Courtesy Tom Dispatch

June 25, 2024

Hey, electric cars? It’s obvious that they’ve come into their own now that Tesla’s Elon Musk has once again been granted his (no, this is not a misprint!) $44.9 billion pay package by that company’s shareholders after a Delaware judge all too unreasonably tossed it out last year. Admittedly, given court issues, he won’t get it immediately, but he’s still promised to continue helping make Tesla’s vehicles fully artificially intelligent and “self-driving.” And what could possibly go wrong, once AI is at the wheel instead of us humans? I still recall my dad teaching me to drive in New York City. I can remember being at a corner downtown with cars zipping by in either direction and my dad yelling, “Turn left! Turn left!” In that moment of ultimate pressure, I simply couldn’t remember which direction left was. Had I then been artificially intelligent, there would have been no problem. Now, it seems, with future AI and billions of dollars more in the hands of Musk and his like, grammar school kids or even toddlers may someday be able to “drive” their artificially intelligent family cars. (Something to look forward to, right?) And the same, it seems, may be true when it comes to making war. Thanks in large part to the new-age militarists of Silicon Valley that TomDispatch regular and Pentagon expert William Hartung describes so vividly today, sooner or later, this country’s generals and admirals, fighting soldiers, sailors, and pilots will assumedly be replaced at the wheel of war by artificial intelligence. And what could possibly go wrong? I mean, isn’t war, like driving a car, potentially a matter of child’s play? And won’t AI ensure that war-making never again falters — no more Vietnams, Afghanistans, or Iraqs, thanks to us increasingly (in)human beings. On the other hand, I can imagine a few problems (as can Hartung). I mean, when you think about it, what has war ever had to do with intelligence? Tom