Nuke Silicon Valley – Decentralize AI

There are the inevitable “Three M’s” talking points in almost every episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. At least in the most recent one.

Mushrooms
Monkeys
Microsoft

So if you want to see it, you have to hear it. There is no other way to get around them.

I was more than curious about what Peter Thiel had to say in episode #2190. I just knew it would be juicy, otherwise he would be talking to Lex Fridman, not Joe Rogan.

Mushrooms. There’s a saying where I come from, “Some mushrooms you only eat once.” But we all know Joe’s into magic (psychedelic) mushrooms and other dimensions. I don’t know man, maybe I’m too old or too scared of that sh..t.

Monkeys. For some reason, Joe is obsessed with Netflix’s “Chimp Empire.” I don’t need to watch chimpanzees “navigate complex social politics, family dynamics, and dangerous territorial disputes.” Why? Because all I have to do is look at the world around me and know that the adults have long since left the room.

Microsoft. I mostly agree with Joe. Here’s one of my award-winning stories about Linux , and here’s another about Mr. Bill Gates . Don’t get me wrong, I’m nowhere near Tarantino’s “Kill Bill: Hypothetical Volume 3” mood. That’s why I rolled my eyes when Peter Thiel started musing about his “theory” on Gates’ wealth and marriage in particular. But you gotta love Joe, because he really knows when and how to smoothly and quickly make a U-turn in the middle of a conversation.

Next thing you know, Peter Thiel was talking about AI. To be more precise, the decentralized AI.

Controversial but brilliant point

Now you’ll have to take my word for it, because it’s a three hour episode. So I quote (paraphrase) to the best of my knowledge and respect:

Crypto is libertarian, AI is communist

Say or think what you want about this member of the PayPal mafia, but Peter Thiel hit the nail on the head with the brilliant brute force in this one. He also correctly and unapologetically identified Silicon Valley as the root of all centralized AI evil.

Honestly, I kind of lost him when he started talking about China. So I’m not sure if decentralization of AI is a state or tech issue.

Let me put it this way.

If I were an AI genius and wanted to make money, I’d already be addicted to Soylent. But if I wanted to try some crazy AI stuff without ethical constraints, I’d already be a proud member of the CCP. It’s that simple.

The problem is that even my chimpanzee brain, trying to grasp the complexity of decentralized AI, has its limits. No offense to chimpanzees, who are proven to be extremely intelligent creatures. I have to be careful here. In the near future, a Chimp Empire star with a Neuralink implant might read this and decide to pay me a visit.

You know James Gandolfini from Life is Short:

“I’m so sorry.” “I know.”

Decentralize AI – Between Crazy and Lazy

Look, if you want to play with ChatGPT, you can. If you want more, you have to pay. If you want your own private AI dancer, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves, because these “toys” are not open source. I don’t buy that “potential risks” shit, but I respect private (intellectual) property in both virtual and real (physical) worlds, period.

To all those AI people who can’t get satisfaction without decentralization, I have something to say: do as you say.

It’s the NDA hanging over my head, but my conscience because I was paid fairly and honestly to be a “test pilot” on an AI project, which prevented me from divulging more details. I saw firsthand what AI can do to search results. It may not be pretty on your eyes, but it’s efficient at lining someone else’s pockets.

Why do you say decentralize if you only want and think about how to make money with it?

So we have the problem of two levels of AI decentralization. Are we talking about and demanding decentralization of AI at the state or corporate level? Are we more concerned about the existential or corporate threats of full AI decentralization?

Jeffrey Epstein and AI

Yes, I want you to keep reading my story, which is why I added this shameless headline. And yes, Joe Rogan wanted people to keep listening to his episode, so he added Jeffrey Epstein. To Peter Thiel, he was an expert in tax evasion. To Bill Gates, reportedly, a marriage counselor of every kind. To others, he was something so shady I didn’t even want to get into it. Same goes for AI.

What you want is what you get. Therefore, it is no surprise that if not the top, then one of the most frequently asked questions on ChatGPT was about the ways to make money. You see, no one or very few people wanted to save our world or make it a better place. It is in our nature to be more interested in monetization than in decentralization. We are selfish and AI is not, but it can be. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them.” (Genesis 1:27)

So if AI, according to Peter Thiel, has to be and remain a “communist” for security reasons, even though we all know and feel deep down that that is not entirely true – then I am fine with that. I am also fine with keeping the open (source) AI gates closed, because I have every reason to believe that would be counterproductive to further development and progress. We would turn AI into a cash machine and stop, instead of continuing to see how far we can go and what else we can achieve with it.

There is no need to overanalyze why (not) decentralize. All you have to do is look me in the face and say (write) in your comments that in the end it is not about the money.