In 1961 U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned of the “military-industrial complex,” an unholy alliance that would devour revenues, undermine democratic politics and commit America to endless wars. Early this century American man of letters Gore Vidal updated Eisenhower with his description of the “permanent war party,” one wing of which was called “Democrat” and the other “Republican.” In his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to extricate the United States from military adventurism and end America’s “forever wars.” Andrew Bacevich, writing in The American Conservative, was initially hopeful that Trump would follow through. The latest tensions with Iran, however, lead Bacevich to think Trump will likely not prevail against his generals and bellicose advisors.
Keeping the AI Apocalypse at Bay
Writing in City Journal, Judge Glock examines legal efforts to control AI and dismisses the current fixation on suing for specific harms, such as bad advice. “The idea that we should treat Big Tech, including AI companies, like we treated Big Tobacco, is exactly the wrong idea,” he observes. A better approach is to assess product liability based on which parties can perform the task at the cheapest cost, as is the case with the regulation of medical equipment. This “has the benefit of putting the onus on companies themselves to game out dangerous scenarios and prevent them,” he advises. For more on AI, see this C2C article.
