Cognitive Warmup. Actor, comedian and filmmaker Seth Rogen has some favorite words for creatives who use AI to ‘write’. While promoting his animated film “Tangles” at the Cannes Film Festival, he said in a conversation that if a writer or creative has a tendency to use AI to write, “then you shouldn’t be a writer. Because you’re not writing”.
Before sending another suggestion this is as clear as it gets. “Go do something else. And if you don’t want to go through this process, you shouldn’t be a writer. The idea of a tool that forces me to write less doesn’t appeal to me, because I love writing”.
First on Neural Dispatch
inevitable chaos
According to Adrian Sampson, associate professor of computer science at Cornell University, there is an inevitable certainty that new AI systems like Anthropic’s cloud mythos will lead to “some chaos.” In a note shared with us, Sampson talks about two different stories that are playing with artificial intelligence and now claiming to be very capable of detecting security risks with the world’s software. As I explained in my article about Mythos and Project Glasswing, a business architecture that is being built with a cloud mythos means it is still a product in Anthropic’s scheme of things – scarcity, capabilities, and so premium pricing strategies will be at work. Sampson makes it very simple for beginners – “All software has bugs, and most software has serious security bugs. You just have to find them”.
He points out a very relevant aspect of this, that otherwise exploitable security bugs were costly to discover. “There was a balance of sorts: ‘White Hat’ software vendors spent money and engineering time on both discovering vulnerabilities and implementing comprehensive mitigations; ‘Black Hat’ attackers spent their resources only on the former. But vendors generally had more resources overall.” That balance is no longer a kind of insurance layer, as AI like the cloud mythos makes it more economical to discover new vulnerabilities that no one else knows about.
“I think you can make the case for two possible futures: A large group of low-budget attackers can launch plausible attacks, so we’re doomed. Or, well-resourced software vendors have access to the same tools, so they can more easily find and fix these vulnerabilities, so a new equilibrium will emerge. I think it’s clear that the reality will be some messy combination of these two stories,” he says. The Cornell expert predicts that there will be a period of chaos where scary vulnerabilities will be discovered and exploited at a much faster rate than in the past. The hope is, as he says, “After finding a lot of bugs and being forced to fix them, new tools will reach the point of diminishing returns, and white hats will have a chance to catch up.”
keeping the neighborhood clean
Seven out of ten Americans do not want a data center near them – a Gallup poll released a few days ago clearly indicates this. If AI companies aren’t reading the room or don’t have an understanding of the ground realities, it may be wise to refresh the stock of this situation. And half of this number are strongly opposed to any data center construction in their neighborhood. These data centers in question are what AI companies and businesses need to host the computing power for the technology. The main reasons for opposition include AI specific concerns including extensive power consumption requirements, the need for much clean water, impacts on the environment, local electricity bills and real estate prices, as well as risks of air and water pollution, as well as impacts on ethics, privacy and humanity.
The survey said, “To expand the use of AI in the US, data centers capable of handling the necessary computing power must be built. Such centers have already been built in some areas, usually funded by large technology companies offering AI services. But most Americans are taking a “not in my backyard” attitude toward building additional data centers, and this attitude is especially acute, as nearly half support that construction. Strongly oppose.” It’s easy to take a pious view from a distance, but the concerns of someone living in the immediate neighborhood of the data center cannot be ignored.
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A so-called AI playbook
Let me start by saying, I don’t pay Amazon a single buck for a Prime subscription (especially a matter of principle, since they’ve started filling Prime Video content with ads, unless one pays even more for an ad-free tier). The less said about this company’s approach to anything human the better. Now, according to a Bloomberg article, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has an interesting “playbook” he’d like us all to know about. ambition? Sam Altman once compared the amount of food a human being eats in his lifetime to the cost of computing power.
A key quote from Jesse, “You can choose to yell at the wind, but AI isn’t going away.” Remember what I noted earlier about Amazons and humans? There is a sense of urgency at Amazon, which joined the (rather directionless) AI race much later than some others. The $50 billion deal with OpenAI earlier this year gives the AI company now the chance to incorporate Amazon’s data centers into its infrastructure puzzle. A similar partnership followed with Anthropic, the first for $13 billion with an option for another $20 billion. Keep in mind, Amazon reportedly intends to replace 600,000 or more workers with warehouse robots by 2033.
