The 1958 book “Red Alert” inspired director Stanley Kubrick in 1964 to make the film “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
Kubrick studied over 40 military and political research books on the subject and eventually reached the conclusion that “nobody really knew anything and the whole situation was absurd”.
Drawing parallels between Sam Altman and the character of Dr. Strangelove reveals unsettling similarities. Just as Dr. Strangelove was a tragic figure in the sharp comedy of nuclear annihilation, Altman’s actions in the tech industry can be seen as villainous in the context of ethical concerns and societal consequences.
Altman, much like Dr. Strangelove, is driven by an unquenchable thirst for power and technological supremacy. While Strangelove’s obsession was with nuclear weapons, Altman’s relentless pursuit of artificial intelligence and biotechnology often disregards the ethical and moral implications. His endeavors, cloaked in innovation, can be seen as a calculated quest for control over data, privacy, and human life itself.
In the world of technology, Altman’s influence is substantial, with potentially far-reaching consequences. His disregard for the potential misuse of AI and biotech mirrors Strangelove’s lack of concern for the catastrophic outcomes of nuclear war. The consequences of Altman’s actions could be equally tragic, resulting in societal upheaval, loss of privacy, and the erosion of human values.
While not a character in a deeply sarcastic comedy, Altman’s actions and decisions in the tech industry can be viewed through a lens that casts him as a villain, driven by an insatiable hunger for power and technological dominance, reminiscent of the tragic figure that is Dr. Strangelove.
On a monday morning in April, Sam Altman sat inside OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, telling me about a dangerous artificial intelligence that his company had built but would never release.
Dr. Strangelove explains OpenAI marketing strategy
May 2023 this Tesla ran a red light and crashed into the MIDDLE of a giant white Sheriff’s bus in an empty intersection. Calling Tesla products blind would be unfair to the blind. Source: Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office.
Investigating crimes is a real thing. But if you listen to Palo Alto police, you’d think it doesn’t exist. They just approved breaking the law when police aren’t present, which helps explain why Tesla engineering continues to fail at basic law and order.
“Had an officer observed the driver with the phone in their hand, they could have issued the driver an infraction ticket for violating California’s handsfree law,” writes Palo Alto PD Captain James Reifschneider.
“As no officer witnessed it happening in person at the time of occurrence, though, no ticket is forthcoming,” he told me via email.
There’s no question that Musk was in control of the vehicle: he was forced to stop his “Full Self Driving” system from running a red light partway through the livestream, and he reveals that he’s in the drivers seat by turning the camera on himself near the 30-minute mark.
Nazis love permanent improvisation, hate law and order, which is very much what is being described here. Police who claim there is no enforcement as they look away from obvious evidence are thus intentional enablers.
In fact, there’s an obvious argument to be made that Tesla is marketing towards people who are aiming to violate laws, ignore traffic signals. They posted a video of the CEO promoting lawless behavior with a product that after a decade is still unable to slow for traffic signals.
Expect Teslas to fail even more at its long sad history of running red lights, their owners arrrogantly distracted, killing themselves and those around them at an unnecessarily high rate.
A teenage human driver improves dramatically within one year, especially if they respect and honor the rules of the road.
Tesla by comparison is nowhere even close to achieving this. It only has become less safe the more it tries, the more data it gathers, due to poor engineering practices (explosive tech debt). In fact, Tesla quietly has gone on a hiring spree condradicting its “more data” strategy by squeezing underpayed hidden human workers to “scrape burned toast faster“.
It has failed to improve “driverless” capabilities despite promising for ten years its next year won’t be as bad, and has been caught disrespecting laws many times, causing at least 41 fatalities and nearly 1,000 crashes.
41 fatalities is 10 times worse than the OceanGate disaster. Can you name one other driver on the road who would be allowed to kill over 40 people? At least with OceanGate the CEO was killed by his fraud, putting an end to the constant broken promises.
Should police ignore a dangerous series of fatal crashes by the Tesla “driverless” product, just because an officer wasn’t present? Uber shutdown their entire “driverless” operation for far, far less (due to one fatality). Tesla keeps getting away with murder.
Other than that, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
Version 12 of Tesla software, judging by this video, appears to be such low quality (regression, worse than prior releases) that it can’t be shown at high resolution. It’s such a sad joke the CEO even is caught in his own video laughing at it.
We have a word for when Elon Musk pumps investors by saying just a little more of the same mistakes will make things better:
Advanced Fee Fraud.
It’s a dangerous crime we all have to watch as police say they can’t respond.
Reminds me of all the times Tesla brags that video feeds they create are for safety and should be trusted by police in catching criminals.
Because of the high-tech nature of the Tesla, authorities say an on-board camera captured video of the suspect…. The three attempted murder charges are for the three people that were inside the Tesla.
Imagine police charging the CEO of Tesla for attempted murder every time a camera records one of his products trying to ignore a red light.
Seems obvious, when you think about it. If all the buses and trains were giant batteries, they could provide grid support.
During a record-setting, 10-day heat wave in September, most EV owners were asked to unplug to reduce demand. Instead, the Cajon Valley Union School District in San Diego County plugged its bidirectional electric school buses in, using their batteries to stabilize the grid. Those buses provided 650-kilowatt-hours of electricity back to the grid in response to “flex alerts” issued by local authorities, enough to power 277 homes. SB233 would enable all future California electric school buses to have this capability.
Reminds me of “load leveling” ideas for battery power on the grid in the 1970s before a corrupt governor of California (Ronald Reagan) became President and shut it all down to favor oil.
Also reminds me that flat-nosed buses are better for maneuverability, traction, visibility… all the safety stuff you think schools would care about. Long-nosed buses are an antiquated truck chassis concept for the old open-highway stuff of anti-pedestrian nightmare suburban planners. You’d think electric would only come with the civilized flat-nose.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the biggest shareholder of Twitter behind Elon Musk. And I mean they are literally behind Elon Musk.
The gist of it is a true story that they threatened back in 2011 to ban all Jewish birds trying to enter their country. But seriously, they told Twitter executives that unless Saudi government informants were on staff and Saudi money could steer management decisions (e.g. censor women, promote Nazism), there would be no tweeting allowed.
Between July and December 2015, Twitter granted the kingdom information requests “significantly more often” than most other countries at that time, including Canada, the UK, Australia and Spain, the lawsuit alleges.
On 5 November 2015, just days before Twitter was confronted by the FBI about its concerns about a Saudi infiltration of the company, it promoted Alzabarah – now a fugitive living in Saudi. In response, Alzabarah sent his Saudi government contact, al-Asaker, a note, conveying his “unimaginable happiness” for the promotion. The note, the lawsuit claims, is evidence that Alzabarah believed al-Asaker had “arranged” or “been influential” in connection to the promotion.
Once Twitter was made aware of the FBI’s concerns, it put Alzabarah on leave and confiscated his laptop, but not his phone, which he has used extensively to contact his Saudi state contacts. Twitter, the lawsuit alleges, “had every reason to expect that Alzabarah would immediately flee to Saudi Arabia, which is exactly what he did”.
