The Owl vs My Low Level STEM Guy Analysis

 This time I get to call out the owl for her own words.  She was responding to some serious and doom and gloom article over at The Nation about AI.  Her words:

"How can that heavy-handed fear mongering not make a reader skeptical?"  

And my thinking is what the hell is wrong with her?  The quick answer is near illiteracy in and ignorance of basic STEM issues and thinking.  Before I list my meager qualifications.  I should say that over the last few days I have saying, writing things about the spectre of:

"Systemic failure in interdependent systems."

And I did a net searach instead of just ripping it off the top of my head:

Systemic failure in interdependent systems occurs when the failure of one component triggers a chain reaction of failures across interconnected networks. This can lead to significant disruptions in critical infrastructures like power, transportation, and finance.

So now is the part where I explain why my mind so easily goes to that kind of thinking.  I used to be a theatre technician;  basically an operating engineer.  Not the same as a design engineer.  But some machinery and technology requires knowing more than turning something on and operating it. Some are parts of interconnected networks;  like the sum total of all the electrical and electronic, and computers used to light a medium sized theatre stage.  And before I left that career for law school, I was there doing that when computer lighting controls were just getting advanced enough they were making specific computers for that job.  

And then I went to a law school with a specialty program in Intellectual Property Law. And the origin story of that school is, it was originally supposed to be part of MIT. But  . . .  reasons.

And I was able enough to keep up with the engineers in that program.  Thinking of things like systemic failure in interdependent systems used to be part of my job.  And then I learned the field of law where being able to think in those terms was pretty much a necessity.  So yeah.  Skepticism is not always a function of ignorance.  But sometimes it is.  

I won't go long on AI, but I will say this much.  People should not be afriad beacuse of the chance AI will become self aware.  It's powerful enough to wreak havoc just because of it's capabilities.  Be afraid of that.  It's really like this.  And I searched to be certain before I posted it at the first place I posted it.  AI is actually worse than a mere computer virus.  It's more like a worm.  It meets the definition of a worm that if a particularly nasty one gets loose . . . . there is definitely a risk of a

Systemic failure in interdependent systems where the failure of one component in one sub network may trigger a chain reaction of failures across interconnected networks. That may lead to significant disruptions in critical infrastructures like power, transportation, and finance.

In other words, some calamity that really can fuck shit up on a global scale.  Anyone who understands systems understand that much.