Heavyweights Musk and Zuckerberg Head the Bill

Sorry, but that headline should read ‘head to the hill’ not ‘head the bill’. Because that’s where Elon and Mark are going. To Capitol Hill, to advise the lawmakers on how to deal with AI.

But given their recent, rather silly pugilistic proclamations about a cage fight, what do you expect? So what could be an extremely important watershed moment for policy one again ends up with headlines like this one.

The most listened-to voices on the planet when it comes to AI, with the most money, should be celebrated as a calming influence on a group as close to panic as you will ever witness: the U.S. Government. They should, but they won’t. But come to think of it, given their commercial interests and not just their media pranks, maybe they shouldn’t. Clearly I’m confused. Who isn’t?

So who are the supporting acts? Ah yes, the minnows in the AI media feeding frenzy. Sam Altman from OpenAI, Satya Nadella from Microsoft and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai.

Actually, there’ll be a whole host of stakeholders at this all-new summit. Civil rights representatives, unions, even ad agencies and media houses.

The public relations machine would like us to know the discussions will be around lost jobs, misinformation and interference in the coming elections.

Will we emerge from the other side of these senatorial forums with legislation that restores jobs, makes misinformation a capital offence and and a blanket ban on negative reinforcement in the stinking swamp of online electioneering?

It would be easy to have more faith in the Bletchley Park summit, which we covered last week. At least it’ll be quieter and have less vested interests.

Meanwhile, back on the bill…sorry, that should be back on the hill, we’re going to have any number of testifying characters in the mould (or mold, either works) of Keyser Söze in the movie Usual Suspects. After all, he was the one who said, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”.

I’m not sure we should have any interest in the day this summit starts. We should focus on the day after it ends. Let’s hope it’s a knockout?

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