time employee to more than $45,000. Pension expenditures now total more than $1.5 billion—over 12 percent of the city’s total revenue. For every person Chicago employs, in other words, it is effectively paying $45,000 to a city employee who has already retired. And the problem will worsen in the years to come, with the city’s pension debts exceeding those of 45 states and the recent market downturn intensifying its funding shortfalls. As these costs rise, they limit the revenue available for needed services.

In Los Angeles, the new mayor is proudly planning to take 17,000 homeless, drug-addicted maniacs and put them into hotels.

The so-called “homeless crisis” is nearly ten times worse in L.A. than in San Francisco. There are 7,800 homeless people in San Francisco County and 69,000 in Los Angeles County. And where the number of people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco declined by 3.5%, in L.A., the number rose by nearly 30% between 2018 and 2022.

The city’s new mayor, Karen Bass, has declared a state of emergency and launched “Inside Safe,” an initiative to get 17,000 people out of encampments and into hotels this year and ultimately move them on to permanent housing. She has done “more in her first 100 days than her predecessor in his entire time in office,” said Rev. Andy Bales, President, and CEO of Union Mission in Downtown L.A.

Is Los Angeles sitting on a pile of cash that will pay those hotel bills? Can they rebuild the hotels once the drug addicts are done trashing them?

In San Francisco, a tech bro was recently stabbed to death by a homeless man. Will ChatGPT come to the rescue if an addict attacks? How many attacks have to happen before the tech bros leave SanFran for someone safer? What happens to the city after that?

Yes, AI can become much smarter than us. I think it already is smarter than 95% of the population. So what? Our cities' fixed assets are being consumed and our kids are being trained to be sloths. AI is going to contribute mightily to the latter which, in turn, will contribute mightily to the former.

If AI is going to harm us, it will be through the corruption of our human capital and the resultant consumption of our infrastructure, not through some kind of Terminator apocalypse.

Bonus Tweet

More data.

Woke outerwear clothing brand @REI announced it is shutting down its flagship #Portland store in the Pearl District following surging crime & public safety issues. The retailer supported #BLM during the 2020 riots & established a "BIPOC Advisory Council." https://t.co/fz4qwxNyna

— Andy Ngô 🏳️‍🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) April 18, 2023

Super Double Plus Bonus Data

Here are more details about REI leaving Portland. The building will be empty and the employees will be gone. The homeless addicts and the criminals will remain. I don't have time to look up the data, but I'm certain Portland is short of cops. If you wrote out the order of battle between the forces of civilization and the forces of barbarism, Portland is doomed. AI taking over? Ha! That's a joke. ChatGPT will be ineffectual in a zombie apocalypse Portland.

Behrbaum said REI has made costly investments in store security, including replacing the store’s windows with security glass, hiring around-the-clock private security and installing a surveillance trailer at the store’s loading dock. Despite its plans to close the store, she said the company is installing new security sensors for its remaining months of business.

But the volume of break-ins, shoplifting and other crimes is “overwhelming systems in place,” Behrbaum said in an email. In 2022, REI spent more than $800,000 on additional security, she said.

“Yet, we still experienced 10 burglaries, including one event that shut down our 14th street entrance for more than two months,” Behrbaum said. She said over the past two years, REI has made significant investments on securing its Portland store.