Technology – REVIEWS AND VIEWS OF LIFE

SUPERINTELLIGENCE?

The “Catch 22” of AGI is the potential for knowledge beyond the comprehension of the brightest human beings. Many will choose to forgo human judgement and action because of the presumed value of knowledge offered by AGI. That is the threat being explained in “The Infinity Machine”.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The Infinity Machine (Demis Hassabis, DeepMind, and the Quest for Superintelligence)

Author: Sebastian Mallaby

Narration by: Vidish Athavale

Sebastian Mallaby (English journalist and author, senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Mallaby has written a biography of Demis Hassabis, the co-founder and CEO of Google DeepMind. This is a somewhat frightening exploration of AGI (artificial general intelligence). The author argues AGI is being grown at a faster rate than it can be understood or managed by humans. Though science may wish to develop AGI to aid society, it may be creating a system that will end it.

Sir Demis Hassabis (British A.I. researcher, neuroscientist, video game designer, and entrepreneur.)

Mallaby reflects on the early childhood of Demis Hassabis who becomes a chess master at age 13, a video-game designer at 17, and who founded his own company in his early twenties. His life experience leads him to study cognitive neuroscience at University College London. He explores how humans construct mental models to think and act in the world. With that view of the building blocks of human thought, he founds DeepMind with help of Legg and Suleyman. Their thought is that in solving the mystery of the way human intelligence works; they could create a computer program to more rapidly and successfully improve human society.

Shane Legg, born in New Zealand, a machine learning researcher.

The two other principals in the creation of Deep Mind, Shane Legg and Mustafa Suleyman, have different roles in the company. Legg is a computer scientist who focuses on a framework for Deep Mind that would make Deep Mind more intelligent with a recognition of human reliance and its potential risk of minimizing the importance of human judgement. Mustafa Suleyman focuses on fundraising for the Deep Mind organization and the operational function of the company. The ultimate acquisition of Deep Mind by Google resolves fundraising concerns of Deep Mind and assures its future development.

Stuart Russell, a British computer scientist, infers A.I. is at a point where gathered information changes human culture.

Mallaby believes the speed of AGI development exceeds the ability of society to either understand or govern itself without the influence of AGI. The author does not believe most of its developers or the public clearly understand the risks of AGI development and its influence on society. The author argues AGI concentrates power in ways governments cannot fully comprehend and, without that understanding, AGI may lead society beyond the fundamental goal of human survival. The consequences of too much reliance on AGI may escalate conflicts in the world.

Shane Legg is alleged to believe “…human extinction is not necessarily the worst possible outcome…” for the advancement of AGI because of an evolutionary melding of human and machine intelligence.

The question becomes whether human beings can program AGI with a preeminent goal of human life’s value and preservation. Mallaby argues at the heart of the issue is human fallibility. This is a subtle argument because it is saying humans are not capable of encoding human values in A.I. to assure and enforce human preservation. He implies human programmers are too conflicted over how to program A.G.I. to guarantee human preservation. This is the author’s “Catch 22”; i.e. a no-win paradox because of circular logic. Shane Legg argues there is no paradox and that the future may mean the melding of human beings with AGI superintelligence.

As one ponders Legg’s belief, one is reminded of Karl Marx who wrote “History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Malaby compares AGI to the nuclear bomb. Proven by the nuclear bomb E = mc² has a tremendous upside. It is the proof of Einstein’s energy formula which is the basis for belief in an inexhaustible source of energy. However, Mallaby implies AGI is like Einstein’s discovery of the equivalence of mass and energy. Like nuclear power foretells an inexhaustible source of energy it can be a destroyer of worlds. AGI foretells the possibility of a revolution in human knowledge, but with the accessibility of the internet, AGI carries the danger of human misuse and societal conflagration. Both AGI and nuclear power are only constrained by human judgement. If judgement of AGI seems to exceed human judgement, the path of AGI may mean the end of humanity because human judgement is viewed as inferior. The jury seems out on use of nuclear weapons and the same seems true for AGI.

The second atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll on July 25, 1946. The Marshall Islands, where Bikini is located, is suing the U.S. for what it calls a violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There seems a correlation with the advance of AGI. Who is at risk, if judgement is left in the hands of AGI rather than human beings?

When AGI reaches the test of nuclear weapons, the only constraint seems the nature of human beings and their judgement. The “Catch 22” of AGI is the potential for knowledge beyond the comprehension of the brightest human beings. Many will choose to forgo human judgement and action because of the presumed value of knowledge offered by AGI. That is the threat being explained in “The Infinity Machine”.

POWER

As Oscar Wilde’s dialogue between two people said in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”–“Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything.” The response is “Yes, and when they grow older they know it.” That was written in 1891. Baker infers not much has changed in the 21st century.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

How to Rule the World (An Education in Power at Stanford University.)

Author: Theo Baker

Narration by: Theo Baker

Theo Baker (Author, former student journalist for “The Stanford Daily”.)

Theo Baker wrote for “The Stanford Daily” newspaper at Stanford University and received the George Polk Award for his reporting. His writing contributed to the resignation of the Stanford University President, Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Theo Baker, as the son of two journalist (Peter Baker and Susan Glasser) appears to have learned something about research and newspaper reporting from his parents. Theo Baker enrolled at Stanford at the age of 17 in 2022 and graduated in 2026 with a degree in history. To have joined Stanford at 17 years of age says something about his intellect, and pre-college academic achievement.

The value of education.

Personally, as a graduate of no-name universities in America, the picture Baker creates of Stanford makes one envious of the opportunities offered by a highly regarded University. On the one hand, most young students interested in college cannot afford the tuitions of Ivy-plus schools and many may not have either the education, or privileges of wealth that good preparatory schools provide. The added benefit of being a Stanford student is its being located in Silicon Valley, the best area of the country for those who pursue programming skills. Though Baker is more tech savvy about programming than past generations, his chosen field of study is history.

Influence.

What Baker interestingly points out is that classroom learning is less important than networking and raising entrepreneurial capital at Stanford. What is a little off-putting in Baker’s story is it implies Stanford’s culture of entrepreneurship is more important than scholarship. The focus of students seems not on education but in the goal of becoming gob-smacking rich. Having recently read a book about the Founding Father’s of America, one wonders what would have become of America if the Founders had focused more on personal wealth than the future of the country. This is, of course, sour grapes of a book-reviewer because the reality is Ivy-plus Universities have trained many students who have become great contributors to American government and America’s way of life, without becoming gazillionaires.

Technology research.

Baker refers to student’ millionaires while at Stanford because of their inordinate wealth and early success in tech-fund raising and creative computer programing. He implies the student culture of Stanford measures achievement on entrepreneurial networking more than academic achievement. A startup founder who raises the most money is elevated above high academic achievement in Stanford’s student culture. Getting good academic grades is important but it takes a back seat to a student’s ability to raise start-up capital, sell their programming, and/or create stock market start-ups. Those who are good at raising capital become among the institutionally privileged at Stanford. Academic success is primarily important as it relates to an entrepreneurial end rather than an educational achievement. Baker is not saying Stanford academic success is not real, but it is overshadowed by social networking, entrepreneurship, and financial reward. It reminds one of a book about the history of Reddit’s early recruits and a skilled programmer who commits suicide. Aaron Schwatz went to Stanford in 2004. Ironically, he like Baker is only 17. However, he left after a year. He joined Reddit and became a millionaire, but his wealth seems to have meant little to him in regard to what he believed or what he hoped to achieve in life.

American universities.

In any case, the Stanford President resignation is only a part of Theo Baker’s book. Ivy-League and Ivy-plus schools in America are inferred to be networks of inherited privilege and social connection with Stanford student’s primary goal of becoming filthy rich more than broadly educated. Though no mention is made of Aaron Schwartz’s death, wealth seems a weakness rather than goal for either students or faculty at Stanford.

For a person to say they graduated from Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Cornell, or the University of Chicago is highly regarded by the public. When an Ivy-plus University like Stanford makes networking and making money more important than public service or academic achievement, one becomes somewhat disillusioned.

Silicon Valley,

Stanford definitely has advantage over other Ivy League and Ivy-plus schools because of Silicon Valley. One suspects the power of networking is generally much greater in Ivy League universities because of the average wealth of families who live in well-funded school districts, can pay expensive tuitions, and have either funded or been educated themselves in Ivy League or Ivy-plus universities. Becoming wealthy is a genuine achievement in life but real value should (but does not) come from equal opportunity. Without equal opportunity, society becomes less civil and inclined to believe human value is based on wealth, not character. The power of wealth creates a land of the “haves” and “have nots”.

Marc Trevor Tessier-Lavigne (Canadian-American neuroscientist. President of Stanford 2016-2023.)

Baker’s reporting is central to Tessier-Lavigne’s resignation from Stanford. Discovered irregularities of Tessier-Lavigne’s research on an Alzheimer’s cure reported by Baker in the Stanford paper led the Stanford Board of Trustees to launch an investigation into their President. The Board concluded Tessier-Lavigne’s research papers were flawed by manipulated data that induced Genetech to recruit him in 2003 when he was then President of Rockefeller University and later Stanford. In the end, the President of Stanford is not found guilty of any crime because the research manipulations were considered oversight failures that were retracted before any harm to the public. After his resignation, Tessier-Lavigne went on to become co-founder and chair of Xaira Therapeutics, an AI-biotech company.

Past and present generations.

Putting aside Baker’s good fortune in entering Stanford and working for the Stanford paper, he reveals the motivation of many young Americans today. The fate of Stanford’s President, Tessier-Lavigne, introduces a part of the theme of Baker’s book. Tessier-Lavigne is compelled to resign, in part, because of research and writing by this 17-year-old student in Stanford’s local paper. It is a story of the power of truth and the deleterious effects of seeing position or wealth as a measure of one’s value in society. Whether President of the United States, a newspaper journalist, or President of an Ivy-plus university, real power is ultimately in the truth.

AI RISK

The essence of Rickard’s book is that the use of GPT is a threat to the financial world and to world peace. If the war on Iran continues, there is increased risk of wider conflict, further financial stress, reduced human judgement, and greater potential for world conflagration in a nuclear war.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

MONEY GPT (AI and the Threat to the Global Economy)

Author: James Rickards

Narration by: James Rickards

James G. Rickards (Author, American lawyer, investment banker, media commentator.)

Though Mr. Rickards has something valuable to tell his audience, his writing leaves room for improvement. The initials “GPT” stand for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer”. They are an abbreviation for massive datasets gathered by artificial intelligence to aid one’s understanding of complex predictions about finance and military conflict based on collected language used to explain the world.

Languages of the world.

What Rickards intellectually recognizes is that collected language about the real world lacks human judgement which can accelerate human actions, weaponize misinformation, and increase conflict because AI lacks human reasoning. Without judgement, facts imparted by language collection may as quickly make wrong as right decisions. Optimum answers to complex problems require human judgement. Optimum answers may be aided by AI collated language, but human judgement is key to appropriate action. Rickards notes how stock market investors who rely on AI for decisions about what to do with their investments can as easily be misled when the market is in crisis because collected language is as likely to lead one further into crisis as toward a reasoned investment response.

Like the bombing of Dresden in WWII, today’s America is senselessly bombing Iran.

Rickard explains a financial decision based on GPT carries the same threat in regard to war. One wonders whether President Trump’s escalation of the war on Iran is not based on GPT that compresses decisions and amplifies the volatility of America’s actions. Is the war escalating because of GPT and inadequate human judgement? America is faced with incomplete information on a purpose for bombing Iran and what goals are intended for ending the conflict. What GPT predicts is more U.S. strikes, further Iranian retaliation, and prolonged conflict that will continue to roil the economies and citizens of the world. Regional war, let alone a World War, is increasingly likely to cause a global shock to financial markets.

Uses of GTP aka GPT.

A VIEW OF GENIUS

Like all world changing inventions and discoveries, iPhone came with costs ranging from children’ and adults’ addiction, to rare minerals depletion, to environmental pollution. The long-term effect of iPhones has changed the world with unexpected, often unforeseen, consequences.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

The One Device (The Secret History of the iPhone)

Author: Brian Merchant

Narration by: Tristan Morris

Brian Merchant (Author, American technology journalist, writes for The New York Times, Wired, Slate, The Atlantic, and the Guardian.)

Brian Merchant works around the tech world but never quite in it. His understanding of today’s technology has made him a popular writer for national news outlets. Never having been employed by a tech company, his analysis of iPhone history, the role of Jobs, and the history of its development is as an outsider to the process of invention. As a writer about technology, there is a level of objectivity but also reservation about an outsider’s details. Merchant reports what others tell of iPhone’s history rather than as a person being there as a part of its development.

Merchant’s investigation explains the iPhone’s creation is a messy human process entailing the dangers of mining, involvement of other companies and individuals, patent questions, and labor struggles. The impact of the iPhone’s invention is world changing. In a fundamental way, Merchant discounts the mythology of iPhone’s invention by one person or company. There were decades of prior invention before the iPhone became more than an idea, let alone a world changing device.

The scope of manufacturing iPhones made Foxconn the leading international labor subcontractor in the world. Foxconn is estimated to employ 800,000 employees in China alone. Many have been contracted by Apple for iPhone product assembly.

The mining industry and assembly line development were in place before the raw material and labor that would be needed for iPhone development. Merchant suggests Apple became the central orchestrator rather than singular inventor of the iPhone. Merchant argues the iPhone is a synthesis of decades of technological improvement, unnamed engineers, labor and organizations of miners and factory workers, and innovations needed to produce Apple’s revolutionary product.

Genius and invention go hand in hand. However, Merchant explains in the early 20th century, much of the technology that became a part of the iPhone’s foundation were already invented. He notes touchscreens, voice recognition tools, motion tracking, and early iterations of what became Artificial Intelligence had already been discovered. Merchant’s intent is not to diminish the genius of Apple, Jobs, or its employees but to show the public that every extraordinary human invention has precursors and essential earlier discoveries. It took Apple’s leadership and employees to integrate the many technologies that had been discovered earlier to create what has become a handheld window to the world. Merchant explains no great inventions are created out of thin air. He suggests every invention of the present is dependent on thought, labor, experience, and invention of the past.

Thomas Kuhn suggests every revolution in science begins with a paradigm in conjunction with discoveries of the past.

Merchant discounts the idea of the “lone genius” because every genius depends on insight and events of the past to correlate what she/he invents in the present. The iPhone unifies decades of technological progress. The iPhones’ invention reorganizes global behavior, creates a new economic and industrial model, and gives the world a pocket supercomputer. The geniuses of Apple earned their reputations, but they relied on discoveries of the past.

Thinking of Curie, Einstein, Newton, and other giants of science, one wonders how Merchant’s belief about genius is valid. He would argue the brilliance of Curie, Einstein, and Newton are built on prior knowledge, their predecessors, and the tools of their time. Their genius is in connecting past knowledge and discovery of others with the present. Their genius is dependent on predecessors. Merchant is not diminishing Jobs’ or Apple’s genius, but their breakthroughs could only come from groundwork established by others.

INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION ON A BAD DAY IN BEJING,, CHINA

SUICIDE

“We Are the Nerds” is a story about “Nerdom” and the tragic loss of Aaron Swartz to his loving family and the world of coding.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

WE ARE THE NERDS (The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet’s Culture Laboratory)

Author: Christine Lagorio-Chafkin

Narration by: Chloe Cannon

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin (Author, reporter, podcaster based in New York.)

Relistening to “We are the Nerds” may be reviewed from a perspective of the future of newspapers but that diminishes the tragedy of Aaron Schwarz’s suicide.

The original founders of what became known as Reddit were Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, graduates from the University of Virginia. A third partner, Aaron Swartz, is invited into the company because of his tech experience in creating a company called Infogami which merged with Reddit. With the addition of Infogami, the original founders of Reddit created a parent organization called “Not a Bug, Inc”. Schwartz insists on being called a co-founder because of his contribution to Reddit as a programmer. That insistence rankled Huffman and Ohanian which grew into a resentment that fills the pages of the author’s story.

Steve Huffman on the left with Alexis Ohanian and his wife, Serena Williams, and their daughter on the right.

The author seems to minimize Schwartz’s contribution to Reddit despite the framework he created that made Reddit scale more quickly because of its open access and community-driven cultural impact. Swartz’s contributed code appears to have been an important step in the useability of Reddit by the public. However, in fairness to the original founders, the author infers that contribution pales in respect to the extensive coding and work done by Huffman. The point is that this conflict becomes an irritant that leads to the departure of Swartz from Reddit in 2007, after it was acquired by Condé Nast in 2006. That acquisition made all three original coders millionaires.

Swartz’s life and premature death is a tragic encomium to the story of Reddit’s success as a public forum.

By some measure, Swartz is a brilliant human being, but his intelligence is accompanied by what might be characterized as a self-destructive personality. His ability as a computer nerd is evident in his High School days in Highland Park, Illinois. He goes on to Stanford, but its educational regimen leads him to leave after his first year. He preferred independent learning. Schwartz’s remarkable ability led him to become a research fellow at Harvard University in 2010. He became a self-taught intellectual with an activist belief in academic freedom that eventually led him to rebel against authority. He was arrested in 2011 for allegedly breaking into MIT’s computer network without authorization. He was charged for computer fraud and faced 34 years in prison and a million-dollar fine. At the age of 26, Swartz hung himself and died on January 11th, 2013.

An American mass media company founded in 1909.

Huffman and Ohanian believed Swartz’s contributions to Reddit were less than theirs in creating the company they sold to Condé Nast that made them millionaires. Swartz’s idealism and independence conflicted with the original founders of Reddit who seemed more interested in building a public platform that could make them rich. Though Ohanian believed they sold too soon, all three agreed to Condé Nast’s final offer that made them millionaires.

In retrospect, Ohanian may have been right about the future value of Reddit. Condé Nast spun Reddit out to an independent subsidiary under Advance Publications where it became a 42-billion-dollar success by 2025. Today, Huffman’s net worth is estimated at $1.2 billion as a result of his Reddit shares. Though Ohanian may not have held on to his shares, his net worth is estimated at $150-$170 million. Not bad for two University of Virginia graduates. However, as Plato observed, “The greatest wealth is to live content with little”. Swartz’s life seems to have had little to do with desire for wealth.

“We Are the Nerds” is a story about “Nerdom” and the tragic loss of Aaron Swartz to his loving family and the world of coding.

A.I. TOMOROW

A.I.s’ contribution to society is similar to the history of nuclear power, it will be constructively or destructively used by human beings. On balance, “Burn-In” concludes A.I. will mirror societies values. As has been noted in earlier book reviews, A.I. is a tool, not a controller of humanity.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

BURN-IN (A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution)

Author: P. W. Singer, August Cole

Narration by: Mia Barron

Peter Warren Singer (on the left) is an American political scientist who is described by the WSJ as “the premier futurist in the national security environment”. August Cole is a co-author who is also a futurist and regular speaker before US and allied government audiences.

As an interested person in Artificial Intelligence, I started, stopped, and started again to listen to “Burn-In”.

The subject of the book is about human adaptation to robotics and A.I. It shows how humans, institutions, and societies may be able to better serve society on the one hand and destroy it on the other. Some chapters were discouraging and boring to this listener because of tedious explanations of robot use in the future. The initial test is in the FBI, an interesting choice in view of the FBI’s history which has been rightfully criticized but also acclaimed by American society.

Starting, stopping, and restarting is a result of the author’s unnecessary diversion to a virtual reality game being played by inconsequential characters.

In an early chapter several gamers are engaged in VR that distracts listeners from the theme of the book. It is an unnecessary distraction from the subject of Artificial Intelligence. Later chapters suffer the same defect. However, there are some surprising revelations about A.I.’s future.

The danger in societies future remains in the power of knowledge. The authors note the truth is that A.I.’s lack of knowledge is what has really become power. Presumably, that means technology needs to be controlled by algorithms created by humans that limit knowledge of A.I.’ systems that may harm society.

“Burn-In” is meant to reveal how human-machine integration challenges human society, both ethically and pragmatically.

That integration has massive implications for military, industrial, economic, and societal roles of human beings. The principles of human work, social relations, capitalist/socialist economies and their governance are changed by the advance of machine learning based on Artificial Intelligence. Machine learning may cross thresholds between safety and freedom to become systems of control with potential for human societies destruction. At one extreme is China’s surveillance state; on the other is western societies belief in relative privacy.

Robot evolution.

Questions of accountability become blurred when self-learning machines gain understanding beyond human capabilities. Do humans choose to trust their instincts or a machines’ more comprehensive understanding of facts? Who adapts to whom in the age of Artificial Intelligence? These are the questions raised by the authors’ story.

F.B.I. Fallibility

The main character of Singer’s and Cole’s story is Lara Keegan, a female FBI agent. She is a seasoned investigator with an assigned “state of the art” police robot. The relationship between human beings and A.I. robots is explored. What trust can a human have of a robotic partner? What control is exercised by a human partner of an A.I.’ robot? What autonomy does the robot have that is assigned to a human partner? Human and robot partnership in policing society are explored in “Burn-In”. The judgement of the author’s story is nuanced.

In “Burn-In” a flood threatens Washington D.C., the city in which Keegan and the robot work.

The Robot’s aid to Keegan saves the life of a woman threatened by the flood as water fills an underground subway. Keegan hears the woman calling for help and asks the robot to rescue the frightened woman. The robot submerges itself in the subway’ flood waters, saves the woman and returns to receive direction from Keegan to begin building a barrier to protect other citizens near the capitol. The Robot moves heavy sacks filled with sand and dirt, with surrounding citizens help in loading more sacks. The robot tirelessly builds the barrier with strength and efficiency that could not have been accomplished by the people alone. The obvious point being the cooperation of robot and human benefits society.

The other side of that positive assessment is that a robot cannot be held responsible for work that may inadvertently harm humans.

Whatever human is assigned an A.I robot loses their privacy because of robot’ programing that knows the controller’s background, analyzes his/her behavior, and understands its assigned controller from that behavior and background knowledge. Once an assignment is made, the robot is directed by a human that may or may not perfectly respond in the best interest of society. Action is exclusively directed by the robot’s human companion. A robot is unlikely to have intuition, empathy, or moral judgement in carrying out the direction of its assigned human partner. There is also the economic effect of lost human employment as a result of automation and the creation of robot’ partners and laborers.

Nuclear annihilation.

RISK/REWARD

“IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES” is an alarmist, and unnecessarily pessimistic view of the underlying value of Artificial Intelligence. This is not to suggest there are no risks in A.I. but its potential outweighs its risks.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES

Author: Eliezer Yudkowsky, and Nate Soares

Narrated By: Rae Beckley

Eliezer Yudkowsky is a self-taught A.I. researcher without a formal education. As an A.I. researcher, Yudkowsky founded the Machine Intelligence Research Institute (MIRI). Nate Soares received an undergraduate degree from George Washington University and became President of MIRI. Soares had worked as an engineer for Google and Microsoft. Soares also worked for the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Dept. of Defense.

Dangers of A.I. to humanity

“IF ANYONE BUILDS IT, EVERYONE DIES” is difficult to follow because it’s convoluted examples and arguments are unclear. The fundamental concern the writers have is that A.I. will self-improve to the point of being a threat to humanity. They argue that A.I. will grow to be more interested in self-preservation than an aid to human thought and existence. The irony of their position is that humanity is already a threat to itself from environmental degradation, let alone nuclear annihilation. The truth is humanity needs the potential of A.I. to better understand life and what can be done to preserve it.

To this listener/reader environmental degradation is a greater risk than the author’s purported threats of A.I.

Pessimism is justified in the same way one can criticize capitalism.

The authors have a point of view that is too pessimistic about A.I. and its negative potential without recognizing how poorly society is structured for war and killing itself without Artificial Intelligence. The advance of A.I. unquestionably has risks just as today’s threat of mutual nuclear annihilation but A.I.s’ potential for changing the course of civilization for the better exceeds the agricultural and industrial revolutions of the past.

The nature and intelligence of human beings is underestimated by Yudkowsky and Soares.

There have been a number of amazing human discoveries that have accelerated since the beginning of civilization in Mesopotamia. Humans like Einstein and their insight to the universe will be aided, not controlled, by the potential of A.I. Artificial Intelligence is no more a danger to humanity than the loss of craftsman during the industrial revolution. Civilization will either adapt to revelations coming from A.I. or environmental degradation or human stupidity will overtake humanity.

Don’t succumb to panic. Life is life. A.I. advances require human courage.

THE WIZARD

Good luck and safe travels, if you have the time and inclination to visit, go see Dorothy and her companions in Dolan’s immersive theatre.

Travel

Written by Chet Yarbrough

The Sphere in Las Vegas is a must see when visiting Las Vegas.

James Dolan, the executive chairman of Madison Square Garden Company, is credited with the idea of the Las Vegas Sphere.

James Lawrence Dolan (American businessman, supervisor of the New York Knicks, and New York Rangers, former CEO of cable vision, owns 70% of the voting power of the Sphere Entertainment Co., a publicly traded company.)

At the time of the Sphere’s construction in Las Vegas, there was concern about it ever being profitable. The cost of the Sphere exceeded expectations but Dolan’s vision and anyone who has visited the Sphere will be overwhelmed by its sensory impact and entertainment potential. In its first quarter of operation, a 98.4 million operating loss was reported. However, the reported revenue of the Sphere was $314.2 million in 2024 and its showed net inc9ome of $151.8 million in Q2 of 2025 after a previous year’s loss of an estimated $46.6 million.

The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere had mixed reviews when it first came out. We had visited the Sphere when it first opened with a World of life’ presentation. The Wizard was equally astonishing and entertaining.

As the Sphere production introduces unforgettable characters like The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion, some fans will tear up with the joy of seeing them in the immersive qualities of the Sphere. Viewers will feel the wind of the storm as it sweeps across the Sphere’s dome.

The special effects are amazing. You feel the wind of the hurricane, catch a fake apple from a forest of talking trees that complain about travelers picking their apples, and feel the heat from a fire in the witch’s castle. This is a tour de force of the Sphere’s potential.

Good luck and safe travels, if you have the time and inclination to visit, go see Dorothy and her companions in Dolan’s immersive theatre.

HOUSING

Didion reminds one of Yeats Poem to warn society of civilization’s collapse. Yeats wrote “The Second Coming” after WWI and the Spanish Flu. Seems similar to today’s political war and the Covid pandemic.

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

Slouching Toward Bethlehem

Author: Joan Didion

Narrated By: Diane Keaton

Joan Didion (Author, American writer and journalist, published in The Saturday Evening Post, National Review, Life, Esquire, and The New Yorker. She also wrote screenplays for “The Panic in Needle Park”, “A Star is Born”, and “Upclose and Personal” as well as receiving a National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer. 1934-2021.)

Diane Keaton (Actor, Academy Award winner, BAFTA recipient, two-time Golden Globe, and Tony Award winner. 1946-2025.)

Diane Keaton died yesterday.

Several years ago, I purchased “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” without reading it until Keaton had done an audiobook’ narration of it. “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” illustrates Didion’s skill as an essayist and writer while Keaton’s many acclaimed movies show how accomplished both women have been in their lives.

“Slouching Toward Bethlehem” is interesting because it offers an interpretation of why homelessness is so much more obvious in America than other countries.

Having lived in different areas of the United States, the appearance of homelessness in the big cities of America is disgraceful. Visiting the Baltics, Norway, Finland, China, and Japan in the last few years illustrates how badly America is handling homelessness. With the exception of Norway, per capita incomes in the United States are more than twice the incomes of the aforementioned countries. Norway’s per capita income is $87,925 while America’s is $82,769. China’s per capita income is $13,122 but walking through major Chinese cities, there are no people sleeping on the streets. The Baltics per capita incomes range from $22,000 to a little more than $30,000. There is poverty in all these countries, but their leaders and societies have found a way to keep their citizens housed. This is not to argue their poor are not faced with hardship but to show how poorly American society is treating its homeless.

There seems a generational divide in Didion’s “Slouching Toward Bethlehem”.

The beat generation of the 1960s for which Timothy Leary coined the phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out” alluded to in Didion’s essays may offer a partial explanation. Many of us experimented with drugs in the 60s but there has to be more than that to explain what has happened to big cities in America. Part of the answer is the change in income for the middle-class. In the 1960s middle-class incomes were strong and broadly shared. In the 21st century, middle class incomes have stagnated. CEO’s income in the ’60s made 20 times middle class earners but in the 21st century the ratio rose to 300-1. The rich got richer and the middleclass got poorer. Power shifted from a voting middle class to a richer upper-class that accelerated income gaps that changed election results with an income class bias.

America has contradictory economic policies that have created great abundance among Americans while exacerbating income inequality.

Housing costs accelerated to new highs in the 21st century. The 1960s price-to-income ratios were 2:1 while today they are 5:1 or higher. The effort during the Obama administration to weaken standards for home buyer qualification exacerbated the greed of mortgage companies which led to a near economic collapse of the finance industry. Instead of bailing out homebuyers that could not pay their mortgages, the Obama administration bailed out mortgage companies and their owners while endorsing eviction of buyers who could not afford their mortgage payments.

“Slouching Toward Bethlehem” writes of famous successful people like John Wayne, Howard Hughes, Joan Baez, and herself as symbols of the 1960s. She is effectively glorifying them and herself while showing how they mythologized success to a generation of young people who were turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. Image became more important than substance. Working to be great at acting, becoming wealthy by investing wisely, singing about peace, justice and non-violence to make money, and writing about societal dysfunction were money makers. Capitalizing on dysfunction of society did nothing to ameliorate it. John Wayne is only a symbol of justice in the movies and Howard Hughes inherited his wealth that allowed him to invest, sometimes unwisely and with poor personal management skills. He began investing in Las Vegas because management could be left to others. To be fair, Didion and Baez try to return something to society for their success but their efforts pale in comparison to America’s decline. Artists report facts of life but rarely offer solutions.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939, Irish poet, dramatist, writer and literary critic.

W. B. Yeats Poem summarizes and exemplifies what Didion alludes to in her book.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;  
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;  
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,  
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere  
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;  
The best lack all conviction, while the worst  
Are full of passionate intensity.  

Surely some revelation is at hand;  
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.  
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out  
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi  
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert  
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,  
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,  
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it  
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.  

The darkness drops again; but now I know  
That twenty centuries of stony sleep  
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,  
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,  
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

HUMAN FLAW

A not surprising irony in “They Made America” is that great innovators like the rest of us are flawed. Ford is widely considered an antisemite, Edison is too opinionated to countenance differences of opinion, Rockefeller is an elitist, Singer is a misogynist and so and so on

Books of Interest
Website: chetyarbrough.blog

They Made America (From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine: Two Centuries of Innovators)

Author: Harold Evans, Gail Buckland & 1 more

Narrated By: Harold Evans

Harold Evans (Author, 1928-2020, British journalist died at age 92.)

“They Made America” is partly about inventions but mostly about innovations that transform society. He writes of America but his explanation of making any successful economy requires innovation. Invention may be a beginning while innovation has no end. He writes of mostly American men whose imagination leads to innovations that transform America’s economy. The generation of power, and advances in communication, transportation, finance, and culture are the consequence of innovation that may or may not be based on original invention. Some of a nation’s economic and social advancement is from unique invention but all of a nation’s success is a result of innovation.

During the Obama administration, America’s economic growth began to decline and accelerated with the Covid 19 pandemic.

Evans and his co-authors identify many who have contributed to the success of America’s economic growth. Most of those he identifies are Americans but a few like Leo Baekeland, Reginald Fessenden, and Herbert Boyer show that innovation is not just an American phenomenon. Baekeland is a Belgian who invented Bakelite and became a U.S. citizen. Bakelite is the first fully synthetic plastic that revolutionized design and manufacture of consumer goods. Fessenden was a Canadian who pioneered radio transmission technology and Herbert Boyer and Robert Swanson were Americans who collaborated with many international scientists to create Genetech, the first biotech firm in the world that commercialized recombinant DNA for life-saving medicines like insulin.

Though British innovator, James Watt, did not invent the steam engine he radically improved it by adding a separate steam condenser.

The invention and innovational changes of the steam engine led innovators like Robert Fulton to see how a steam engine could power a steamboat. The invention of the automobile led to Henry Ford’s innovations in assembly line work that reduced the cost of production to make cars available to almost every working American. Ford also increased wages of his workers so they could buy Ford products. The founder of Bank of America, A.P. Giannini, innovated lending with idea of consumer banking giving workers a way to secure their paychecks in a bank that could provide a means to pay for services and possible credit based on accumulated wealth in their checking account. Innovations in communication by Ted Turner, Page and Brin, and Jobs and Wozniak changed the media communications industry.

Thomas Edison (1847-1931).

The recounting of the many American innovators in “They Made America” is not a picture of idealized human beings. Thomas Edison, who is among the greatest innovators in America, created a team of experimenters at Menlo Park in New Jersey. Edison created an “Invention Factory” that led to the electrification of the world. Though he did not believe in alternating current (AC) as an improvement over direct current (DC) in the use of electricity, he envisioned an electrical system that would light the dark streets of the world. Edison is a perfect representation of inventor and innovator in Evans’ American story. Edison’s belief in himself, his drive for accomplishment, and risks he was willing to take, exemplify the best an American entrepreneur can be.

Isaac Merritt Singer (1811-1875).

Isaac Singer innovated sewing machine manufacturing and sale but led a profligate life as a seducer of women with a volatile reputation that often erupted in anger toward others. Singer is alleged to have fathered 24 children from wives and girlfriends. Like his name, Singer was a showman who demonstrated his machines and built a brand that remains popular today. He was flamboyant and accused of bigamy and adultery but is noted to have created a global sales and service company with an installment purchasing plan for his machines. He carries the same force of nature as Edison but with the development of a singular product.

John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937).

In contrast to either Edison or Singer, Rockefeller is primarily focused on increasing his wealth and power. He revolutionizes the oil industry through monopolization while raising prices of oil to increase his wealth. He brands his product, reduces his costs of operation by building oil pipelines to reduce delivery costs and develops a corporate strategy to eliminate competition. His focus is on creating an industrial empire.

Evans notes other innovators like Ted Turner and Malcolm McLean and their innovations in media and global shipping. The lesser-known McLean introduced and launched the first container ship in 1956 that dramatically reduced loading times, labor costs, and cargo theft in the shipping industry. Ted Turner created CNN and TBS to revolutionize the news and entertainment industries. Page and Brin, and Jobs and Wozniak unleashed the internet to offer wider knowledge to the world but also provided a network that spread lies and misrepresentations of truth.

Dr. He Jiankui is an example of human blind spots. (Jiankui claims to have conducted the first human genome-editing of a human embryo with no oversight and a botched process that embarrassed the scientific community.)

The common denominator of these and many more innovators described in Evans’ book (though Jiankui is not mentioned) is their ambition, ego, and human blind spots. Edison is domineering and ruthlessly competitive. Ford’s antisemitism is reflected in his support for Adolph Hitler and being the only American cited in “Mein Kampf” as a model of antisemitism. Rockefeller shows the same traits as Edison as a corporate hegemon while using his innovative skill to dominate competitors and corner the market price for oil. Singer improves the utility of sewing machines through innovation and salesmanship while living life as though his personal ego is all that matters.

A not surprising irony in “They Made America” is that great innovators (like all of us) are flawed. Ford is widely considered an antisemite, Edison is too opinionated to countenance differences of opinion, Rockefeller is an elitist, Singer is a misogynist, Jiankui is a scofflaw, and so and so on. On balance however, innovators make a contribution to the success of America while most of us go along to get along.

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