Artificial Intelligence: At Heaven’s Gate

Artificial Intelligence (AI) promises all sorts of wonderous things. We are told that it will add trillions to GDP; diagnosis, prescribe treatment and register cures for all manner of illnesses; relieve us of mind-numbing tasks at work and at home; and ensure that every one of us is better than average. Doubtless, AI does carry the potential to improve some aspects of our lives. To gain perspective on the impacts that it will and will not make, though, prudence tells us to ponder how exactly AI will resolve the following matters that are bedeviling us.

* Americans’ selection as their President a demonstrable psychotic neo-Fascist, convicted felon, sexual predator and whose hallmarks are vulgarity, insult and sadist pleasure in hurting people
* Our depraved partnership with Israel in crimes against humanity in Gaza – following on the United States’ participation in the murderous assault in Yemen
* The raucous Congressional reception of Bibi Netanyahu the orchestrator of genocide whose very presence defiles the chamber
* Picking a fight with China over the status of a territory, Taiwan, we acknowledged 50 years ago was an integral part of that country. Accompanied by a veritable campaign of provocations, this ensures a hostile relationship with the world’s other great power – the tenor of that relationship destined to shape global affairs for the balance of the century
* A Supreme Court that has arrogated to itself the unbridled power to rewrite the Constitution to accord with its ideological dogmas and political biases while superimposing its judgement on any action of Executive agencies, the Congress or lower judicial bodies and regulatory agencies
* Financialization of the economy in a way that guarantees periodic crises while continuing to redistribute trillions of national wealth into the pockets of the 1% — a process that will be accelerated by Cloud Capital’s exploitation of AI
* Permitting a locust-like plague of hedge funds and private equity to scythe through the economy
* Rampant drug addiction among the young
* The wave of censorship by the MSM, by owners of social media sites, by Internet billionaires, by the government, by the former two at the instigation of the latter, by professional associations, by universities
* Warehousing and neglect of the elderly
* Mass homelessness
* The sterility of the creative arts
* The absence of word class public transportation. [China has 28,000 miles of state-of- the-art high speed rail lines. The U.S. has zero. Plans are being floated to build, by 2035, an inaugural line from Los Angeles to Las Vegas — the Bugsy Siegel Express]

What is the latent potential of AI to alleviate these conditions? One thing comes to mind: persons suffering acute anxiety/deep depression — as from mass structural unemployment and declining living standards — could open their hearts on AI CHATGPT — cheaper than a therapist.