[HN Gopher] The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and D...
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The Age of AI by Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt and Daniel
Huttenlocher
Author : helsinkiandrew
Score : 67 points
Date : 2021-11-20 08:43 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| Paul_S wrote:
| Ah, Henry Kissinger, wouldn't trust someone who backed a
| fraudster (theranos) and enabled her to scam even more people.
| Maybe his judgment isn't what it used to be.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| When was Kissinger's judgement ever good?
| almeria wrote:
| Depends what you mean by "good".
|
| For the ruthlessly cynical and basically destructive ends
| toward which this man has devoted his life - his judgement is
| arguably quite effective.
|
| That is, after all, how you get to be "America's preeminent
| living statesman".
| peter303 wrote:
| The ongoing Holmes trial revealed all kinds of celebrity and
| private equity investors were snookered. Retired politicians
| are eager to jump onto the Silicon Valley gravy train as
| directors. George Bush Sr made a killing participating in the
| Global Crossing fiber cable venture.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Maybe one of the biggest risks of AI is reifying it, or treating
| it like a real thing. We may romantically desire AI as an agent
| with independence, but in my view, this is always a serious
| mistake. "AI thinking" causes executives to treat classes of
| technology like a magical black box add-on and causes engineers
| to remove human involvement. So long as human input is required,
| the intelligence isn't artificial-- and that leads to disasters
| like Zillow's AI algorithm.
|
| This is all a matter of design. We shouldn't try to design
| artificial Intelligence, we should design intelligent systems
| (ones that support systemic success and wellbeing). ML, GANs,
| transformers, bots and other technologies are cool tools. Let's
| not fool others or ourselves by calling them AI.
|
| The clear and present danger is the creation of powerful
| intelligent systems that we can't control and that decrease
| overall system success/wellbeing. Like corporations that aren't
| beholden to broader societal interests. That's the real "AI"
| challenge we need to address. And, how do we enable the governing
| systems in our society to act intelligently? We desperately need
| more functional governance at scale.
| mjburgess wrote:
| I think it's just a matter of the penny dropping. When self-
| driving cars aren't here over the next few years; and when more
| big biz tries and fails with 'AI' -- we will enter another
| winter.
|
| I have to say it will be schadenfreude from me -- given the
| absolutely reckless behaviour of the army of grant-chasing
| academics happy to inflate the bubble. When that funding
| suddenly disappears, it'll be there own fault.
| varelse wrote:
| As skeptical as I am of the AGI and even full self-driving,
| successes like AlphaGo, AlphaFold 2, and Deepfakery from
| video to voice all demonstrate the technology can do things
| we never really could do before.
|
| But in all of those cases humans are in the loop to either
| build the system at scale or to keep it from going off the
| rails in production. I see much more of that in the next
| decade. And I don't think there's going to be an AI winter
| but I do hope there's a reckoning for all the snake oilers of
| AI out there. I mean they're the same people who snake oil
| for crypto too, and they're just getting their game on for
| snake oiling the metaverse.
|
| Maybe that will happen for AI VC, but as someone else said,
| VC is where good ideas go to die.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Imagine letting gtp3 loose on to the worldwide comment
| sections.
|
| It has the ability to defeat any captcha, it can write well
| enough to waste peoples time, and it could push any agenda.
|
| I think when such a weapon is released, there will be
| nothing mere mortal web owners will be able to do, since
| there is no digital identity that couldn't be spoofed by
| it.
| varelse wrote:
| You deeply deeply deeply overestimate these models but I
| also give up trying to make that point. Go ahead and
| unleash all this fear uncertainty and doubt and see how
| that goes. It's tiring even to read this nonsense.
|
| There is nothing these language models can do that isn't
| already being achieved by an entire planet of mechanical
| turks with nothing better to do. But they do so with a
| much better carbon footprint.
|
| There will be plenty of tools for motivated mere mortal
| web owners. Most of them involves various ways of saying
| no to uncurated content. But it's more fun to talk about
| the near-term AGI and the imaginary threat it poses. Who
| doesn't love a good Boogeyman story?
| dougabug wrote:
| Good points, but it should also be noted that humans also
| often rely on other humans supporting, assisting, and
| training / coaching them in order to perform at peak
| levels.
|
| Pre-Neolithic humans while biologically considered modern,
| lacked many of the expressed cognitive capabilities we now
| demand nascent AI systems to exhibit.
|
| Self-hosting AI capabilities may come at some point in the
| future, long after these human bootstrapped and maintained
| systems have proven their commercial worth.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > successes like AlphaGo, AlphaFold 2, and Deepfakery from
| video to voice all demonstrate the technology can do things
| we never really could do before.
|
| Good grief, I hope so! After all that money! If no-one had
| come up with anything they could hype out the ears, the
| train would have stopped years ago.
|
| The problem isn't toy inventions, it's making a significant
| positive impact on the world as a whole. Generalisability
| and efficiency of deployment, creating benefits for
| billions of households.
|
| Lithium-chemistry batteries are having a net positive
| effect. AI seems to be a net negative, the way it's been
| used in Facebook and YouTube. Deepfakery is unambiguously a
| negative.
|
| The jury is still out on Alphafold 2. The default
| expectation would be that it's like Watson as used in
| medical diagnosis. There wasn't much 'there' there.
| varelse wrote:
| Are you kidding me about AlphaFold 2? That was the
| solution to a 50-year mystery in science and there's
| going to be a Nobel prize in it somewhere.
|
| That would be like finding a grand unified theory in
| physics. No big deal there amIRight?
|
| But your skepticism is great. More opportunities for
| those of us who actually get what it achieved and are
| looking to extend it to more practical domains beyond
| protein structure prediction (which is already huge). And
| kudos to Deepmind for open sourcing it even though they
| did their usual trick with the training data and recipe
| and left it to you to implement.
|
| Deepfakery is going to be great when I can do things like
| make a new season of classic Star Trek with a bunch of
| amateur voice talent and it looks like the original show.
| Maybe even use some of the season 4 pitches that were
| never made. I never got why none of the original silicon
| valley billionaires didn't pay whatever it took to make
| this happen while the original cast was still alive. But
| now you no longer need to be a billionaire...
|
| https://memory-
| alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Undeveloped_Star_Trek:_...
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _treating it like a real thing_
|
| Oracular devices are a real thing - you have dimes for a coin
| toss. Decision making algorithms of scarce transparency do
| exist. It (the contextual object) is a real thing: AI as an
| oracular device is a real thing.
|
| > _desire AI as an agent with independence_
|
| The point is that we do not desire that. It is an agent when
| entrusted, and it is independent when unchecked, which the
| black-box nature of some AI technologies can facilitate.
|
| The issue is not with a misunderstanding of the term AI - which
| we have used for 65 years effortlessly, exactly <<that every
| aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in
| principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made
| to simulate it. [...] how to make machines use language, form
| abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved
| for humans, and improve themselves>> (McCarthy 1955) -, but
| with its real instances and very real potential adopters.
| dougabug wrote:
| What you say seems undeniably true, however reifying
| fundamental concepts lies at or near the core of human natural
| intelligence. Perhaps more so than logic itself.
|
| Work on AI is basically as old as computing itself (i.e. the
| pioneers of computing explored from early on connectionist
| models of computing, neural networks, cellular automata,
| reinforcement learning, LISP, etc). AI has been evolving for
| eight decades, vast resources have been channeled into it; and
| frankly, the successes are striking.
|
| It would be almost impossible for us not to conceive of AI as a
| "thing."
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| It's not so hard. Just a few years ago, say 2012, it was
| _really unusual_ for academics in the field of AI to refer to
| any system as "AI" or "having AI" or "being an AI state."
| Why? Because it was disingenuous. But then when IBM Watson
| was released, the dump trucks of money started showing up,
| and the self-policing stopped.
|
| Look, I'm not critiquing the field of AI or funding it.
| Referring to AI research is no problem. My problem comes from
| naming the outputs of the field "AI." Because we all know it
| is a moving target, it doesn't really mean anything and it
| confuses non-experts to the point that they make poor
| decisions.
| dougabug wrote:
| Sure, but in 2012, AI wasn't a common subject for laypeople
| to discuss as non-fiction. Policy makers for decades mostly
| dismissed AI because of earlier failures to live up to the
| hype. In 2012, most people didn't have smartphones in their
| pocket with "AI processors" capable of 10-30 trillion
| operations per second. Face, voice, and object recognition,
| real-time language translation etc weren't ubiquitous and
| taken for granted.
|
| As AI becomes increasingly a realistic part of every day
| life, it necessarily invades language. Historically even
| words for colors took centuries to enter into common usage
| in most cultures.
|
| If AI researchers were to stop referring to AI as a whole,
| and individual AI technologies as "a thing," it wouldn't
| change how the rest of the population talks about AI.
|
| When I entered the field, my mentor said that the first
| thing to know was that, "Nothing works." For years,
| branding something as AI was an invitation to not get
| funded. I doubt the restraint around the use of the term
| was entirely altuistic. AI skeptics notwithstanding, the
| train has left the station and the changing public
| discourse reflects that reality.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| The term is 'decision support systems'.
|
| But modern decision support systems may make use of AI (of
| the results of research under he umbrella of AI - in short,
| "AI". It is not necessary to have the bunny quotes of
| figurative speech everywhere, they should be understood
| even when inexplicit but clear). And AI in DSS increases
| the underlying problems.
| bob331 wrote:
| Kissinger is a war criminal
| williamtrask wrote:
| > "Whether we consider it a tool, a partner, or a rival, [ai]
| will alter our experience as reasoning beings and permanently
| change our relationship with reality," the authors write. "The
| result will be a new epoch." If uttered by a Soylent-quaffing
| coder, that sentiment might be dismissed as hyperbole. Coming
| from authors of this pedigree, it ought to be taken seriously.
|
| Predicting how AI will affect society's sense of reality is best
| left to politicians and CEOs (or CS department heads)? They're
| making a psychological/sociological claim here, not a business,
| political, or technical one. Are they qualified to predict what
| society will use as a basis for reality? Also they have plenty to
| gain by this agenda being believed (maybe not Henry I dunno).
| cyberlurker wrote:
| I don't think they wrote this book to push an agenda for
| personal gain. It seems like a standard, reasonable caution of
| what could come to pass from irresponsible use of AI. And they
| are actually more qualified than the usual crowd warning of
| these risks.
| randcraw wrote:
| I would agree that these authors are speaking to a different
| audience and a different purpose than most authors of pop sci
| books. I think they want to reach political leaders,
| businessmen, and regulators to forewarn of the many impacts
| of adopting deep learning-based "AI" in mainstream
| commercial, government, and military services. And likely,
| disruptive impacts, due to the sudden and deep shifts in the
| status quo that will surely result.
|
| Unlike most books to date, this book about AI is not intended
| for technologists or tech fanboys. When the three authors are
| the CEO that oversaw the growth of a now-trillion dollar
| behemoth high tech corporation, and the singly most
| experienced political counselor of hundreds of world leaders
| and staffs for the past 50 years, and the Dean of MIT's
| school of computing -- they hope their collective gravitas
| will speak to a more sober and authoritative audience than
| prior books on AI.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _how AI will affect society's sense of reality_
|
| Following the article, the scope is probably specific: they
| raise the problem of "transparency" ("how and why does the
| black box indicate this solution") as primary, especially in
| the context of policies and reaction. Decisions (long and short
| term) have been up to now taken as the result of a discussion
| between human minds. What happens if black boxes are now
| entrusted?
|
| Results of the application of AI in the medical field suggest
| its increased adoption in other sectors, but the special
| quality of these outputs are in that they are surprising and
| obscure (as opposed to, notably, teaching new abilities). The
| possibility of application of these technologies - possibility
| called a certainty by the author, authoritative in his field -
| to matters of national security, defence, strategy and tactics,
| is surely a problem. What is proposed and encouraged is that
| countries with values consistent with those of the authors gain
| an advantage (to counter automated "psychopath" decisions).
|
| --
|
| From the interview documentary _The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons
| from the Life of Robert S. McNamara_ : McNamara met Fidel
| Castro years after the crisis, and Castro declared never having
| had issues with taking actions which could have caused the
| utter annihilation of Cuba. To the utter bewilderment of
| McNamara. This could represent an example of <<values
| consistent with those of the authors>>.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Black mark for the Economist for UI issues
|
| 1) Giant 'please subscribe' banner, similar button top right. But
| I am a subscriber already, and I have to search around to be able
| to log in
|
| 2) in 2021 what login box is still being undone by a space at the
| end of an email address? Really? Mobile devices often add spaces,
| can we not deal with that?
| jason-phillips wrote:
| Brave browser > block scripts toggle button
| rado wrote:
| 2) Bank sites refuse IBAN with spaces...
| peter303 wrote:
| The two younger authors had a webinar about this book at the
| Computer History Museum earlier this week. (I presume Henry at
| the ripe age of 98 cant easily participate in panels anymore.
| Though Henry showed up at Stanford Memorial Church in August to
| speak at successor George Schultz's memorial.) The CHM webinar
| might be archived online.
|
| I am still waiting for a copy of the book. But I am under the
| impression Henry is providing the long view of history: how
| industrialization and tech shaped modern nations, with A.I. in
| particular. This theme has appeared in earlier Kissinger books.
|
| P.S. Kissinger has yet another book coming out in 2022 on
| Leadership.
| twangist wrote:
| Can't wait to ignore his forthcoming 2022 volume too. This
| ethics-free "thinker" can't be taken seriously.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Based on this article I see nothing new idea wise, but the
| reputation of the authors hopefully encourages policy makers to
| take AI risks seriously.
|
| As the second to last paragraph points out, the book doesn't
| delve into some modern day controversies to make its points. The
| pros being the ideas might be spread further, maybe even to
| China. The cons being the book isn't as timely and impactful as
| it could be. It seems like a good trade off to me.
| johnohara wrote:
| FTA: _" Since the technology cannot be un-invented, the book
| calls on America to develop and shape the military applications
| of AI, rather than surrendering the field to countries that do
| not share its values."_
|
| The past 60 years have made me skeptical about what those values
| actually are.
| alpineidyll3 wrote:
| ...The recent history of the country bears witness to H
| Kissinger's values perhaps more than any other person.
| Unfortunately I don't think 'AGI shouldn't be used against
| humanity' is in there alongside Realpolitik. If we are safe
| from AGI it will be because the power majority believes anti-
| human AGI is ammoral, not because we get it first.
| tuatoru wrote:
| They're expressed in the S&P 500, DJIA, NASDAQ, etc.
|
| Edit: Going by the rule "your values are demonstrated by what
| you do, even when it costs you to do that", it's fairly easy to
| figure out what they are.
| Lamad123 wrote:
| I thought Henry Kssgr was dead 30 years ago or something!!
| bambax wrote:
| > _Henry Kissinger, America's pre-eminent living statesman_
|
| Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. That doesn't mean he can't
| write interesting books (and his intelligence & experience are
| obviously immense) but it does mean he doesn't deserve that kind
| of flattery and respect.
| sumedh wrote:
| > and his intelligence & experience are obviously immense
|
| He was also fooled by Elizabeth Holmes.
| refurb wrote:
| I mean, so is Nelson Mandela if you apply the same standard
| (terrorism targeting civilians by the ANC).
|
| How it seems to work is if said person aligns with your own
| political views (i.e. the ends justifies the mean) then war
| crime are conveniently overlooked.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> I mean, so is Nelson Mandela if you apply the same
| standard (terrorism targeting civilians by the ANC)._
|
| It also requires equating the ANC with the uMkhonto we Sizwe
| [0], making wrong claims about their targeting, and
| embezzling how the creation of the uMkhonto we Sizwe was a
| direct reaction to getting massacred when initially
| attempting peaceful, non-violent, protest [1].
|
| Not to mention how the US's role in Cambodia is in not at all
| analogous with the role of the AMC in Apartheid Africa. Even
| attempting this comparison, to argue for some kind or ethical
| nihilism, is something very weird to do.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMkhonto_we_Sizwe
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharpeville_massacre
| throwaway75311 wrote:
| And Schmidt is a sociopath entirely devoid of any moral
| compass.
|
| Some anecdotes: on privacy, Schmidt famously said "if you have
| something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you
| shouldn't be doing it in the first place". So CNET reporters
| published some of his personal information found through Google
| searches to demonstrate the need for privacy that he was
| denying to us peasants. Instead of reconsidering his position,
| he blacklisted CNET from speaking to Google.
|
| In 2017 a think tank working on tech praised the European
| Commission's legal decision to fine Google for abusing its
| market power. Schmidt used his personal influence to have the
| author of the report fired from the think tank.
|
| See also Assange's report: "Schmidt's world view equates
| progress with the geographic expansion of Google, supported by
| the US State Department - technocratic imperialism."
|
| On tax, Schmidt has claimed that Google's tax avoidance is
| "capitalism" and that he is "very proud of it".
|
| A personal anecdote: I remember Schmidt starting a conversation
| with a room of people barely making a living by discussing his
| latest vacation in the Caribbeans and how big his yacht was. He
| did not even consider that this could be perceived as rude or
| obscene. It was painfully obvious that to him these extreme
| levels of inequality are natural and perfectly justified, with
| himself on the right side of course.
|
| He considers himself very bright. There is some evidence that
| he his slightly above average. But if you look at some of his
| strategic decisions, politically before Trump he bet all in on
| Clinton, positioning Alphabet very close to the Democrats. To a
| technocrat like him Clinton's victory was obvious. Of course he
| got things entirely wrong and completely missed the Trump
| populist backlash, which put Alphabet in a very difficult
| position politically for several years.
|
| Schmidt is the embodiment of the modern technocratic elite,
| respects only power and money, complete spite and disregard for
| common people, entirely alien to the mere concept of common
| good or actual democracy, and absolute confidence that today's
| inequalities are perfectly natural, despite his own position
| being much more a consequence of his sociopathic tendencies
| than of his slightly above average skills, praising capitalism
| and liberalism while he got rich and powerful largely through
| monopolistic market dominance.
|
| Of all the dim technocratic billionaires that pass for our so-
| called elite today, he is the one I despise the most.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Wikipedia:
|
| " According to historian and Kissinger biographer Niall
| Ferguson, however, accusing Kissinger alone of war crimes
| "requires a double standard" because "nearly all the
| secretaries of state ... and nearly all the presidents" have
| taken similar actions. But Ferguson continues "this is not to
| say that it's all OK.""
| AegirLeet wrote:
| There's no double standard. All the other secretaries of
| state and presidents are, of course, also war criminals.
| AndyMcConachie wrote:
| Please realize that if you're famous like Henry Kissinger you
| pay people to scrub your wikipedia page. Don't learn about
| Kissinger from Wikipedia.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| > _Please realize that if you 're famous like Henry
| Kissinger you pay people to scrub your wikipedia page._
|
| [Citation needed]
|
| More specifically, if you make a claim like this, please
| link to an edit where it happened. The entire revision
| history is in the public record.
|
| I am not saying I disagree with you. I'm no Kissinger fan.
| But your argument will be much stronger if you provide hard
| facts, not just an unsubstantiated claim.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Lots of interesting perspectives in the talk page
| archives. Make of it what you will.
|
| Anyone with the time and stomach for it can look at
| TheTimesAreAChanging's edit history.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/TheTi
| mes...
|
| I'm not saying he's a paid apologist for horrible people,
| but... (And you did ask for citations!)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Trial_of_H
| enr...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Henry_Kissinge
| r&d...
|
| Henry Kissinger Talk Archive 5: Kissinger Encomium (a
| speech or piece of writing that praises someone or
| something highly)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archiv
| e_5...
|
| >Kissinger Encomium
|
| >The Kissinger page reads like a paid publicity brochure.
| Any attempt to correct the record with verifiable sources
| is swiftly deleted unilaterally by TheTimeAreChanging.
| Here is a paragraph that I inserted (with sources) at the
| beginning that TheTimesAreAChanging deleted. If this
| keeps occurring, I plan to escalate this to Wikipedia.
|
| >"Kissinger's legacy, including the Nobel Prize Award,
| remains controversial. [2] Critics point to Kissinger's
| role in overthrowing the democratically elected Allende
| government in Chile;[3]; his knowledge and possible
| abetment of Project Condor, a program of repression and
| political assassination carried out by Chile, Argentina
| and Uruguay;[4] and his support of the Pakistani army
| during its slaughter of Bengalis in 1971[5] . --
| Preceding unsigned comment added by Malpaso (talk *
| contribs) 11:31, 5 August 2014 (UTC) "
|
| >>You can't use other Wikipedia articles as a source, and
| your other sources are poor. This material is covered in
| depth in the article itself, so repeated attempts to
| insert POV language about the "slaughter of Bengalis" and
| some such to the lead can only be seen as POV-pushing on
| a BLP.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:33, 5 August 2014
| (UTC)
|
| >I don't use Wikipedia as a source. Since when is Time
| Magazine or the National Security Archives poor sources?
| I will continue make these edits and not be bullied. --
| Preceding unsigned comment added by Malpaso (talk *
| contribs) 17:59, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
|
| >"slaughter of Bengalis" is not POV language. Do you
| dispute it occurred? -- Preceding unsigned comment added
| by Malpaso (talk * contribs) 18:36, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
|
| >>"Slaughter of Bengalis" would undoubtably be a WP:NPOV
| violation, even if it the reliable sorces. Try again, if
| you wish to do so within Wikipedia policies. -- Arthur
| Rubin (talk) 19:17, 6 December 2014 (UTC)
|
| >>>I don't get it. In the article on Irving Berlin, it
| states Nicholas II, the new Tsar of Russia, notes
| Whitcomb, had revived with utmost brutality the anti-
| Jewish pogroms, which created the spontaneous mass exodus
| to America. Such words are very strong, but they are
| generally accepted by reasonable people as the only
| correct way to describe pogroms. Is there something
| different about Bengalis, or Kissinger, that makes it
| biased to call it "slaughter of Bengalis", even with
| reliable sources? 178.38.168.13 (talk) 02:14, 16 May 2015
| (UTC)
|
| >I can confirm Malpaso's claim that the editor known as
| TheTimesAreAChanging is making tendentious editorial
| decisions, deleting criticisms of Kissinger on the basis
| that they come from bad sources. Among the sources he has
| rubbished are CNN and Christopher Hitchens. I have tried
| to add to the article lead a statement that several
| groups and individuals, from Hitchens to Code Pink, have
| tried to indict Kissinger for war crimes.
| TheTimesAreAChanging has deleted these on the basis that
| they are "just opinion", while having no problem with
| those opinions that praise Kissinger. I have tried to
| initiate a discussion with TheTimesAreChanging on his
| talk page, but he seems uninterested in justifying his
| actions. G.S.Bhogal (talk) 16:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
|
| >>Code Pink? Are you serious? I am no great fan of
| Kissinger, but you seem to lack an elementary
| understanding of the relevant Wikipedia policies, e.g.
| WP:BLP.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 17:20, 14 December
| 2015 (UTC)
|
| >Third Opinion
|
| >A third opinion has been requested, but it isn't clear
| what the question is, because the above discussion has
| not been civil. It also isn't clear whether a third
| opinion is applicable, because more than two editors are
| edit-warring the page. Please state a concise and civil
| question and I will try to answer. Robert McClenon (talk)
| 20:19, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
|
| >The article as written is propaganda, not necessarily by
| the editor's design, but by the favoritism applied to
| official reports of Kissinger's career and the failure to
| credit any of the subsequent investigative journalism
| that has proven persistently over the decades how a
| legend of diplomatic genius conceals intrigue,
| bloodletting, and a willingness to dispense with
| democracy. Macdust (talk) 18:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
|
| >From the beginning there are two Henry Kissingers being
| presented in alternation: the effective Kissinger
| presented over the years in official reports, his own
| writings, and derivative news stories, and the Kissinger
| held to account for political injustices, covert military
| and intelligence actions, and the suffering and
| casualties occurring as a consequence.
|
| >So we have Kissinger the icon, then a passage of what
| appears to be mud thrown at him, then Kissinger the
| schoolboy, then the icon suffering more mudslinging,
| until by the end of the story all the international
| catastrophes sound like sour grapes.
|
| >Unless the article starts straightaway with a crisp
| discussion of Realpolitik, there is no context for
| understanding and evaluating what Kissinger thought he
| was doing or at least wanted others to think he was doing
| while acquiring and exercising immense power. Realpolitik
| holds the context where great international achievements
| and calamitous results make sense side by side. It is a
| much clearer lead-in for researchers making a first
| serious inquiry.
|
| >(The non-career biography should in this instance be
| pushed toward the end of the article. Placed at the end,
| it is illuminating and humanizing. Placed where it is, it
| magnifies the incoherence.)Macdust (talk) 01:14, 15
| February 2016 (UTC)
|
| >>Kissinger is not a philosopher, nor does the concept of
| "Realpolitik" set Kissinger apart from other men in
| positions of power. Kissinger did what he felt he had to
| do to maintain the US as the dominant player in the world
| and to increase his own influence in the country. I guess
| you can call it Realpolitk - or you know just politics,
| Cold War politics if you want to be more
| specific.Guccisamsclub (talk) 19:44, 15 February 2016
| (UTC)
| cyberlurker wrote:
| I'm just citing a nuanced view of him. But speaking of
| Wikipedia, check this out:
|
| "Kissinger served on the board of Theranos, a health
| technology company, from 2014 to 2017."
|
| I would probably scrub this if I were on his team.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Is saying he's not the only war criminal Secretary of
| State really a nuanced view?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| All the juicy stuff ends up in the talk archives:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 1
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 2
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 3
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 4
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 5
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 6
|
| Like this that didn't make it to the front page:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 4...
|
| >"Dumb, stupid animals..."
|
| >Indeed, Kissinger's quote is found on pg. 194 of
| Woodward/Bernstein book The Final Days, which is considered
| a notable secondary source. However, the quote in the book
| is in a section highlighting Kissinger's difficult, and
| often abusive, relationship with White House staff. The
| specific context is the contentious relationship with
| Alexander Haig, Kissinger's military aide - the quote is
| given as a demonstration of how Kissinger allegedly taunted
| and belittled Haig. Woodward/Bernstein do NOT use the quote
| as any kind of authentic evidence that Kissinger hated the
| military, or that this was an opinion that formed any of
| Kissinger's foreign policy decisions. By placing the quote
| in that section, WE'RE (Wikipedia and NOT
| Woodward/Bernstein) attempting to make the connection and
| asserting this was Kissinger's attitude in approaching
| foreign policy. That connection is NOT supported by the
| source so it's not acceptable in a biography of a living
| person.EBY (talk) 09:13, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
|
| >I accept your rationale. There is nowhere else to put it
| unless I start a new section but I won't because it would
| be vexatious to do so simply to accommodate the quote. Sqgl
| (talk) 16:06, 25 May 2013 (UTC)sqgl
|
| >>It's tough because this kind of inflammatory quote IS
| indicative of one of the prominent aspects of Kissinger's
| personality, which is why Woodward/Bernstein included it in
| their book. But as you say, I don't see a place to
| integrate it that wouldn't blow the B:LP hatch. EBY (talk)
| 16:25, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
|
| >He might shoot his mouth off more than others, and he may
| even be more guilty than others (Hitchens certainly thinks
| so, as noted), but realpolitik is ugly and examples of it
| as revealed in CableGate are educational. The reason the
| leaks were sensational is because so many are in denial of
| realpolitik and those in power want to keep it that way.
| Personally Obama reminds me of Gus from Breaking Bad so
| don't think I am being partisan here.Sqgl (talk) 18:17, 25
| May 2013 (UTC)sqgl
|
| >>I agree that examples are educational. Which makes me
| wonder about articles and even venues outside the WikiWorld
| that could advance that knowledge. EBY (talk) 18:22, 25 May
| 2013 (UTC)
|
| >I here what you are saying and defer to your experience on
| this site.Sqgl (talk) 18:28, 25 May 2013 (UTC)sqgl
|
| Or this:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Henry_Kissinger/Archive_
| 2...
|
| >Slobodan Milosevic and Kissinger compared
|
| >[From a public interview on June 11, 2004.] On May 27, the
| New York Times published one of the most incredible
| sentences I've ever seen. They ran an article about the
| Nixon-Kissinger interchanges. Kissinger fought very hard
| through the courts to try to prevent it, but the courts
| permitted it. You read through it, and you see the
| following statement embedded in it. Nixon at one point
| informs Kissinger, his right-hand Eichmann, that he wanted
| bombing of Cambodia.
|
| >And Kissinger loyally transmits the order to the Pentagon
| to carry out "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia.
| Anything that flies on anything that moves."
|
| >That is the most explicit call for what we call genocide
| when other people do it that I've ever seen in the
| historical record. Right at this moment there is a
| prosecution of Milosevic going on in the international
| tribunal, and the prosecutors are kind of hampered because
| they can't find direct orders, or a direct connection even,
| linking Milosevic to any atrocities on the ground. Suppose
| they found a statement like this. Suppose a document came
| out from Milosevic saying, "Reduce Kosovo to rubble.
| Anything that flies on anything that moves." They would be
| overjoyed. The trial would be over. He would be sent away
| for multiple life sentences--if it was a U.S. trial,
| immediately the electric chair. ~ Noam Chomsky --Preceding
| unsigned comment added by Dsnow75 (talk * contribs) 09:45,
| 24 December 2008 (UTC)
| Capira wrote:
| you mean "nearly all the secretaries of state ... and nearly
| all the presidents" are war criminals?
| jandrese wrote:
| This view oversimplifies the situation. You have to consider
| the magnitude of the crimes, not simply a binary did
| they/didn't they situation. By this measure Secretary
| Kissinger deserves all of the scorn he receives.
| throwawaylinux wrote:
| It's sort of astounding that people can be hounded out of their
| jobs for dumb tweets or playing dress-up the wrong way years
| ago (unless you are the PM of Canada I guess), but if you're
| responsible for the deaths of thousands of people and billions
| of dollars stolen and funneled into war and energy industries,
| that's cool you might be a little on the nose for a few years
| then you'll be welcomed back into the fold. Not that I'm saying
| bigoted tweets or blackface okay, let me stress.
|
| I noticed George W Bush started being celebrated again in the
| past few years. And Obama has never stopped being a darling!
| Just astounding. Guess the whole Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc stuff
| were just little whoopsies. We really dance to their tune,
| don't we?
| finiteseries wrote:
| Bigoted tweets or blackface matter more to US society than
| Libya, Syria, and Yemen combined.
|
| Foreign policy/tragedy simply just does not matter to US
| citizens, US culture, or US media for various reasons
| independent of any moral failings, or gullibility (though
| that certainly does help things along).
| DoItToMe81 wrote:
| The media has, for almost a decade, tried to play George Bush
| and his cabinet out to be "principled, simple conservatives",
| and it seems to be working. I can't believe that some of the
| people most critical of Bush, Cheney and the wars they
| profited from, were swayed by him painting dogs of all
| things.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Meanwhile in Georgia, Jimmy Carter's still too busy
| building homes and eradicating guinea worms to paint dogs.
|
| https://www.cartercenter.org/health/guinea_worm/case-
| totals....
|
| Ask President Carter:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-68iTvhWNB0
| fortran77 wrote:
| And here, I think (seriously) that Jimmy Carter is pure
| evil! You really can't have "absolute judgements" on any
| person that are universally recognized.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| But he's got nicer legs than Hitler, and bigger tits than Cher!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5vo7jLGOb8
|
| Although this is a more balanced, less melodic litigation of
| his charismatic virtues and war crimes:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNi-rhLGNj8
| bambax wrote:
| Best song ever.
| refurb wrote:
| I mean, so is Nelson Mandela if you apply the same standard
| (terrorism targeting civilians by the ANC).
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Really hard to believe that a CEO of a company with the motto
| "don't be evil" could write a book with Kissinger. It's
| unsurprising that the book's main push seems to be for more AI
| war research as a method of saving lives.
| dougabug wrote:
| Weaponizing AI on the face of it seems completely insane. The
| problem is that if we don't, then we would presumably be at a
| tremendous strategic disadvantage to an adversary which did
| (more or less the logic that led to the development and
| proliferation of nuclear weapons).
|
| I can't see how militarized forms of AI don't emerge as a
| consequence of significant progress in non-military AI, so
| perhaps all roads do eventually lead to SkyNet.
| randcraw wrote:
| Great. Another reference to Skynet as the inevitable outcome
| of advancing automation. Despite all the facts to the
| contrary.
|
| Will technology, including AI, inevitability be used to
| improve weaponry? Yes. Will AI inevitably lead to Skynet and
| Terminator robots? Hardly.
|
| Today we can't build a self-driving car with more than level
| 2 autonomy, nor do honest experts believe one will happen
| soon. Today's autonomous mobile robots are incapable of even
| the most rudimentary human motions, and likewise, human-level
| robots are invisible on any 50 year time horizon,
| commercially or militarily. No AI-based tech has shown even
| the faintest sign of the level of AGI capabilities needed to
| control a robot army. Nor has any AI shown the potential for
| an emergent executive function or a desire to KILL ALL
| HUMANS.
|
| To assume that present-day AI will likely self-assemble into
| a rebel robot army intent on destroying humanity... Why does
| anybody take this crap seriously? Or soberly reference it
| while hoping to be taken seriously?
|
| It's time for all adults everywhere to stop imagining that
| pop scifi movies are a sensible foundation toward discussing
| how new tech can best serve its intended purpose. Scifi is
| meant to entertain, not inform. Given what we know today
| about AI, Skynet doesn't have a hope in hell in happening --
| not in terms of platform mobility nor in terms of cognition
| nor in terms of self-assembly. So PLEASE give all references
| to Skynet a rest.
| dougabug wrote:
| Er, I was being glib.
|
| Terminator style robots would be a pretty inefficient way
| to wipe out humanity.
|
| Wrt motive, I would assume that if we are someday killed
| off by our own machines, it will most likely be something
| akin to an accidental nuclear holocaust.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >more or less the logic that led to the development and
| proliferation of nuclear weapons
|
| Sure. One country threw a ton of resources into a program,
| and as a result the technology spread to numerous other
| countries leading to something like seven countries capable
| of destroying the world.
|
| Maybe the end result is inevitable. Racing towards it so we
| can kill others before they can kill us isn't smart.
| dougabug wrote:
| Obviously, it's a terrible idea! Unfortunately, every
| nation or deeply resourced actor exercising complete
| restraint forever is probably not a Nash Equillibrium.
| freeflight wrote:
| Not really that hard to believe, considering where the "don't
| be evil" company got part of its initial funding from [0] and
| what these funding outfits have been up to themselves since
| then [1].
|
| [0] https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-
| ci...
|
| [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-
| technology/2016/02/the-n...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Erik Schmidt and Sergey Brin are all part of the surveillance
| state and war machine. They will soon be awarded Nobel Prizes
| like the war criminal Henry Kissinger.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trial_of_Henry_Kissinger
|
| https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/emails-give-...
|
| http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/5/6/nsa-chief-goo...
| darksaints wrote:
| The book was pretty thorough, but not thorough enough. It
| failed to cover how much he intervened in US politics to
| cover for, enable, and protect a military dictatorship that
| was carrying out a massive political cleansing in Argentina,
| in which over 30,000 people were "disappeared". He's about as
| evil as they come.
| bob331 wrote:
| Kissinger is evil and schmidt has committed much evil. They are
| well suited
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| What evil did I commit?
| almeria wrote:
| Did we ever have any reason to believe that slogan?
| pbaka wrote:
| The past :
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Ullman
|
| https://personal.utdallas.edu/~bxt043000/Motivational-Articl...
|
| https://qz.com/1145669/googles-true-origin-partly-lies-in-ci...
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20030801175255/http://www.keyhol...
|
| A summary of the above :
|
| http://themillenniumreport.com/2017/09/google-a-darpa-enterp...
|
| Today :
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-military-innovation-i...
|
| "Don't be evil" was just a reminder placed above the revolving
| door located between the military-industrial complex and
| Google, not a public-facing branding exercise.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| I heard Schmidt talking about the book in podcasts, and from what
| i understand he bases his view of the success of NLP models like
| GPT*. I think this is sorely misguided, as nothing suggests that
| these models, which can generate readable text, are any form of
| intelligent or have any kind of agency. Nothing in the structure
| of a transformer indicates an ability for such things. GTPs seem
| to be more like a "central pattern generator" for language, like
| the neural circuits that make patterns like walking possible. The
| arguments weren't convincing and imho lacked insight beyond cheap
| fearmongering.
| voz_ wrote:
| Awful tone, low quality writing. What's going on over at the
| Economist?
| [deleted]
| visarga wrote:
| I was expecting some direct quotes as promised in the title.
| Disappointed.
| bratwurst3000 wrote:
| I just wanted to state how annoying it is that Kissinger is still
| alive... it's like some of the worst parts of the 20th Century
| still laughing in the face of humanism.
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| Laughing in the face of humanity and humankind.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| Alive and respected.
|
| It's disgusting.
| zackham wrote:
| I heard Schmidt on a couple podcasts[1][2] recently promoting
| this book, and I found them to be useful for understanding how AI
| is being discussed among the political and leadership class. I
| was surprised to see all the negativity here - I thought he made
| some interesting points, and I appreciated getting some insight
| into how decision-makers are thinking about this in terms of
| regulation and geopolitical risks.
|
| [1] https://tim.blog/2021/10/25/eric-schmidt-ai/
|
| [2] https://hiddenforces.io/podcasts/eric-schmidt-ai-human-
| futur...
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Maybe the negativity is due to the fact that Eric chose an
| unindicted war criminal as his co-author?
| zackham wrote:
| I understand the points being made, it's just not what I
| choose to focus on in the very limited time I'm going to
| spend engaging with this material. The purpose of my comment
| was to let any other tech-focused visitors to this site know
| that I did find some value on the periphery of this book, in
| case they are equally uninterested in hearing everyone's hot
| takes on a 98 year old who's already had books written about
| his life's negative impacts.
| seoaeu wrote:
| Forgive me for not thinking that some unflattering books
| are a suitable consequence for the "negative impacts" that
| Kissinger has had on millions of people across the globe
| edanm wrote:
| Nobody said it was, definitely not the parent poster.
| [deleted]
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Huttenlocher is guilty of waging many faculty battles but I
| didn't realize they were indictable. Well, I guess that makes
| him unindicted.
| tata71 wrote:
| Schmidt is painted as the same by Assange in "Google is Not
| What It Seems", no?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| This seems like an opinion.
| nefitty wrote:
| I refuse to read any books written by people that eat meat.
| Killing living things is a crime, and supporting the
| industries involved in that is immoral.
| JonathanMerklin wrote:
| Because this is the HN crowd, I cannot tell if you're
| serious ("not only do I not support war criminals, I don't
| support animal murderers") or being snarky. If you're
| serious, you should also stop using software written by
| meat eaters, that way none of us sane folks have to read
| your comments.
| nefitty wrote:
| I really do believe eating meat is wrong. I don't decide
| what books to read based on my personal ethical beliefs,
| especially when it has nothing to do with the subject at
| hand.
|
| Sorry for the subtlety, I'll remind myself of readers
| like you in the future.
| kranke155 wrote:
| You could say that about a lot of US officials. This
| obsession with Kissinger is amazing. Do we plan to indict
| Gorbachev for the Afghanistan invasion ?
| cpu_architect wrote:
| Afghanistan was invaded under Brezhnev. If anything,
| Gorbachev should get credit for ending the war.
| mynegation wrote:
| No, because it was started by Brezhnev. Gorbachev ended
| this war.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Agree that the obsession with Kissinger is quite funny.
| He's not even in the top 10 of my personal villains for US
| foreign policy, but he never led (or commanded someone else
| who led) an army and can't be guilty of any warcrimes.
|
| He is a state department hack who has a talent for self-
| promotion as a "grand strategist" even though there is very
| little that he was responsible for setting in motion, and
| much of what he worked on was either irrelevant or ended up
| getting botched. He did, however, claim many foreign policy
| victories during a time period when U.S. foreign policy was
| particularly incoherent and schizophrenic, with America
| often being on _both sides_ of a given conflict as the
| various organs of US foreign policy fought with each other
| and coordinated badly.
|
| One can argue that the visit to China was legit his. Pretty
| much everything else is clearly P.R. and taking credit for
| the work of others in order to make a name for himself and
| pad his enormous consulting fees. IIRC, Kissinger and
| Associates - his private gig to cash in on his grand
| expertise - now focuses on doing lobbying for China.
| [deleted]
| kranke155 wrote:
| He's not great and I don't defend the man, but Rumsfeld-
| Cheney are guilty of equal crimes yet they don't
| prosecuted in the press forever so.
|
| I mean they get called shit birds, but "Kissinger is a
| war criminal" is a meme and should be recognised as such.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Yes at best he's an irrelevant crackpot fossil at worst
| he's a proto-cheney, not a good look either way
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| does that all mean that Eric Schmidt is running for office, or
| is he trying to get into a position of political influence with
| the Biden administration? (i mean, is it possible that he is
| using his book as a platform in this effort?)
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| If he's co-writing with Kissinger, I doubt he's doing it as
| an effort to suck up to the Biden administration.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Any written summaries/reviews? Ain't nobody got time to listen
| to podcasts.
|
| Edit: Transcript link in the first reference you gave.
|
| >Eric Schmidt: About 12 years ago, I met him [Kissinger] at a
| conference called Bilderberg.
|
| The Bilderberg Group[1] is the closest thing to a "secret cabal
| running the world" that we actually have. Not very secret,
| though.
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_meeting
| fortran77 wrote:
| I hope Henry Kissinger is better informed on AI tech than he was
| on Theranos blood-testing tech.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| https://archive.md/AjadO
| dilawar wrote:
| To me, the real proof that AI cab be an existential threat would
| be that it can predict the weather to a very good degree. If an
| AI can handle the complexity at that level, it is definately a
| force to reckon with. So far the progress has been impressive?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Following the article, AI can become an existential threat if
| _empowered humans_ which cannot "<<predict the weather to a
| very good degree>>" in turn empower AI, which may decide
| unchecked something along the lines of "to be accurate about
| predicting the weather a nuclear holocaust could be a good
| move" (very stretched image for rhetoric purpose).
|
| More literally: what happens if, for example, weapons systems
| are automated by black boxes? So-called "expert systems", for
| example, remaining within automation, can be instructed more
| clearly, explicitly, deterministically, about values and
| boundaries. That the results of "black box decision systems"
| can be surprising is also a risk.
| kkjjkgjjgg wrote:
| Not a "paperclip optimizer", but a "weather prediction
| optimizer" - nice!
| mdp2021 wrote:
| My expression fell under the vibes of the more generic
| "paperclip maximizer argument" because I wanted to remain
| faithful to the "weather" idea, but could not get a better
| image.
|
| Nonetheless, the details of the "paperclip maximizer
| argument" are valid, though not primary, for the real
| point: AI applied to strategy, tactics, defence and weapon
| management can suffer from the "Orthogonality thesis" (the
| decision may be out of a process unaware of human values)
| and "Instrumental convergence" (the decision may be out of
| a process unaware of its legitimate boundaries).
|
| The primary point remains "You do not put an "enfant
| prodige" in charge of systems with overextensive
| consequences".
| HenryKissinger wrote:
| This looks great. I can't wait to read it.
| knorker wrote:
| What is about? How to overthrow democracies, and prolong the
| Vietnam by years in order to undermine your opponent's POTUS
| bid... But this time using AI?
|
| Maybe how to select which terrorist group to give weapons to?
|
| Kissinger can supply the training data.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Exactly that - also considering implicitly that humans can make
| literally questionable decisions - to automate them decisions
| outside human consideration is probably not a good idea.
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