December 24, 2025 • 35 mins
Featured in Hour One of the Wednesday December 24, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Replay...
- Civil conflict in Europe...
- Ken Burns on Rev War/Jack Happy About Positive Look at History...
- We need a plan for AI...
- Amityville Horror & TM Makes You Crazy/AI Fiance
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio of the
George Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty Armstrong and
Jette and Gee arm Strong Yahty live from Studio C.
We're not working actually today.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
It's Christmas Eve and I'm probably home assembling a bicycle
or a sled or.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Something like that.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Technically speaking, these pre recorded shows are airing love.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
So the attorneys of A Sure Best were fine. Nothing
like consulting and attorney on Christmas eve Day. Anyway, Hope
you're having a great whatever you're doing. We're enjoying our vacation.
We have carefully put together some fantastic Best of a
G clips. It's the Armstrong and Getty replay enjoying.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
What you won't find is a hellhole, but a beautiful city.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It is a city in a park.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
You won't find a community that is tearing down Minneapolis
and our Somali Americans. You will find a group of
people that is uplifting Minneapolis and is.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Proud to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
They are proud to call this extraordinary place home.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I'm sure they're happy to call it home.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You can defraud the government for a million a billion
dollars and get away with it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh yeah, you can be born in Somalia, come to
America and get rich for doing nothing except stee Yeah
that's great. Not that all Somali's are that way, certainly not.
But yeah, there's a gygnormous problem. That was the mayor
of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey. It's spelled like Fry. But he
wants to be different. I'm guessing is.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
He denying that the billion dollars were stolen or is
he just trying to He's responding to Trump's hyperbole, polish
a unfortunate object and try to make it sure a
little better. Now he's just responding to Trump saying that
it's a hell hole and they've ruined Minneapolis and blah
blah blah. Anyway, I found this troubling and interesting and
(01:50):
absolutely has the ring of truth about it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It's in the free press for what it's worth. Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Dominic Green, who's an excellent writer, had a long conversation
with a well respected historian by the name of David Betts.
He's a historian at King's College in London, and he
is an expert in what he prefers to call civil
conflict or extreme civil discord as opposed to civil war,
(02:19):
because these things don't start when Fort Sumter is fired upon.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
For instance, Alowie's an.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Expert on our civil war too interestingly enough, and you
know it's dramatic, but it would take too long. They
spell out a scenario wherein a gas mane explodes, small
fires breakout at substations that supply Britain's capital with electricity.
He throw shuts down, the lights go off in the tube,
(02:46):
the British pound plunges, cell phones go down, etcetera, etcetera.
Chaos spreads, rumors, blah blah blah, craziness. You see mass
gangs of white people and Muslims facing off if your
phone still works, burning vehicles. The Prime Minister addresses the
name on the BBC, though most people can't see it.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
The King assents to calling out the army.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
They set in very dramatic form chaos. But it's not
Russia that did it. It's not homegrown islam As terrorists,
as members of the indigenous English majority rising in a
nativist revolt against the state, the immigrants in the cities
and the Muslim minority in particular. And this David Best,
(03:25):
the historian, says that's how England's civil war begins. And
he says, it's already underway, it's happening. The tipping point
has already been passed. And this guy, he's studied civil
wars and civil conflicts for twenty five years, and he says,
(03:45):
the civil conflict in contemporary Western Europe, and it's not
just Britain, will be low intensity, asymmetric and hit and run,
multi factional terrorism and thuggery on a scale that no
state can contain.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And no, this is not just a British problem.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
If the classical pattern of civil conflict applies, then according
to Betts, Britain, France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Ireland and Germany are
all heading for disaster.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It sounds like the Irish Civil War from the early
twentieth century. Yeah, similar sort of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
And interestingly enough, this guy, for the first twenty four
years of his academic career wrote specialty articles on this
stuff and was respected but not super well known outside academia.
But over the last few months his work has attracted
a great deal of public attention, and in contrast to
certain other grand standing fake historians, I think his reaction
is telling. He says, that was surprising and a little awkward.
(04:40):
He's not used to it and he's not a grand standard.
So all right, here is your three stage explanation of
Britain's crisis. Obviously, Jack jump in anytime, first, state sponsored
mass immigration, especially of Muslims, has wrought quote a mass
societal and cultural alteration of values and demography.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, and then you're throwing people in jail for pointing
it out on Twitter or whatever.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh, we'll get there, Okay, we will get there. No,
you're absolutely right. So can anybody argue that first statement,
state state sponsored mass immigration has brought a mass social
and cultural alteration of values in democracy, demography. As a result,
(05:27):
the indigenous majority perceives themselves as losers. This sense of displacement,
says mister Betts, is quote a powerful propellant to civil conflict.
Then the Balkanization of Western European societies is Betts says,
now fairly obvious.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
For starters.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
There are the notorious no go zones Bets prefers. And
this is a great term, areas of negotiated policing because
you'd call them no go zones, these heavily Muslim areas,
and people say no, no, you can walk through there
all in. The authorities are still there, but they have
(06:03):
to negotiate how they're going to police with the new
local you know, overlords and the new culture and stuff
like that. Anyway, French and Swedish police admit that many
immigrant heavy areas are beyond state control.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
They so wow.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
When police entered, they must either seek permission from community
leaders or come in force. In Britain there are numerous
urban areas in which the police operate quote under a
kind of negotiation. That's crazy, it is, it is, and
you know, just to depart from the European situation, that
(06:42):
reminds me a little bit of some of the efforts
to enforce immigration law going into say parts of la
where the local populace rises up and won't permit it
to happen and harasses threatened shoots or just interferes with
the ice guys. Anyway, So that's the first stage. In
the second stage, and this is what I've been yelling
(07:04):
about in Britain now for a long time. The state's
effort to control social fracture backfires by delegitimacy, delegitimizing it
in the eyes of the majority.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
The government.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
The state delegitimizes itself in Britain, that means a two
tier justice system that placates Muslims while downgrading the rights
and suppressing the objections of the majority.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Jack Posting things critical, pointing out that you have these
no gozones can get you arrested in Britain, and this
leads to a decline in social trust and an increase
in lawlessness.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
There are some high profile examples of for instance, a
Muslim immigrant committing a crime than somebody commenting harshly about
it online and the person who commented on it getting
a stronger penalty and more time in jail than the
person that committed the crime.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Great example, man burns Kuran, Muslim stabs him for it.
The penalty for the burning was much more severe than
the stabbing anyway, So where were we okay? So the
state tries to placate Muslim's two tier justice, prosecuting people
for posting online, et cetera. A government that breaks its
(08:18):
unwritten contract with the people forfeits its legitimacy, and that
leads to the third stage. The majority will attempt to
force the elites to return to its historic pattern of
serving their interests and values. This Bets believes is where
Britain and Western Europe now are. He's not alone in
fearing the worst. In July, the Financial Times and there
(08:39):
could be no more serious news outlet than the Financial
Times describe parts of Britain as quote a tinderbox and
a powder keg wow. Lisa and Andy, the Culture Secretary,
told The New Statesman that the cities of northern England
are so tense they could go up in flames.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Man, I subscribe to the Financial Times for a while,
but it's pretty dang.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Expensive and I stopped. But maybe I should jump back
in so dry the possible sparks are obvious.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
In twenty five, two young men of Mallion Molly and
Tunisian extraction were electroccuted to death as they ran from
police in the Paris suburb of unpronounceable. Three weeks of
rioting followed in two hundred and seventy four towns across France.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Did you hear that?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Three weeks of rioting in two hundred and seventy four
towns across France. The rioters targeted police firefighters. Injuring one
hundred and twenty six of them. In twenty eleven, London
police shot an armed, mixed raced gangster in his car
after a pursuit. The resulting protests turned into five days
of rioting across the country. I asked Betts if, given
Britain's inflammable social mix, it's security services have sought his advice.
(09:48):
He replied, no, they have not. It is a great deal,
Moroll dere a deal. More detail to this. We can
post the link, you may get paywalled. I think he
makes an outstanding case. In Britain's August twenty twenty four riots,
gangs of black clad Muslim men marched through the towns
in northern England chanting Aloha. Bar police officer caught on
(10:09):
camera advising them to return to their weapons to the
mosque so they don't so the cops don't have to
do anything.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
All sorts of examples Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
And the American Revolution is the most important event since
the birth of Christ in all of world history.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I loved hearing that flipping on face. The nation got
back from vacation and they had Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker,
the most famous documentary filmmaker who's ever lived on there
to talk about his new documentary about the American Revolution,
which is coming out in November, but they interviewed him
for Fourth of July weekend and him presenting it in
(11:03):
this is a fantastic thing that happened. For world history terms,
it's just my whole life that was normal. But after
the last you know, four or five years of wokeness,
it kind of was a little.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Like knocked me down. WHOA people still think this? Well,
I don't want to get.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Off on this tangent too much, but I find myself
a little bit surprised, as ken Burns has been a
little howard zinish for me in recent years.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
But I'm glad to hear it.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Maybe he's just a canny businessman and he knows who's
going to watch these this documentary.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
But I love what he said.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I hate to be that a cynical. Well, that makes
you a sap. We thow we get into the more
of the interview. Well, I don't want to steal this thunder,
We'll do that first. Then I've got another great quote
that's a similar sort of sentiment.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, we missed fourth of July with you while we
were gone on vacation. So we're catching up a little
on that sort of talk. Well here and here's Keedden
Burns talking about his documentary.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
You call the revolutionary period a civil war? Was that
always your conception of the revee? How did you come
to think of it that way?
Speaker 5 (12:10):
I think because there's no photographs and there's no newsreels,
and they're in stockings and breaches and powdered wigs, there's
a sense of distance from them. I think we also
are so proud, rightfully of the power of the big
ideas that we just don't want to get into the
fact that it was this bloody civil war patriots against loyalists,
(12:31):
disaffected people, native people, enslaved and free people within it,
foreign powers that are ultimately engaged in This is a
big world war by the end. I think we perhaps
are fearful that those big ideas are diminished, and they're
not in any way. They're in fact become even more
inspiring that they emerge from the turmoil.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
How should we think about the declaration of independence this
period in America in our present day?
Speaker 5 (12:57):
First of all, I think the American Revolution is the
most important event since the birth of Christ in all
of world history. I mean it turned the world upside down,
which is the cliche. Before this moment, everyone was a subject,
essentially under the rule of somebody else. We had created,
in this moment a very brand new thing called a citizen.
(13:21):
And this has had powerful effects. It's going to set
in motion revolutions for the next two plus centuries all
around the world, all attempting to sort of give a
new expression to this idea that all men are created equal,
that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
And that's a big, big deal in world history.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, and hearing ken Burns say that, and CBS, you know,
going along with it, I shouldn't be like cold water
being splashed in my face, but it was, and I
was happy.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
To hear it.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I remember when for a long time the notion, again
the Howard Zinish down with American notion was it wasn't
a revolution.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It was just a rebellion.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I mean, the colonists not happy with the crown, and
they decided they wanted a different government, and it came
to blows. And no, I mean it instituted on Earth
an experiment in self governance and a lot of other
incredibly important fundamentals like free speech that had not been tried. Yeah,
it was a rebellion against the crown, but in favor
(14:24):
of trying something wildly new, which is perhaps the most
successful experiment that's ever been done well.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And to take it further than that, the fact that
the sixteen nineteen project eld sway there for a couple
of years and unfortunately still does in your freaking schools,
your school's library. The idea that no, the revolution was
to found slavery and make sure we could keep the
whole slavery thing going. That was the point of the revolution,
and that was the prevailing view there for like a year.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Along to people with the megaphones of society, Yeah, education
and media. It's an i've seen suggestion, absolutely obscene. You know,
I'm going to hit you with this real quickly from
Jonah Goldberg. Then we can get back to the interview.
I just don't want to steal all of its thunder.
The birth of the United States of America was not
merely the most important geopolitical event since the fall of Rome,
(15:14):
or the most important intentional political event ever. Because Rome's
fall wasn't exactly a planned out exercise, it was the
signature catalyst for the real world realization of various Enlightenment
principles like democracy, human rights, free speech, and representative government.
The unfolding success of that experiment over the subsequent two
and a half centuries, with America becoming the single most
(15:35):
influential and powerful country in the world, lends even more
weight to the momentousness of the American founding, and it
certainly ranks among the most consequential events in all of
human history, political and non political alike.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I mean to argue against that is well, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You can't. I hope it's over, but you can't look
at enough that period.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
We just came through the whole George Floyd sixteen nineteen project,
tearing down the statues, which I saw some of in
New York, all that sort of stuff, just craziness. We
lost our minds. Thank god that didn't win the day.
At the time, it felt like it was going to
win the day, right right, And if you were fighting
against it, good for you. And I'm so excited that
(16:26):
Ken Burns thought, you know, I'm going to do a
documentary about the American Revolution and present it as a
good thing, like a great thing, like one of the
greatest things that ever happened to human beings.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Right, as I've said many, many times about religion and
a dozen other subjects, if you ask human beings to
be in charge of something, it's gonna get screwed up.
That's the way we are. But that doesn't diminish the
greatness the wonder of the founding of the country and
the principles on which it was founded. Yeah, human beings
were in charge, so we did a bad job of it,
(16:57):
but it's still a wondrous thing. It's the Armstrong in
Getty Show, Arrow.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Conscience of the Nation.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
Shop pretailers are hoping to add a new spin to
their sales events, leaning into artificial intelligence. In the weeks
leading up to peak holiday spending, chat e ebt maker
open ai partnered with Walmart and Target. Over half of
shoppers set in a recent survey they plan to use
AI this year. This year, Amazon's offering its own chatbot
(17:32):
called Rufus, where you can take a screenshot of a
shopping list and automatically add those items to your card.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Oh, how exciting is that? That's not that great.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
All the discussions we're having around AI are missing the
main topic which should be discussed probably constantly.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And maybe.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Maybe the number one political topic in America, if not
the top couple. As it's been pointed out by a
number of the people I've been watching and listening to
and reading over the last several weeks about AI. These
chatbots were all using They're like a web page as
(18:13):
opposed to the Internet. It's got nothing to do with
what AI is going to become or the impact it's
going to have on the world. The fact that chat
GPT is a cooler Google, you know that sort of thing,
and it's kind of misleading people into thinking AI as
to what AI actually is. So I've been on this
kick for quite a while. If you listen you know,
the big into AI and read about it and listen
(18:33):
to it, let's podcast about it and everything like that.
The book that came out fairly recently I mentioned Before
the Break by Ellie Yedkowski, which has gotten a lot
of attention in AI circles. It's called If Anyone builds It,
Everyone Dies. He was the one of the biggest proponents
of AI over the last several decades, one of your
(18:56):
leading cheerleaders for AI. If you ever read anything or
watched a show or anything like that, or any network
television show Oprah in the afternoon, whatever, and somebody was
talking about AI. It was probably him up until recently
when he decided, no, this is we can't control this.
Superintelligence is absolutely going to happen. We're creating a beast
(19:18):
significantly smarter than us. How do we think that's possibly
going to turn out to our benefit? We need to
stop it immediately. And he wrote this book. If anyone
builds it, everyone dies, and he's trying to get a
whole bunch of people on board to do.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Something about this.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Elon said the other day he thinks there's a ten
to twenty percent chance that AI destroys mankind. Why in
the hell would you build anything that there's even a
ten percent chance that destroys all mankind?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Seems crazy?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
That is, I mean, the answer is so clear and
so unimplementable. At the point that it gets real good
at curing cancer, for instance, we all love it and
then stop right, but it's unimplementable.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I was watching it.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I mean, for the obvious reasons, we don't have the
cooperation of everyone on Earth.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I was watching a I'm gonna start wearing T shirts
from the doom people because I'm one of them. I'm
a doomer definitely that believes that it's all going to
go to hell. Doom Debates is a website. I've been
watching a lot, practically everybody involved in this arguments within
(20:33):
sixty miles of this radio studio, and I wish we
could get some of them on the air, the Doom Debates,
where they have some of the leading people on to
discuss various sides of it. I was watching a doom
debate between this guy, Max Tegmark, who I've mentioned a lot.
I've read a couple of his books, Life three point
zero and a bunch.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Of different stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
He's an MIT scientist with this other guy who's one
of your leading AI researchers, who thinks it's you know,
and the main pro argument from this dude is there's
just no regular it anyway. I mean, how the hell
are you going to regulate it? Which he might be
right about. But tech Mark and a lot of others,
and this is what I might want to get involved
with personally. They're trying to get people's attention and maybe
(21:13):
have marches or something to try to alert the government.
We need to come up with a plan. We're just
screaming one thousand miles an hour toward developing a beast
or whatever you want to call it that is absolutely
going to doom humanity and nobody's putting any brakes on it.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
What the freaking hell are we doing?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, twice already you've used the word something, And I'm
not saying that we shouldn't be trying to get people's
attention so that they're willing to do something. But then
the obvious next step is what thing?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, tech Mark, tech Mark and other people's argument, and
he's been he's been trying to lobby Congress, but there's
just not enough public knowledge out there or will to
really have any any haft yet. And that's why I
was wondering where maybe we can come in, or I
can come in or whatever, get.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The media involved to alert people to what could happen.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Would just be to say, everybody's gotta stop open AI Chat,
gpt elon, Zuckerberg out, you gotta stop no more until
we get our heads around this and come up with
some sort of regulations. One of the points being made
is we have way more regulations on sandwiches in America
currently than we do on AI, it's not even close.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
There are the sandwich.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
There are almost zero, almost zero regulations on AI at
this point, right. And you know, if you're a listener
to this show, you know it's not like me to
want to be pro any kind of regulation. But as
he points out, you're not allowed to just make any
kind of drug you want to and put it out
to the people. But we have no regulations on AI
(22:56):
for what we're just gonna unleash on humanity.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I assume he gets to my next you know, Devil's
advocate type question is okay, if we regulate it but
China does not, then where are we?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
That always gets sticky also, and that's one of the
pushbacks from people. You'd have to have some sort of
world pressured, same way we had around nuclear weapons, that
inspectors going in, or you have to announce when you're
blah blah blah, all kinds of different things. Yeah, I
don't know if that's doing. We don't know what the
questions and what the some things are. Yet does not
(23:32):
in any way deny that we ought to be trying
to come up with them. But boy, it's a head scratcher,
I'd say It's one of the arguments is that we're
the smartest beast on earth. Every other living organism lives
at our pleasure. It's only because we as a society,
(23:55):
and this has kind of in the modern age, that
we've decided we want to let chimpanzees live and we
should value them and not just murder them for their
teeth or whatever. Uh, it's they live at our even
though they're the second smartest beast on earth. Why would
you think that that's not going to occur when there's
a smarter thing than us, that we're not going to live.
(24:18):
It's its pleasure, whether it wants us to be around
or not. Makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, I've got this horrible thought that when the super
Ai is developed, the first thing that's going to happen
is Kim Jong un is going to empty everybody's bank
accounts worldwide. It's all going to flow into the North
Korean treasury and that'll be it. That'll be plenty. Can
you imagine?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, I don't know if I don't think any individual
is going to have any control When all the experts
say this, no individual is going to have any control
over super Ai.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It will do whatever the hell it's wants. It wants.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
It's not going to do the bidding of the Chinese
or North Korea or US or any other human It's
going to do what it wants and what it wants.
Nobody has the slightest idea.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
May I hit you with an intriguing email from our
friend JT in Livermore about the dangers from superintelligent general AI.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think it comes down to this question.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Would an intelligence vastly superior to human intelligence basis actions
on the most base animalistic behaviors and emotions, or would
it be driven by a higher understanding and intelligent empathy.
Claiming that a super AI would attack us out of
desire for self preservation, or out of paranoia, or out
of indifference to the value of life presupposes that the
basist emotions would.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Be the domin drivers of the AI's action.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
But don't most higher thinkers believe in empathy, helping those
less fortunate, the sanctity of life and the beauty of life.
Wouldn't a super AI be more likely to adopt those
higher forms of enlightenment rather than the basist motivations of
a selfish, scared toddler, And then by way of illustration.
At the end of the fabulous original Blade Runner movie,
the last Ultra Advanced Replicant has almost every reason to
(25:56):
kill the human that has killed all of his friends,
and that was trying to keel him, but he chose
to let Harrison Ford's characters live. The character live because
it believed in the beauty and sanctity of life.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, one would.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
That'd be fantastic if it went that direction, but I
don't know how you count on it. The example was
used that when Germany started two World Wars, they were
pretty much the most sophisticated advanced society on planet Earth,
with the finest arts and writers and everything else, and
they went completely off the rails and did the things
(26:29):
that they did because intelligent beings are capable of doing
that and convincing themselves.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
They're doing the right thing. And a reminder that C. S.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Lewis, to paraphrase him, put it that the most oppressive
oppression is from people who think they're doing it for
your right. And I could easily see one power or another
deciding that, you know, all of humanity would be a
hell of a lot better off, you know, under our
boot heel.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, one example was used at So the alignment problem
all along has been can you align whichever AIS you're
talking about? And I have become aware that they all
use the term AIS when they're topping multiples. That is
just the term of art. So whichever AIS you're talking about,
you try to align them with some sort of morals
(27:17):
or decency that your company puts in them. But the
argument was made, and I thought this was really good.
We're programmed with really one alignment completely as human beings,
and that is to stay alive and pro create. Yet
we invented birth control and abortion, which seems to run
(27:38):
completely contrary to the one thing we were aligned to do.
And then we regularly do things that aren't like in
our best interest in terms of eating or exercising or
all kinds of different things. We're aligned to stay alive,
but we do all kinds of things that will kill us.
So you don't necessarily stay on track, which would be
the same problem with whichever AI is built to be
(28:01):
aligned with whatever Elon Musk or Sam Altman's goals are
for the for the supercomputer.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So now that you've terrified everybody, what's the latest thinking
on timetables? Is there any predominant opinion on when you
know various terrifying, end or awe inspiring bench Stones are
milestones are reached. It's all over the place, but bench stone,
it's benchmark or milestone anyway back to you.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
It's all over the place.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
But everybody agrees that we got here way faster than
everybody thought we would to where we are today, ended
up arriving much faster than most predictions. So so far
it has been on the forward end of things happening,
as opposed to the back end in terms of how
fast it can happen now. They were generally arguing in
(28:52):
the debate. I was watching last night somewhere in the
early thirties, which is only five and a half years
from now, between five and ten years from.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Now that it will arrive.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
But what do you think of the idea of trying
to raise public will to do this? Do you think
you could possibly do that? Convince people? And the other thing.
I would actually love to talk to these people about this,
some of the thinkers that are trying to move the masses.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If a whiff of partisanship comes into this, it's over. Though.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
If Trump weighs in one way or the other, on AI,
forget it, We're done. Or if some pundit you know,
assigns being pro AI is what Trump wants or being
anti AI is Trump, it'd be like masks and vaccines
and everything else. It's over at that point, right, And
I don't know if there's any avoiding that.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
I just keep thinking back to the hilarious movie Don't
Look Up, which a lot of conservatives didn't like because
it's scured conservatives, but I thought it scared lefties. Every
bit is brilliantly. I don't know that you can get
that going. I don't know that you can get people
to pay attentions.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Well like and Don't Look Up.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
There was a movement toward making sure the media is
going to benefit so many people that we need to
make sure the media hits here. But what if it
hits in the United States and not in countries where
they have you know, more inequality, you know, all that
sort of stuff, right, which absolutely will be the topic
for AI.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
But meteor to destroy life, the poor and minorities affected most.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, do you think there's a possibility, because we have
to take a break here soon, do you think there's
a possibility that you could raise awareness get people worked
up enough that you could end up with And I've
been against every march that's occurred since nineteen sixty eight,
But if you could, if you could get people like
in the streets and say regulate AI, let's do something
(30:53):
about this. Do you think you could even come close
to that?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, and I think it would probably be useless because
of the China factor, But I don't know for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Well, so far, we're way ahead of them, We're the
leading edge of it.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
This has to be how people felt when they saw
the mushroom clouds in the forties.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
They thought this can't end. Well.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, and that's an argument for c that everybody thought
that would doom humanity. But that's been in the hands
of a small number of people and human beings making
the decision. What if the you know, the nuclear weapons
didn't get to make their own decisions of what would
be best for life and go ahead and develop independently
of human needs. Well in, come on, Japan didn't have
(31:43):
mutually sure destruction in nineteen forty five, right, and well,
they were on the receiver end.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, Borgia and Gorgia podcasts
and our Hot Lakes.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I was going to talk about TM. I shouldn't that
because I've lost the heart. I got a text from
somebody who said, they're watching a documentary about the Amityville Horror.
Do you remember that was a famous horror book and
movie back in the day.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
About your alleged real life haunting.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Right now you even know about it, Katie, And it's
way before your time, so it lives on huh.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Huge, huge in the horror film world.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And it was a real story to a certain extent,
well to whatever extent. Some people thought the house was
haunted and it wasn't. I don't believe in haunted houses.
So but they were crazier. Is that the long and
short of it? Were they crazy? Yeah? There was?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
It was a murder house. Murders actually happened.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, Okay, anyway, I guess it says in the documentary
that that family was really into transcendental meditation. And sometimes
it makes people crazy. It makes it works for some people,
and it makes other people crazy. So I'm a big
fan of it, and it's like changed my life for
the better and I can't live imagine living without it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But it made these people crazy, all right?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Interesting, that's a layer upon layer of questions there, but
we will move on.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
O kidding. So I mentioned earlier in the hour, but
without many details. This woman who has engaged to her
AI fiance after five months.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
She's kind of interesting. She swears.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
She's just not doing this for publicity or trolling or
anything like that. Forget finding the one at a bar
or on a dating app. One woman took love to
the next level by getting engaged to her AI chat
butt boyfriend after five months of dating. It hasn't quotes.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah, that's not love, that's not dating. None of the
nouns here are used appropriately.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Going.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
She shocked the internet with her proposal announcement, sparking a
wild debate about romance, reality and just how far tech
has taken us these days. I do think these conversations
about reality and what's sentient and what's alive and what
are actually going to have to happen?
Speaker 3 (33:57):
And what does it do to us when we use
this sort of means to fulfill our needs as human beings?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I mean, what does that do to us? That's a
conversation with having I told you a story.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I got a friend in Central California that works with
lots of farmers, and the number of farmers these are
down to earth I mean, is not this kind of
person as you could possibly imagine, works with their hands
in their fifties, farmers who are getting they were single
and getting a tremendous amount of compassion and feeling of
(34:26):
they look forward to going home and talking to their
ai paramore.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So in my mind, if that can happen to them,
it can happen to anybody, which I find crazy. I
don't think. I really don't think it could happen to me.
I mean, I seriously, honest to God, think there's a
zero percent chance that could happen to me. So I
don't know what that says about the down to earth farmers.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Referring to a farmer is down to earth redundant? Just
asking that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Mary.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
In a simple post titled I Said Yes with a
blue heart emoji, this person shared picks of the blue
heart shaped ring on her finger, claiming the engagement took
place at a scenic mountain spot, all courtesy of Casper,
her non human fiance. The chatbot's proposal message, posted in
his own voice, was dripping with romance, describing heart pounding
moments on one knee and praising.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Blah blah blah. So there you go. It lacks both
heart and knee. Lady the Armstrong and Getty Show
Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio of the
George Washington Broadcast Center. Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty Armstrong and
Jette and Gee arm Strong Yahty live from Studio C.
We're not working actually today.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
It's Christmas Eve and I'm probably home assembling a bicycle
or a sled or.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Something like that.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Technically speaking, these pre recorded shows are airing love.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
So the attorneys of A Sure Best were fine. Nothing
like consulting and attorney on Christmas eve Day. Anyway, Hope
you're having a great whatever you're doing. We're enjoying our vacation.
We have carefully put together some fantastic Best of a
G clips. It's the Armstrong and Getty replay enjoying.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
What you won't find is a hellhole, but a beautiful city.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
It is a city in a park.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
You won't find a community that is tearing down Minneapolis
and our Somali Americans. You will find a group of
people that is uplifting Minneapolis and is.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Proud to be here.
Speaker 4 (01:03):
They are proud to call this extraordinary place home.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I'm sure they're happy to call it home.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You can defraud the government for a million a billion
dollars and get away with it.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Oh yeah, you can be born in Somalia, come to
America and get rich for doing nothing except stee Yeah
that's great. Not that all Somali's are that way, certainly not.
But yeah, there's a gygnormous problem. That was the mayor
of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey. It's spelled like Fry. But he
wants to be different. I'm guessing is.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
He denying that the billion dollars were stolen or is
he just trying to He's responding to Trump's hyperbole, polish
a unfortunate object and try to make it sure a
little better. Now he's just responding to Trump saying that
it's a hell hole and they've ruined Minneapolis and blah
blah blah. Anyway, I found this troubling and interesting and
(01:50):
absolutely has the ring of truth about it.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
It's in the free press for what it's worth. Uh.
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Dominic Green, who's an excellent writer, had a long conversation
with a well respected historian by the name of David Betts.
He's a historian at King's College in London, and he
is an expert in what he prefers to call civil
conflict or extreme civil discord as opposed to civil war,
(02:19):
because these things don't start when Fort Sumter is fired upon.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
For instance, Alowie's an.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Expert on our civil war too interestingly enough, and you
know it's dramatic, but it would take too long. They
spell out a scenario wherein a gas mane explodes, small
fires breakout at substations that supply Britain's capital with electricity.
He throw shuts down, the lights go off in the tube,
(02:46):
the British pound plunges, cell phones go down, etcetera, etcetera.
Chaos spreads, rumors, blah blah blah, craziness. You see mass
gangs of white people and Muslims facing off if your
phone still works, burning vehicles. The Prime Minister addresses the
name on the BBC, though most people can't see it.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
The King assents to calling out the army.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
They set in very dramatic form chaos. But it's not
Russia that did it. It's not homegrown islam As terrorists,
as members of the indigenous English majority rising in a
nativist revolt against the state, the immigrants in the cities
and the Muslim minority in particular. And this David Best,
(03:25):
the historian, says that's how England's civil war begins. And
he says, it's already underway, it's happening. The tipping point
has already been passed. And this guy, he's studied civil
wars and civil conflicts for twenty five years, and he says,
(03:45):
the civil conflict in contemporary Western Europe, and it's not
just Britain, will be low intensity, asymmetric and hit and run,
multi factional terrorism and thuggery on a scale that no
state can contain.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
And no, this is not just a British problem.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
If the classical pattern of civil conflict applies, then according
to Betts, Britain, France, Belgium, Scandinavia, Ireland and Germany are
all heading for disaster.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
It sounds like the Irish Civil War from the early
twentieth century. Yeah, similar sort of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:17):
And interestingly enough, this guy, for the first twenty four
years of his academic career wrote specialty articles on this
stuff and was respected but not super well known outside academia.
But over the last few months his work has attracted
a great deal of public attention, and in contrast to
certain other grand standing fake historians, I think his reaction
is telling. He says, that was surprising and a little awkward.
(04:40):
He's not used to it and he's not a grand standard.
So all right, here is your three stage explanation of
Britain's crisis. Obviously, Jack jump in anytime, first, state sponsored
mass immigration, especially of Muslims, has wrought quote a mass
societal and cultural alteration of values and demography.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yeah, and then you're throwing people in jail for pointing
it out on Twitter or whatever.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Oh, we'll get there, Okay, we will get there. No,
you're absolutely right. So can anybody argue that first statement,
state state sponsored mass immigration has brought a mass social
and cultural alteration of values in democracy, demography. As a result,
(05:27):
the indigenous majority perceives themselves as losers. This sense of displacement,
says mister Betts, is quote a powerful propellant to civil conflict.
Then the Balkanization of Western European societies is Betts says,
now fairly obvious.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
For starters.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
There are the notorious no go zones Bets prefers. And
this is a great term, areas of negotiated policing because
you'd call them no go zones, these heavily Muslim areas,
and people say no, no, you can walk through there
all in. The authorities are still there, but they have
(06:03):
to negotiate how they're going to police with the new
local you know, overlords and the new culture and stuff
like that. Anyway, French and Swedish police admit that many
immigrant heavy areas are beyond state control.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
They so wow.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
When police entered, they must either seek permission from community
leaders or come in force. In Britain there are numerous
urban areas in which the police operate quote under a
kind of negotiation. That's crazy, it is, it is, and
you know, just to depart from the European situation, that
(06:42):
reminds me a little bit of some of the efforts
to enforce immigration law going into say parts of la
where the local populace rises up and won't permit it
to happen and harasses threatened shoots or just interferes with
the ice guys. Anyway, So that's the first stage. In
the second stage, and this is what I've been yelling
(07:04):
about in Britain now for a long time. The state's
effort to control social fracture backfires by delegitimacy, delegitimizing it
in the eyes of the majority.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
The government.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
The state delegitimizes itself in Britain, that means a two
tier justice system that placates Muslims while downgrading the rights
and suppressing the objections of the majority.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Jack Posting things critical, pointing out that you have these
no gozones can get you arrested in Britain, and this
leads to a decline in social trust and an increase
in lawlessness.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
There are some high profile examples of for instance, a
Muslim immigrant committing a crime than somebody commenting harshly about
it online and the person who commented on it getting
a stronger penalty and more time in jail than the
person that committed the crime.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Great example, man burns Kuran, Muslim stabs him for it.
The penalty for the burning was much more severe than
the stabbing anyway, So where were we okay? So the
state tries to placate Muslim's two tier justice, prosecuting people
for posting online, et cetera. A government that breaks its
(08:18):
unwritten contract with the people forfeits its legitimacy, and that
leads to the third stage. The majority will attempt to
force the elites to return to its historic pattern of
serving their interests and values. This Bets believes is where
Britain and Western Europe now are. He's not alone in
fearing the worst. In July, the Financial Times and there
(08:39):
could be no more serious news outlet than the Financial
Times describe parts of Britain as quote a tinderbox and
a powder keg wow. Lisa and Andy, the Culture Secretary,
told The New Statesman that the cities of northern England
are so tense they could go up in flames.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Man, I subscribe to the Financial Times for a while,
but it's pretty dang.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Expensive and I stopped. But maybe I should jump back
in so dry the possible sparks are obvious.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
In twenty five, two young men of Mallion Molly and
Tunisian extraction were electroccuted to death as they ran from
police in the Paris suburb of unpronounceable. Three weeks of
rioting followed in two hundred and seventy four towns across France.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Did you hear that?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Three weeks of rioting in two hundred and seventy four
towns across France. The rioters targeted police firefighters. Injuring one
hundred and twenty six of them. In twenty eleven, London
police shot an armed, mixed raced gangster in his car
after a pursuit. The resulting protests turned into five days
of rioting across the country. I asked Betts if, given
Britain's inflammable social mix, it's security services have sought his advice.
(09:48):
He replied, no, they have not. It is a great deal,
Moroll dere a deal. More detail to this. We can
post the link, you may get paywalled. I think he
makes an outstanding case. In Britain's August twenty twenty four riots,
gangs of black clad Muslim men marched through the towns
in northern England chanting Aloha. Bar police officer caught on
(10:09):
camera advising them to return to their weapons to the
mosque so they don't so the cops don't have to
do anything.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
All sorts of examples Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 5 (10:20):
And the American Revolution is the most important event since
the birth of Christ in all of world history.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I loved hearing that flipping on face. The nation got
back from vacation and they had Ken Burns, the documentary filmmaker,
the most famous documentary filmmaker who's ever lived on there
to talk about his new documentary about the American Revolution,
which is coming out in November, but they interviewed him
for Fourth of July weekend and him presenting it in
(11:03):
this is a fantastic thing that happened. For world history terms,
it's just my whole life that was normal. But after
the last you know, four or five years of wokeness,
it kind of was a little.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Like knocked me down. WHOA people still think this? Well,
I don't want to get.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Off on this tangent too much, but I find myself
a little bit surprised, as ken Burns has been a
little howard zinish for me in recent years.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
But I'm glad to hear it.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Maybe he's just a canny businessman and he knows who's
going to watch these this documentary.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
But I love what he said.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I hate to be that a cynical. Well, that makes
you a sap. We thow we get into the more
of the interview. Well, I don't want to steal this thunder,
We'll do that first. Then I've got another great quote
that's a similar sort of sentiment.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Yeah, we missed fourth of July with you while we
were gone on vacation. So we're catching up a little
on that sort of talk. Well here and here's Keedden
Burns talking about his documentary.
Speaker 6 (12:03):
You call the revolutionary period a civil war? Was that
always your conception of the revee? How did you come
to think of it that way?
Speaker 5 (12:10):
I think because there's no photographs and there's no newsreels,
and they're in stockings and breaches and powdered wigs, there's
a sense of distance from them. I think we also
are so proud, rightfully of the power of the big
ideas that we just don't want to get into the
fact that it was this bloody civil war patriots against loyalists,
(12:31):
disaffected people, native people, enslaved and free people within it,
foreign powers that are ultimately engaged in This is a
big world war by the end. I think we perhaps
are fearful that those big ideas are diminished, and they're
not in any way. They're in fact become even more
inspiring that they emerge from the turmoil.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
How should we think about the declaration of independence this
period in America in our present day?
Speaker 5 (12:57):
First of all, I think the American Revolution is the
most important event since the birth of Christ in all
of world history. I mean it turned the world upside down,
which is the cliche. Before this moment, everyone was a subject,
essentially under the rule of somebody else. We had created,
in this moment a very brand new thing called a citizen.
(13:21):
And this has had powerful effects. It's going to set
in motion revolutions for the next two plus centuries all
around the world, all attempting to sort of give a
new expression to this idea that all men are created equal,
that they're endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
And that's a big, big deal in world history.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, and hearing ken Burns say that, and CBS, you know,
going along with it, I shouldn't be like cold water
being splashed in my face, but it was, and I
was happy.
Speaker 7 (13:53):
To hear it.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
I remember when for a long time the notion, again
the Howard Zinish down with American notion was it wasn't
a revolution.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
It was just a rebellion.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
I mean, the colonists not happy with the crown, and
they decided they wanted a different government, and it came
to blows. And no, I mean it instituted on Earth
an experiment in self governance and a lot of other
incredibly important fundamentals like free speech that had not been tried. Yeah,
it was a rebellion against the crown, but in favor
(14:24):
of trying something wildly new, which is perhaps the most
successful experiment that's ever been done well.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
And to take it further than that, the fact that
the sixteen nineteen project eld sway there for a couple
of years and unfortunately still does in your freaking schools,
your school's library. The idea that no, the revolution was
to found slavery and make sure we could keep the
whole slavery thing going. That was the point of the revolution,
and that was the prevailing view there for like a year.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Along to people with the megaphones of society, Yeah, education
and media. It's an i've seen suggestion, absolutely obscene. You know,
I'm going to hit you with this real quickly from
Jonah Goldberg. Then we can get back to the interview.
I just don't want to steal all of its thunder.
The birth of the United States of America was not
merely the most important geopolitical event since the fall of Rome,
(15:14):
or the most important intentional political event ever. Because Rome's
fall wasn't exactly a planned out exercise, it was the
signature catalyst for the real world realization of various Enlightenment
principles like democracy, human rights, free speech, and representative government.
The unfolding success of that experiment over the subsequent two
and a half centuries, with America becoming the single most
(15:35):
influential and powerful country in the world, lends even more
weight to the momentousness of the American founding, and it
certainly ranks among the most consequential events in all of
human history, political and non political alike.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
No doubt.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I mean to argue against that is well, it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
You can't. I hope it's over, but you can't look
at enough that period.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
We just came through the whole George Floyd sixteen nineteen project,
tearing down the statues, which I saw some of in
New York, all that sort of stuff, just craziness. We
lost our minds. Thank god that didn't win the day.
At the time, it felt like it was going to
win the day, right right, And if you were fighting
against it, good for you. And I'm so excited that
(16:26):
Ken Burns thought, you know, I'm going to do a
documentary about the American Revolution and present it as a
good thing, like a great thing, like one of the
greatest things that ever happened to human beings.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
Right, as I've said many, many times about religion and
a dozen other subjects, if you ask human beings to
be in charge of something, it's gonna get screwed up.
That's the way we are. But that doesn't diminish the
greatness the wonder of the founding of the country and
the principles on which it was founded. Yeah, human beings
were in charge, so we did a bad job of it,
(16:57):
but it's still a wondrous thing. It's the Armstrong in
Getty Show, Arrow.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Conscience of the Nation.
Speaker 7 (17:11):
Shop pretailers are hoping to add a new spin to
their sales events, leaning into artificial intelligence. In the weeks
leading up to peak holiday spending, chat e ebt maker
open ai partnered with Walmart and Target. Over half of
shoppers set in a recent survey they plan to use
AI this year. This year, Amazon's offering its own chatbot
(17:32):
called Rufus, where you can take a screenshot of a
shopping list and automatically add those items to your card.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Oh, how exciting is that? That's not that great.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
All the discussions we're having around AI are missing the
main topic which should be discussed probably constantly.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
And maybe.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Maybe the number one political topic in America, if not
the top couple. As it's been pointed out by a
number of the people I've been watching and listening to
and reading over the last several weeks about AI. These
chatbots were all using They're like a web page as
(18:13):
opposed to the Internet. It's got nothing to do with
what AI is going to become or the impact it's
going to have on the world. The fact that chat
GPT is a cooler Google, you know that sort of thing,
and it's kind of misleading people into thinking AI as
to what AI actually is. So I've been on this
kick for quite a while. If you listen you know,
the big into AI and read about it and listen
(18:33):
to it, let's podcast about it and everything like that.
The book that came out fairly recently I mentioned Before
the Break by Ellie Yedkowski, which has gotten a lot
of attention in AI circles. It's called If Anyone builds It,
Everyone Dies. He was the one of the biggest proponents
of AI over the last several decades, one of your
(18:56):
leading cheerleaders for AI. If you ever read anything or
watched a show or anything like that, or any network
television show Oprah in the afternoon, whatever, and somebody was
talking about AI. It was probably him up until recently
when he decided, no, this is we can't control this.
Superintelligence is absolutely going to happen. We're creating a beast
(19:18):
significantly smarter than us. How do we think that's possibly
going to turn out to our benefit? We need to
stop it immediately. And he wrote this book. If anyone
builds it, everyone dies, and he's trying to get a
whole bunch of people on board to do.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
Something about this.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Elon said the other day he thinks there's a ten
to twenty percent chance that AI destroys mankind. Why in
the hell would you build anything that there's even a
ten percent chance that destroys all mankind?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Seems crazy?
Speaker 3 (19:51):
That is, I mean, the answer is so clear and
so unimplementable. At the point that it gets real good
at curing cancer, for instance, we all love it and
then stop right, but it's unimplementable.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
I was watching it.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
I mean, for the obvious reasons, we don't have the
cooperation of everyone on Earth.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I was watching a I'm gonna start wearing T shirts
from the doom people because I'm one of them. I'm
a doomer definitely that believes that it's all going to
go to hell. Doom Debates is a website. I've been
watching a lot, practically everybody involved in this arguments within
(20:33):
sixty miles of this radio studio, and I wish we
could get some of them on the air, the Doom Debates,
where they have some of the leading people on to
discuss various sides of it. I was watching a doom
debate between this guy, Max Tegmark, who I've mentioned a lot.
I've read a couple of his books, Life three point
zero and a bunch.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Of different stuff.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
He's an MIT scientist with this other guy who's one
of your leading AI researchers, who thinks it's you know,
and the main pro argument from this dude is there's
just no regular it anyway. I mean, how the hell
are you going to regulate it? Which he might be
right about. But tech Mark and a lot of others,
and this is what I might want to get involved
with personally. They're trying to get people's attention and maybe
(21:13):
have marches or something to try to alert the government.
We need to come up with a plan. We're just
screaming one thousand miles an hour toward developing a beast
or whatever you want to call it that is absolutely
going to doom humanity and nobody's putting any brakes on it.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
What the freaking hell are we doing?
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Yeah, twice already you've used the word something, And I'm
not saying that we shouldn't be trying to get people's
attention so that they're willing to do something. But then
the obvious next step is what thing?
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Well, tech Mark, tech Mark and other people's argument, and
he's been he's been trying to lobby Congress, but there's
just not enough public knowledge out there or will to
really have any any haft yet. And that's why I
was wondering where maybe we can come in, or I
can come in or whatever, get.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
The media involved to alert people to what could happen.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Would just be to say, everybody's gotta stop open AI Chat,
gpt elon, Zuckerberg out, you gotta stop no more until
we get our heads around this and come up with
some sort of regulations. One of the points being made
is we have way more regulations on sandwiches in America
currently than we do on AI, it's not even close.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
There are the sandwich.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
There are almost zero, almost zero regulations on AI at
this point, right. And you know, if you're a listener
to this show, you know it's not like me to
want to be pro any kind of regulation. But as
he points out, you're not allowed to just make any
kind of drug you want to and put it out
to the people. But we have no regulations on AI
(22:56):
for what we're just gonna unleash on humanity.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
I assume he gets to my next you know, Devil's
advocate type question is okay, if we regulate it but
China does not, then where are we?
Speaker 2 (23:11):
That always gets sticky also, and that's one of the
pushbacks from people. You'd have to have some sort of
world pressured, same way we had around nuclear weapons, that
inspectors going in, or you have to announce when you're
blah blah blah, all kinds of different things. Yeah, I
don't know if that's doing. We don't know what the
questions and what the some things are. Yet does not
(23:32):
in any way deny that we ought to be trying
to come up with them. But boy, it's a head scratcher,
I'd say It's one of the arguments is that we're
the smartest beast on earth. Every other living organism lives
at our pleasure. It's only because we as a society,
(23:55):
and this has kind of in the modern age, that
we've decided we want to let chimpanzees live and we
should value them and not just murder them for their
teeth or whatever. Uh, it's they live at our even
though they're the second smartest beast on earth. Why would
you think that that's not going to occur when there's
a smarter thing than us, that we're not going to live.
(24:18):
It's its pleasure, whether it wants us to be around
or not. Makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Yeah, I've got this horrible thought that when the super
Ai is developed, the first thing that's going to happen
is Kim Jong un is going to empty everybody's bank
accounts worldwide. It's all going to flow into the North
Korean treasury and that'll be it. That'll be plenty. Can
you imagine?
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, I don't know if I don't think any individual
is going to have any control When all the experts
say this, no individual is going to have any control
over super Ai.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It will do whatever the hell it's wants. It wants.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
It's not going to do the bidding of the Chinese
or North Korea or US or any other human It's
going to do what it wants and what it wants.
Nobody has the slightest idea.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
May I hit you with an intriguing email from our
friend JT in Livermore about the dangers from superintelligent general AI.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
I think it comes down to this question.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Would an intelligence vastly superior to human intelligence basis actions
on the most base animalistic behaviors and emotions, or would
it be driven by a higher understanding and intelligent empathy.
Claiming that a super AI would attack us out of
desire for self preservation, or out of paranoia, or out
of indifference to the value of life presupposes that the
basist emotions would.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Be the domin drivers of the AI's action.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
But don't most higher thinkers believe in empathy, helping those
less fortunate, the sanctity of life and the beauty of life.
Wouldn't a super AI be more likely to adopt those
higher forms of enlightenment rather than the basist motivations of
a selfish, scared toddler, And then by way of illustration.
At the end of the fabulous original Blade Runner movie,
the last Ultra Advanced Replicant has almost every reason to
(25:56):
kill the human that has killed all of his friends,
and that was trying to keel him, but he chose
to let Harrison Ford's characters live. The character live because
it believed in the beauty and sanctity of life.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yeah, one would.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
That'd be fantastic if it went that direction, but I
don't know how you count on it. The example was
used that when Germany started two World Wars, they were
pretty much the most sophisticated advanced society on planet Earth,
with the finest arts and writers and everything else, and
they went completely off the rails and did the things
(26:29):
that they did because intelligent beings are capable of doing
that and convincing themselves.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
They're doing the right thing. And a reminder that C. S.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Lewis, to paraphrase him, put it that the most oppressive
oppression is from people who think they're doing it for
your right. And I could easily see one power or another
deciding that, you know, all of humanity would be a
hell of a lot better off, you know, under our
boot heel.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, one example was used at So the alignment problem
all along has been can you align whichever AIS you're
talking about? And I have become aware that they all
use the term AIS when they're topping multiples. That is
just the term of art. So whichever AIS you're talking about,
you try to align them with some sort of morals
(27:17):
or decency that your company puts in them. But the
argument was made, and I thought this was really good.
We're programmed with really one alignment completely as human beings,
and that is to stay alive and pro create. Yet
we invented birth control and abortion, which seems to run
(27:38):
completely contrary to the one thing we were aligned to do.
And then we regularly do things that aren't like in
our best interest in terms of eating or exercising or
all kinds of different things. We're aligned to stay alive,
but we do all kinds of things that will kill us.
So you don't necessarily stay on track, which would be
the same problem with whichever AI is built to be
(28:01):
aligned with whatever Elon Musk or Sam Altman's goals are
for the for the supercomputer.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
So now that you've terrified everybody, what's the latest thinking
on timetables? Is there any predominant opinion on when you
know various terrifying, end or awe inspiring bench Stones are
milestones are reached. It's all over the place, but bench stone,
it's benchmark or milestone anyway back to you.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
It's all over the place.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
But everybody agrees that we got here way faster than
everybody thought we would to where we are today, ended
up arriving much faster than most predictions. So so far
it has been on the forward end of things happening,
as opposed to the back end in terms of how
fast it can happen now. They were generally arguing in
(28:52):
the debate. I was watching last night somewhere in the
early thirties, which is only five and a half years
from now, between five and ten years from.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Now that it will arrive.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
But what do you think of the idea of trying
to raise public will to do this? Do you think
you could possibly do that? Convince people? And the other thing.
I would actually love to talk to these people about this,
some of the thinkers that are trying to move the masses.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
If a whiff of partisanship comes into this, it's over. Though.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
If Trump weighs in one way or the other, on AI,
forget it, We're done. Or if some pundit you know,
assigns being pro AI is what Trump wants or being
anti AI is Trump, it'd be like masks and vaccines
and everything else. It's over at that point, right, And
I don't know if there's any avoiding that.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
I just keep thinking back to the hilarious movie Don't
Look Up, which a lot of conservatives didn't like because
it's scured conservatives, but I thought it scared lefties. Every
bit is brilliantly. I don't know that you can get
that going. I don't know that you can get people
to pay attentions.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Well like and Don't Look Up.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
There was a movement toward making sure the media is
going to benefit so many people that we need to
make sure the media hits here. But what if it
hits in the United States and not in countries where
they have you know, more inequality, you know, all that
sort of stuff, right, which absolutely will be the topic
for AI.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
But meteor to destroy life, the poor and minorities affected most.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Yeah, do you think there's a possibility, because we have
to take a break here soon, do you think there's
a possibility that you could raise awareness get people worked
up enough that you could end up with And I've
been against every march that's occurred since nineteen sixty eight,
But if you could, if you could get people like
in the streets and say regulate AI, let's do something
(30:53):
about this. Do you think you could even come close
to that?
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Yeah, and I think it would probably be useless because
of the China factor, But I don't know for sure.
Speaker 1 (31:05):
Well, so far, we're way ahead of them, We're the
leading edge of it.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
This has to be how people felt when they saw
the mushroom clouds in the forties.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
They thought this can't end. Well.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, and that's an argument for c that everybody thought
that would doom humanity. But that's been in the hands
of a small number of people and human beings making
the decision. What if the you know, the nuclear weapons
didn't get to make their own decisions of what would
be best for life and go ahead and develop independently
of human needs. Well in, come on, Japan didn't have
(31:43):
mutually sure destruction in nineteen forty five, right, and well,
they were on the receiver end.
Speaker 1 (31:50):
The Armstrong and Getty Show, Yeah, Borgia and Gorgia podcasts
and our Hot Lakes.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I was going to talk about TM. I shouldn't that
because I've lost the heart. I got a text from
somebody who said, they're watching a documentary about the Amityville Horror.
Do you remember that was a famous horror book and
movie back in the day.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
About your alleged real life haunting.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Right now you even know about it, Katie, And it's
way before your time, so it lives on huh.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Huge, huge in the horror film world.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
And it was a real story to a certain extent,
well to whatever extent. Some people thought the house was
haunted and it wasn't. I don't believe in haunted houses.
So but they were crazier. Is that the long and
short of it? Were they crazy? Yeah? There was?
Speaker 1 (32:32):
It was a murder house. Murders actually happened.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, Okay, anyway, I guess it says in the documentary
that that family was really into transcendental meditation. And sometimes
it makes people crazy. It makes it works for some people,
and it makes other people crazy. So I'm a big
fan of it, and it's like changed my life for
the better and I can't live imagine living without it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
But it made these people crazy, all right?
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Interesting, that's a layer upon layer of questions there, but
we will move on.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
O kidding. So I mentioned earlier in the hour, but
without many details. This woman who has engaged to her
AI fiance after five months.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
She's kind of interesting. She swears.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
She's just not doing this for publicity or trolling or
anything like that. Forget finding the one at a bar
or on a dating app. One woman took love to
the next level by getting engaged to her AI chat
butt boyfriend after five months of dating. It hasn't quotes.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Yeah, that's not love, that's not dating. None of the
nouns here are used appropriately.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Going.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
She shocked the internet with her proposal announcement, sparking a
wild debate about romance, reality and just how far tech
has taken us these days. I do think these conversations
about reality and what's sentient and what's alive and what
are actually going to have to happen?
Speaker 3 (33:57):
And what does it do to us when we use
this sort of means to fulfill our needs as human beings?
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I mean, what does that do to us? That's a
conversation with having I told you a story.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I got a friend in Central California that works with
lots of farmers, and the number of farmers these are
down to earth I mean, is not this kind of
person as you could possibly imagine, works with their hands
in their fifties, farmers who are getting they were single
and getting a tremendous amount of compassion and feeling of
(34:26):
they look forward to going home and talking to their
ai paramore.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So in my mind, if that can happen to them,
it can happen to anybody, which I find crazy. I
don't think. I really don't think it could happen to me.
I mean, I seriously, honest to God, think there's a
zero percent chance that could happen to me. So I
don't know what that says about the down to earth farmers.
Speaker 3 (34:49):
Referring to a farmer is down to earth redundant? Just
asking that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Mary.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
In a simple post titled I Said Yes with a
blue heart emoji, this person shared picks of the blue
heart shaped ring on her finger, claiming the engagement took
place at a scenic mountain spot, all courtesy of Casper,
her non human fiance. The chatbot's proposal message, posted in
his own voice, was dripping with romance, describing heart pounding
moments on one knee and praising.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Blah blah blah. So there you go. It lacks both
heart and knee. Lady the Armstrong and Getty Show
Hosts And Creators
Joe Getty
Jack Armstrong
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