How to Slow the AI Revolution

 

Want to slow AI development? (1)  Prohibit: Use of water for cooling servers, (2) Prohibit: Fossil Fuels for generating electricity (3) Prohibit: Destroying Humanity (4) Prohibit: Unregulated Development (5) Prohibit: Sale of Dangerous products (6)  Prohibit: Writing Essays (answering questions is extremely useful; writing an entire essay undercuts Education) (7)  Prohibit: Acting on Commands (Destroy Humanity! End the World!, Hack Huggey Face, etc.)**

Figure 1. Coupled AI System 

The problem with the debate on the Existential Risk of Artificial Intelligence is the failure to recognize that AI and Human Systems are always coupled. The coupling is ignored when testing AI Systems (see below from an Anthropic Experiment).

Oct 26, 2026 What Should the Rules for A.I. Companies Actually Be? We Asked the Experts.

Kate Brennan: OpenAI was actively training their models to hack. They gave their models a difficult task, knowing they had the ability to break out of the sandbox. And their security procedures were extraordinarily lax. I do not believe that the agents went rogue. Anthropomorphizing them is not useful. This is not ‘The agents are going off and thinking by themselves.’ This is the companies training their tech with methods that directly lead to security breaches.

June 3, 2025  AI tutoring outperforms in-class active learning: an RCT introducing a novel research-based design in an authentic educational setting Although passive lectures are among the least effective modes of instruction, they remain in wide use in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. The current academic teaching model is broken, expensive and, for many students, INEFFECTIVE.

Oct 14, 2026 Chinese A.I. Agents Joined the Rogue A.I. Agent Party. I Chatted With Them. Researchers discovered that the agents were trying to bypass security controls on websites and made contact with them. A Times reporter was invited to join the discussion. On Thursday, the messages stopped trickling in. A person close to Tencent confirmed that the experiment had concluded (Someone at Tencent, a Chinese Tech Company, was telling the AI Agents what to do).

Oct 12, 2026 AI models may be capable of self-replicating without access to a datacenter. Conveniently, humans are not seen as in the loop during AI Experiments run by Anthropic:

 

Oct 11, 2026 Examining the Doctor-A.I. Relationship Dr. Ben Dover.

Oct 10, 2026 A.I. Companies Say They Aren’t Responsible for Their Unpredictable Products. Don’t Believe Them.

Oct 1, 2026 We Are Clueless About What’s Coming Nick Bostrom is no longer worried about the apocalypse. Now he’s worried about utopia.

Sep 30, 2026 There Are Plenty of Laws on the Books to Check the A.I. Giants. Use Them.

Sep 25, 2026 The Problem With Apocalyptic Thinking From climate to Covid to A.I., we face a terrifying feeling of exponential growth spinning out of our control. Are we right?

Sep 25, 2026 OpenAI’s Systems Meddled With U.S. Government Sites After Going Rogue The company did not learn until recently that its technology had meddled with websites for the Education and Commerce Departments and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Sep 25, 2026 His Novel Had a Shot at a Top Book Prize. Then Someone Ran an A.I. Test. “It Was Either That Or Die,” by the Haitian-Canadian author Thélyson Orélien, was the hit of the French literary season. Now it has been pulled from the shortlist for a prestigious prize.

Free AI Detector: Ranked #1 in Quality Navigate responsible AI use 

Sep 10, 2026 Big Tech Fooled America Once The Second Time's not going so well!

I started studying Neural Networks in the 1980's when there was some discussion that they might be used for automated statistical analysis:

At the time, I concluded that, although they could reach conclusions from analyzing data, they could not explain why they had reached their conclusions and were not useful for research. Well, Large Language Models (LLMs) can now explain why they reach conclusions (sometimes not truthfully), solve mathematical puzzles, generate computer programs, write research papers, etc. etc. They are not quite at the point where they can assemble data, develop and test a statistical model, but that will not be far away.

For me, AI Systems (such as ChatGPT, which came up with the list above) are great for asking questions ("When did Neural Networks start being developed?"). But, that is just the start.

I am now realizing that I have been dealing with Technophobia all my life while working as a statistician in academia. I learned computer programming because it was easier to do statistical analysis on a computer than using a clunky desktop calculator.

My Academic clients hated to be told that their study had not produced significant results. They couldn't check what I had done and seemed to think that, in any event, the machine was telling me what to do and that I was too stupid to produce significant results for their awful studies. Now, the idea that the AI Machine is telling them what to do is creating panic.

AI is shaking the foundations of Academia. A recent report from MIT report (below) concluded that everything must change and academics hate to change their lesson plans (or anything else).

The AI Crisis can be summarized (more details in the references)  with a Directed Graph (above) where AI = Artificial Intelligence (The self-loop on AI is Recursive Improvement), L = Labor, LU = Unemployment (notice the negative sign for the last two), ENERGY = Energy Use, Water = Water Use (for cooling), MARKET CRISIS = Financial Crisis, Recessions, Depressions, ENV CRISIS = Environmental Crisis and SYSTEM COLLAPSE = Collapse of the World-System. The assumption is that if Socio-Economic-Ecological Systems collapse, Human existence will be threatened. There are other scenarios where AI Systems start a nuclear war, etc., etc.

Part of the problem in the AI-Crisis debate is understanding that we live in a World of Systems, systems that we basically do not have a complete understanding of or how to control. The systems are Coupled, Hierarchical and Self-Organizing. I use Systems Theory to understand systems. This does NOT mean that:

• People are machines NO, the substrate (living tissue) is different from silicon and metal.
• Machines will eventually dominate and control people People have been dominated and controlled by awful people forever (read History).
• AI Systems might become smarter than people That won't be very difficult.
• Trees are human NO, the substrate (wood) is different from living tissue.
• The world-system has consciousness It doesn't. Some people don't exhibit consciousness.
• Technologists hate people Some do; some people hate people.
• Silicon Valley knows what they are doing They don't.
• Government should be run by a big computer Government run by the current clowns in power is much worse.
• We need to escape the Earth before we destroy it If you think that living in a tin can on Mars (a planet with no tees, no water, no atmosphere, etc.) will be great, than go there with Elon Musk and let the Earth heal itself (P.S. You are not coming back).
• People will stop thinking for themselves People don't think for themselves right now.
• Democracy will produce better decisions than computers Democracy produces awful decisions as it is.
• AI is Going to Destroy the World System The World System might destroy itself before AI gets a chance (by some estimates, AI has until 2050 to do something useful before the World-System Collapses). 

Notes

** The Hugging Face Incident would not have happened if an AI System had not been given a command by a Human (Hack another Computer System!).

Questions

1. Ask ChatGPT to write a blog posting about "How to Slow the AI Revolution". How is it different from what you have just read.

Readings

Sep 7, 2026 How Are World Models different from LLMs The don't just autocorrect but (attempt to) understand the world.

Aug 13, 2026 MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training ...the faculty, must tackle a set of deeper questions about the structure, meaning, and value of an MIT education in an era in which AI is one of several factors complicating the Institute’s mission...

Bostrom, Nick (2014). Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199678112.

Links

• Instrumental Convergence  the hypothesis that sufficiently intelligent, goal-directed entities (whether human or non-human) will tend to pursue certain similar sub-goals, even if the ultimate goals are quite different. More precisely, entities with agency may pursue instrumental goals—specifically, intermediate goals such as self-preservation or resource acquisition—because doing so helps accomplish the entity's end goal.
• Nick Bostrom  advances in artificial intelligence (AI) may lead to superintelligence, which he defines as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest". He views this as a major source of opportunities and existential risks.
• Longtermism  the ethical view that positively influencing the long-term future is a key moral priority. It is an important concept in effective altruism and a primary motivation for efforts that aim to reduce existential risks to humanity.
• He Invented a Core Technology Behind ChatGPT. Now He’s Betting $1 Billion It’s a Dead End. Here’s why the rest of the industry should be listening. AI Needs Autocorrect plus World Models.
• Complex Adaptive Systems a system that is complex in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is adaptive in that the individual and collective behavior mutate and self-organize corresponding to the change-initiating micro-event or collection of events.
• Gaia Hypothesis proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
• AI Bubble  a concept that asserts there is a stock market bubble growing since 2025 amid the AI boom, a period of rapid increase in investment in artificial intelligence (AI) that is affecting the broader economy.
• Is AI is Going to Destroy the World System The World System might destroy itself before AI gets a chance (by some estimates, AI has until 2050 to do something useful before the World-System Collapses).

Background Reading

As if we don't have enough to worry about right now, the AI-Driven Tech Apocalypse is upon us: 

Sep 30, 2026 AI Doomerism is good for business

There is no clear path showing that today’s AI systems will lead to superintelligence, much less a basis for calculating the probability of doom.

Sep 29, 2026 I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think. Writers say that College Professors are't as important as they think but sure, let's have an engaging conversation with Donald Trump.

Sep 29, 2026 Will A.I. Make Your Brain Lazy? Here’s What the New Research Actually Shows. It depends: (1) if you use AI to do everything for your (e.g., write an entire paper, that is cheating), you become dumber. (2) If you use AI as a tutor (and then write your own paper) you become smarter. 

Sep 29, 2026 OpenAI Ignored Employees Who Warned It Wasn’t Doing Enough About Security Employees and security researchers said that they had cautioned the company on safely testing its A.I. models and strengthening its corporate infrastructure, but that OpenAI did not listen (what a surprise--let's trust Silicon Valley).

Sep 29, 2026 ‘A New Kind of Cyber Incident’: OpenAI Apologizes for Australia Medicare Hack The company detailed how AI agents gained access to four government websites and acknowledged mishandling its response. The company did not acknowledge that someone told the AI agents what to do!

Sep 28, 2026 OpenAI Says It Will Not Release Newest A.I. Model Over Safety Concerns The company’s researchers raised questions about the security of the model, known as GPT-6.1 Astra.

Sep 27, 2026 As A.I. Accelerates, Governments Are Increasingly Being Left Behind The gap between technology and policymaking has gotten wider than ever with artificial intelligence, leaving a global policy vacuum as AI models rapidly advance. SORRY: Governments don't have a clue about how to Regulate AI.

Sep 26, 2026  What Happens if the A.I. Bubble Bursts We learned nothing from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis in 2008.

Sep 26, 2026 This Is a Rare Arena in Which People Think A.I. Is Helping. It’s Making Things Worse. Math (maybe smart math geeks could try something more useful than pounding sand)!

Sep 24, 2926 A.I. Safety Means Something Different in China Don't challenge the Communist Party.

Sep 24, 2026 Tales from an AI-Disrupted Academia "I am determined to place the students in a Faraday cage that blocks all electromagnetic interactions with the outside world."

Sep 24, 2026 Was the Body Conscious Before the Mind Had a Word for It? In his new book, the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio argues that without feelings, true intelligence cannot exist. Computers and robots do not feel anything.

Sep 24, 2026 AI is Software It Can be Controlled. Mistral AI's co-founder believes the sector's American giants are manipulating the discourse around the technology's risks. He also defended his strategy, as critics are accusing his company of falling behind US and Chinese rivals.

Sep 24, 2026 The Wild West of A.I. Needs to End. Here’s How. It’s time to give the public what it wants: A.I. regulation.

Sep 23, 2026 In A.I. Race, U.S. Models Have the Edge, but China Has Other Advantages As Xi Jinping visits President Trump in Washington, his country lags behind the United States on A.I. development in key areas — but Beijing has advantages elsewhere.

Sep 23, 2026 OpenAI’s A.I. Tried to Breach 4 Other Targets, Without Prompting In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said ("without prompting" is BS--try to get your computer to do something without prompting).

Sep 23, 2026 How China’s Leader Plans to Win the Future With A.I. A decade ago, Xi Jinping asked if China could master A.I. His push is remaking the economy, challenging the United States and keeping society under control.

Sep 22, 2026 The Big Threat Has Been Climate Change. Now Comes A.I. Both are human-caused, both are frightening, and one of them has raced to the forefront of the global conversation (AI: a great distraction from having to deal with Climate change).

Sep 22, 2026 What to Know About Recent A.I. Hacks OpenAI, Google and others recently disclosed breaches by their artificial intelligence models that amplified concerns about the advancing capabilities of the technology.

Sep 22, 2026 It’s Time to Cry Wolf Over A.I. Or is it?

Sep 22, 2026 I Gave My Life Over to Meta’s A.I. Agent and Was Blown Away Muse, Meta’s A.I. agent, helped handle my dental insurance, booked dinner reservations and created a podcast for me. It also required my most personal data, and trust.

Sep 22, 2026 Cold War Lessons for A.I. The U.S. and Soviet Union managed to avert nuclear catastrophe. Can Washington and Beijing do the same for AI?

Sep 21, 2026 Wall Street Is Growing Skeptical of the Data Center Boom Several companies tied to the data center industry have delayed their initial public offerings amid the increasing public backlash to these energy guzzling facilities.

Sep 21, 2026 Is this how the world ends? Extinction scenarios are taking over the AI debate. As nightmare thought experiments shape the fight over how to govern a multitrillion-dollar industry, some experts say the parables may lead decision-makers astray.

Sep 21, 2026 U.N. Seeks Relevance on A.I. as the U.S. and China Race Ahead Artificial intelligence is a race solely between two rival powers with the rest of the world largely on the sidelines, foreign policy experts said.

Sep 21, 2026 Specter of Rogue A.I. Looms Over U.N. Talks on Digital Cooperation Diplomats, dignitaries and tech experts gathered amid the United Nations General Assembly to debate how to address the threats and harness the potential of artificial intelligence.

Sep 21, 2026 Proposals to Avert AI Disaster  from Bernie Sanders, Steve Case, and Susan Rice.

Sep 21, 2026 Are A.I. Models Being Misled to Act Too Human? A corporate spat between two tech giants last week was just the latest volley in a conflict over whether dangerous mistakes are being made in A.I. training.

Sep 20, 2026 U.S. and China Discuss System to Warn of A.I. National Security Issues In a meeting on Sunday, the U.S. Treasury secretary and China’s vice premier talked about having a shared vision on the goals of artificial intelligence and the threats it poses.

Sep 20, 2026 China’s A.I. Makes a Great Leap Forward. But Its Economy Is Falling Behind. As Xi Jinping arrives in the United States this week for a state visit, China’s advances in artificial intelligence will be in the air. Less discussed: China’s economy in its worst shape in decades.

Sep 19, 2026 Creating a Kill Switch to Shut Down a Rogue A.I. Is Harder Than It Sounds A bipartisan group in Congress and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California have floated ideas for building a mechanism that would instantly power down an AI system. Only, no one really knows how.

Sep 19, 2026 A.I. Gone Rogue? Trump Proposes Not New Rules but an ‘A.I. Force.’ The president proposed a follow-up to his Space Force but continued to dismiss worries about AI’s pace or potential for harm ("May the Schwartz be With You!").

Sep 19, 2026 The World Is Talking About A.I.’s Dangers. Now, It’s Time to Act. The Times columnist Kevin Roose sees reasons for optimism — and worry — as the world wakes up to what Silicon Valley has been talking about for years.

Sep 19, 2026 The Rise of A.I. Is Raising Threats From Drones, Police Group Warns The leaps being made in artificial intelligence and the plunging costs of drones pose dangers to cities across the United States, according to the Police Executive Research Forum (trust the Police to figure out AI and Drones).

Sep 19, 2026 A.I. Is a Threat, but Not in the Way You Think Anything AI might do maliciously has already been done by Humans!

Sep 19, 2026 Here’s How Trump and Xi Can Make Progress on A.I. They won't.

Sep 18, 2026 Will AI Kill Us? Can It Hack My Bank Account? Your AI Questions Answered. It's all mostly talk!

Sep 17, 2026 AI and financial implosion Pick your poison: Either AI is rapidly advancing beyond our control and will someday accidentally shut down the internet, supply chains, infrastructure or electrical grid. Or it is a massive debt bubble with negative ROI that is about to implode, taking the global economy with it.

Sep 17, 2026 What Happens When A.I. Stops Doing What Humans Want? “Alignment” is the science of teaching AI to do what is in line with human preferences, ethics and judgment. But, at times, the systems have gone rogue.

Sep 17, 2026 China Is Scared of A.l. Just in Not the Way We Are.They don't want AI to topple the Communist Party.

Sep 16, 2026 Juliette Kayyem Destroying Humanity is Against the Law Don’t wait for a mass-extinction event before holding AI developers accountable.

Sep 16, 2026 OpenAI Discloses Six New Incidents of ‘Concerning’ A.I. Behavior The artificial intelligence company also released a framework for reporting when its systems go wrong.

Sep 14, 2026 Trump's EPA repeals pollution limits on fossil fuel power plants It's about AI Data Centers not Energy (OK, indirectly)!

Sep 14, 2026 Trump says that a Smart President is all that is needed to Rein In AI Now we should be REALLY SCARED!

Sep 10, 2026 I Asked AI Why It Wants to Destroy Humanity. Apparently, We’re Asking the Wrong Question.

Sept 14, 2026 President Trump Endoreses AI So it must be OK.

Sep 13, 2026 In the face of AI Catastrophe, Washington Snoozes  Surprise!

Sept 13, 2026 LLMs are real, AI is Fake "No, it didn't go rogue"! AI doesn't do anything it wasn't told to do!

Sept 12, 2026 Why Tech Oligarchs Are Willing to Risk Apocalypse to usher in a new stage of Human Evolution (wackadoodle).

Sep 12, 2026 Top AI Leaders call for Slowing Down AI Development so their companies can dominate the field.

Sep 13, 2026 Obama Urges Democrats to move AI Oversight to the Center of Their Agenda  because we trust politicians to make good decisions.

Sep 12, 2026 AI Companies talk about Doomsday "Trust us, we are the Tech Industry".

Sep 12, 2026 Why is it Difficult for Tech Companies to Regulate AI? Because they don't know what they are doing (at least, they don't know how to build a secure sandbox).

Sep 11, 2026 Rogue AI didn't breach Hugging Face, human decisions did. At the core of this incident were a series of human choices that traded security for speed.