Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has warned "that a swarm of AI agents soon ‘could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet.’”
Oh, perish the thought! I say, let’s unplug from and discontinue use of the internet. Let the bots roam uselessly on an unused internet and perhaps die a natural death there!
Think of how wonderful our world would be without youth glued to their phones walking into traffic and hogging gym machines while scrolling; with no “smart” phones; people actually reading books; people talking to each other; students actually learning in school; no internet influencers; no internet scammers; no “perv” glasses; healthcare returning to paper charts; youth delivering your local paper from a thriving local newspaper; no divisive cable channels; the rise of a new Walter Cronkite on one of the three mainstream channels; no presidents and other politicians sending out infantile AI slop to the nation; people writing and sending via mail thoughtful handwritten notes to each other; the US Postal Service thriving from promptly and efficiently delivering a huge volume of mail; no drones; no billionaires degrading our society and politics with a witch’s brew of algorithms; TVs that don’t watch their viewers; people actually thinking; analog telephones restored to homes, roads, and businesses; no worries about AI killing us in the next decade; and businesses using handwriting, the mail and telephones for order entry, billing and accounting.
Oh, but you say, if we stop AI development now, America’s enemies will continue AI’s development and send robots to enslave us. Fear not, we will still have nukes. We can also threaten to release our AI that is imprisoned on our defunct American internet onto their active internets.
I know whereof I speak. In 1987, I defended Pacific Bell in lawsuit brought by a construction material supply company. As I recall, this company in 1979 had its headquarters in Fresno and branch offices elsewhere in California. Handwritten order entry went via mail or phone from the branch offices to Fresno for billing and accounting. The company was successful. Seeking to modernize, it purchased a mainframe computer for accounting in Fresno, leased dedicated private data lines and terminals from the phone company for the branch offices to communicate with the Fresno mainframe, and purchased an experimental software intended to enable the terminals to communicate efficiently with the different architecture of the mainframe. The system was too slow, so the company went back to handwritten order entry.
The company claimed it was defrauded and suffered losses and lost profits. Pac Bell’s defense was that the company had been fully warned of the risk that the experimental system might not work as intended but wanted to try it anyway. Also, the losses were due to a big dip in the construction cycle and historically heavy rain in 1980-1983. A brilliant Berkeley economist showed by statistical analysis that the company’s losses corresponded almost precisely to the collapse of the construction cycle and the heavy rains. Unfortunately, she had to admit that statistical analysis does not prove cause and effect, as she conceded that sunspots do not cause sailing ships to enter New York Harbor, which is a well-known statistical correlation.
After a 3 and ½ month long trial, the second longest civil jury trial in Fresno County history at the time, the jury rejected the company’s claim for over $20 million in lost profits, but awarded the company the compensatory amount of its losses for $3.8 million, essentially restoring it to break-even. But the jury also thought Pac Bell should be punished for misrepresenting the system.
The Clerk read on: “For punitive damages, $500 million dollars!” About to collapse, I thought, “Oh my, I’ve just sold the phone company.” That was real money in 1987!
The Judge grumbled, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, let me see that. No, punitive damages are $500,000.” Never thought I could be happy to hear my client had been hit for $500,000 in punitive damages!
I had my share of wins and losses over my long legal career, much of which occurred during the slower, happier, and successful days of paper, pen, voice, and analog fax. We can and ought to return to those days! Maybe X-rays will not be read as well, but humanity will survive and thrive.
Still not convinced? Where’s “Wall-E” playing these days?
Daniel O. Jamison is a retired attorney. He is the author of the forthcoming book from McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, titled, “The Birth of Jim Crow: Racism, Reconstruction and the Pivotal Supreme Court Cases of 1857-1908.” Jamison’s op-eds have been widely published around the nation.
