The Age of the Ideator: Go Fast, Ideate!
August 28, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
I read “To De-Risk AI, the Government Must Accelerate Knowledge Production.” The essay introduces a word I am not sure I have seen before; that is, “ideator.” The meaning of an ideator, I think, is a human (not a software machine) able to produce people “who can have outsized impact on the world.” I think the author is referring to the wizard El Zucko (father of Facebook), the affable if mercurial Elon Musk, or the AI leaning Tim Apple. I am reasonably certain that the “outsized influence” moniker does not apply to the lip smacking Spanish football executive, Vlad Putin, or or similar go-getters.
Share my information with a government agency. Are you crazy? asks the hard charging, Type A overachiever working wonders with smart software designed for autonomous weapons. Thanks, MidJourney. Not what I specified but close enough for horse shoes.
The pivotal idea is good for ideators. These individuals come up with ideas. These should be good ideas which flow from ideators of the right stripe. Solving problems requires information. Ideators like information, maybe crave it? The white hat ideators can neutralize non-white hat ideators. Therefore, white hat ideators need access to information. The non-white hat ideator won’t have a change. (No, I won’t ask, “What happens when a white hat ideator flips, changes to a non-white hat, and uses information in ways different from the white hat types’ actions?”)
What’s interesting about the essay is that the “fix” is to go fast when it comes to making information and then give the white hat folks access. To make the system work, a new government agency is needed. (I assume that the author is thinking about a US, Canadian, or Australian, or Western European government agency.)
That agency will pay the smart software outfits to figure out “AI alignment.” (I must admit I am a bit fuzzy on how commercial enterprises with trade secrets will respond to the “alignment.”) The new government agency will have oversight authority and will publish the work of its professionals. The government will not try to slow down or impede the “alignment.”
I have simplified most of the ideas for one reason. I want to conclude this essay with a single question, “How are today’s government agencies doing with homelessness, fiscal management, health care, and regulation of high-technology monopolies?”
Alignment? Yeah.
Stephen E Arnold, August 28, 2023
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