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Such issues are big enough, but on top of them comes artificial intelligence — quite probably the greatest opportunity but darkest threat of our lifetimes, bringing an incalculable impact on democracy and global security. The intimate relationship that the US and UK have built up since the Second World War has a new and immense challenge: how to take trusted co-operation into a new field while also building a global understanding that allows AI to benefit humanity rather than destroy us.

#That youth delivering beer didn’t exactly sharpen Billy Hague’s thinking, did it?

26 thoughts on “Bloviation”

  1. It’s a good job William Hague is busy having all that heterosexual sex with Ffion, or else he might be an alcoholic.

  2. AI can’t do shit. It’s a load of electrons floating around. Plug it into the nukes a la Skynet and yes, it might destroy us, so don’t do that.

    And if anyone thinks they can control or regulate AI, they don’t understand that the core of them are graphics cards. Things you can buy on Amazon. If there is an Ernst Stavro Blofeld using AI to do various things, it’s almost impossible to stop him.

  3. That youth delivering beer didn’t exactly sharpen Billy Hague’s thinking, did it?

    William Hague was always a wanker, even before he was old enough to drink. Remember that teenage performance at the Tory Party Conference?

    As Ser Bronn of Blackwater said “There’s no cure for being a cunt”.

  4. The erotic adventures of Willy Hague, (aged 62 & 1/4)

    When I stayed there, accompanying David Cameron in 2012, President Obama took me on to the balcony of his private quarters and showed me the one stone that is deliberately not painted white. You can still see how it was scorched by the flames when British troops burnt the White House in 1814: “a reminder of what you guys can be like”, he said.

    And then we kissed.

    Downstairs in the dining room, Hillary Clinton remarked on how British officers had eaten the meal laid out for the fleeing president before torching the building. I said that we British always like to do things in the correct order.

    He said, wiping his mouth conservatively.

    Our prime minister and President Biden clearly get along well and the opportunity to speak frankly is unlikely to be missed.

    The story is that President Droolcup loves Rashee and has many non-demented conversations with him.

    For America to lead the West in rivalry with China

    We desperately need the United States and its heavily armed, regime changing ‘rivalry’ to protect us from Chinese trade.

    Even now, Washington is reluctant to provide the longer-range missiles that the Ukrainians need and that London is supplying.

    VOTERS, find a government that cares about you as much as the British-identified government cares about fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

    Such issues are big enough, but on top of them comes artificial intelligence — quite probably the greatest opportunity but darkest threat of our lifetimes, bringing an incalculable impact on democracy and global security.

    The only thing the British-identified government has to offer its native subjects is fear.

    Yet America also needs Britain, and other G7 nations, if it is to have any chance of ensuring that AI benefits free societies and international order rather than bringing both to an end.

    Do you feel free, blokes?

    If the US and UK could work together on such regulation while remaining more agile than contrasting approaches in the EU and China, they could create a transatlantic model of good governance. They need a joint public-private sector task force

    Remember, this avowedly heterosexual man is supposed to be a ‘Conservative’.

  5. Steve, have you started crywanking over Chairman Pooh as well as Putler now? Neither of these despots will save you from a brown prime minister.

    American hegemony might not be ideal, but the alternative in the late 20th century was the USSR and today it’s Fascist China, so

  6. On Hague, I shared an office with him for a couple of months back in the 80s, both of us consultants from separate disciplines and different companies working at a listed client’s premises. He made a mistake in his financial modelling and impliedly blamed it on me at a presentation before the main board of the client. I tore into him, verbally, when I found out.

    Let’s just say I view Hague as a cvnt, a complete and utter lying, cowardly cvnt.

  7. The drivel about AI now being girned by ‘academics’, ‘faith leaders’ and ‘opinion leaders’ is identical to that which was girned 60-70 years ago about nuclear weapons. You can’t uninvent stuff. Or prevent it falling into the hands of those you don’t approve of. Learning to how live with AI is the only useful strategy. That does not, repeat NOT, involve creating another supranational bureaucracy.

  8. MC – yes, being unenthusiastic about fighting WW3 over Taiwan makes me a treacherous Xi-lover as well as a Putler-lover. (Is there no end to my nefarious fascist peacemongering?) You are very perceptive and should have a column in the Economist.

    Instead, we should be excited about what Joepedo, Hillary Clinton, Obama and William Hague (lol) have planned for us, because so far they’ve been fucking brilliant, haven’t they?

    American hegemony might not be ideal, but the alternative in the late 20th century was the USSR and today it’s Fascist China, so

    It’s a tough choice between evil perverts who want your kids castrated and your standard of living upgraded to “eco-serf” while your country curls up and dies of Diversity and debt in front of your very eyes, and the Chinese.

    Imma vote “none of the above”.

  9. Anyone else remember the panic about nanotechnology and “grey goo” back in the 90s? I’ve spent a quarter of a century not being devoured by it, and if I live that long I’m sure I’ll spend the next 25 years not being made extinct by AI.

  10. Hey look, a hobgoblin! And there’s another, and another. Thank Mencken our government is here to scare them away.

  11. But Athur, have you been vaxxed ? Can’t you feel those 5G nanobots coursing through your veins ?

  12. “Anyone else remember the panic about … “grey goo” back in the 90s?” Yes, vaguely.

    I have the impression that Martin Rees (Astronomer Royal) was convinced our atmosphere would become grey goo. He simultaneously seemed to believe that CO2 in the atmosphere would amplify the effect of sunlight so that we’d all be roasted alive. I couldn’t for the life of me see how the two ideas were compatible.

    I suppose he should have stuck to astrophysics. Earth is a bit too complicated for him.

  13. The drivel about AI now being girned by ‘academics’, ‘faith leaders’ and ‘opinion leaders’ is identical to that which was girned 60-70 years ago about nuclear weapons. You can’t uninvent stuff. Or prevent it falling into the hands of those you don’t approve of. Learning to how live with AI is the only useful strategy. That does not, repeat NOT, involve creating another supranational bureaucracy.

    True, but the difference with nuclear weapons is that they were real, as was the threat of apocalypse they presented. AI is just a bad name for what is a glorified autocomplete system that regurgitates stuff it came across on the Internet (and we all know how reliable that is), with occasionally hilarious results.

  14. Imma vote “none of the above”.

    Not an option for you, Steve. The Russian and Chinese regimes have their agendas irregardless, and you’re stuck with a stupid Yoo Kay government of some sort come what may. Razor wit and blazing repartee in the comments of an obscure blog make no odds.

  15. Imma vote “none of the above”.

    Democracy is a funny animal.

    in the local elections, the Tories were ousted thanks to a voter rebellion about over-development. The NIMBYs ( I couldn’t give a monkey’s one way or the other ) voted in a Green/Liberal coalition in order to scupper some controversial housebuilding. The whole farce has cost the council taxpayer £5million.

    The last time the Libs were in power here, they stopped mowing the grass verges and we had infestations of rats. The foxes enjoyed it I suppose.

    I wonder if they will turn our rather pleasant seaside town into another shithole like Brighton.

  16. Otto – I don’t think there are any political solutions to Britain’s problems anymore.

    Voting for a Conservative Party with a landslide majority hasn’t gotten us anywhere. We’re a lot worse off now than we were at the fag end of the Brown Terror.

    Forget it, Jake, it’s Clown Town.

  17. “None of the above”

    I have friends who like to counter increasing political ambivalence/disgust with “well, you’re either with us or agin us” – a nod to George W.

    Just because one side only fiddles 300 (say compared to 900 on the other side), there comes a point where little more than clear conscience might determine that one stops voting for said “fiddlers”?

  18. I well recall the panic that raged in some quarters at the impending introduction of the dreaded silicon chip. A left-leaning gentleman in the office next to mine spent many of his working hours composing articles for assorted news magazines. Unemployment, as chips took over jobs, was gonna hit unprecedented levels – among other social tragedies. Many of those articles did get published and served to stir up the odd rabid trade unionist.

    The gentleman was a lecturer in education and would not have recognised a silicon chip if he’d tripped over it.

  19. I think someone should write an article on the future effects of teaching lions how to tie knots in piano wire.

  20. The whole farce has cost the council taxpayer £5million.

    I wonder if Shirley Porter is asking for her money back yet?

    If she can get surcharged, why hasn’t the same happened to the bureaucunts in your town?

  21. If she can get surcharged, why hasn’t the same happened to the bureaucunts in your town?

    Because the usual bunch of Marxist cvnts have nothing of value to surcharge, in addition, being Marxists they count as on the same side as the bureaucunts.

    The only team that doesn’t have any representation is Team Taxpayer.

  22. Steve,

    “Otto – I don’t think there are any political solutions to Britain’s problems anymore.”

    Well, there is, which is the Libertarian Party but no-one wants to join, to lend a hand, to even donate a few quid. And you might disagree with some of their policies, but they’re in the right direction and the people involved are sincere.

    Which is why I left them. Good bunch of lads, regular guys who understand the world better than the average politician. And not just a talking shop. Actually interested in putting up candidates and debating. But, no-one cares. If there was ever a moment the libertarians might have made a small dent it was during lockdown, and no-one voted for them.

  23. “Well, there is, which is the Libertarian Party”

    Unfortunately the Libertarians are the non-authoritarian version of the far left – 3 of them in a room together will have a massive argument over some minor point of ideological difference and all storm off and form their own parties. Material for government they are not.

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