AI will consume “claptrap” content generated by left-leaning media outlets and spit out more of it, according to Robert Thomson, News Corp CEO and noted generator of right-leaning claptrap.
Thomson spoke at an investor conference last week that featured dozens of companies hoping to cash in on AI development or deployment. He vowed not to impede their (or his) enrichment with lawsuits intended to protect the intellectual property his journalists create and that AI absorbs.
Oh, and he reconfirmed that AI will continue to kill jobs held by reporters and others in the news business. More good news for tech investors.
But his views on how AI works were trenchant, according to this story in the New York Post(Thomson is CEO of the Post along with The Wall Street Journal). He correctly explained how AI scrapes the digital cosmos for content and then regurgitates it, so it’s only as good as its data and what its coders tell it to do with the stuff.
“The danger is, it’s rubbish in, rubbish out, rubbish all about,” he said, according to the Post. “So instead of the insight that AI can potentially bring, what it will evolve into, essentially, is maggot-ridden mind mold.”
He also noted that he doesn’t accept the popular claim by AI developers that they can’t fully understand how their creations operate, which then absolves them of responsibility for propagating said mind mold. He’s right on that, too.
“The idea that it’s some kind of abstract black box…[is] not an answer, because basically, it’s untrue,” he said.
Unfortunately, then he had to dilute the value of his insight with his mercenary perspective on the source of all that rubbish on which AIs feed.
You see, it’s the fault of left-wingers, whether purposefully or by unconscious intent, who promote their claptrap which then prompts “certain AI engines” to produce content that “…would essentially make Marx and Lenin persona non grata it’s that left wing.”
Bias is in the eye of the offended, of course, and Thomson has a business interest in promoting the idea that some vague media from the “left” compete with his outlets and their very explicit bias to the “right.”
Rubbish has no political affiliations or, better put, journalists and editorial writers have proven themselves more than capable of producing it. So have corporations and governments. The idea that it’s somehow the failure of AI to remedy this is silly, since it’s in large part an imaginary problem.
In fact, it would be contrary to Thomson’s financial interests and the ultimate takeaway from his speech:
There’s money to be made selling maggot-ridden mind mold.
[This essay originally appeared at Spiritual Telegraph]