Recommended: Artificial Intelligence Articles

LINK: nyti.ms/2JCrc2w
HEADLINE: The Pentagon’s Terminator Conundrum: Robots That Kill on Their Own
PUBLISHER: The New York Times
COMMENT: Welcome. This is another of those cards where the links give you the big, condensed picture of the subject. For starters, I believe you already know that Google is helping The Pentagon build AI for drones, right? Everybody knows that already. But the world is a big place, too many opinions, too many publications exposing the “scandal”, and too many PR crises to handle. And then, as a direct consequence, Google Employees resigned in protest against the Pentagon contract which ended up becoming a major identity crisis for Google. Then straight from the Marketing & PR department of Google, comes the pretty headline: “Google Will not Renew Pentagon Contract That Upset Employees”. Well, you’ll understand next why it’s extremely unlikely that this is true because if you believe that any of the companies involved with The Pentagon today, are just building robotic chihuahuas or A.I. “just to analyze data”, or are involved just for the money, then guess again (and read more). There’s a lot more under the hood. So let’s talk about that, shall we? You see, the world’s resources are running out and some are saying that Water — the world’s 1st most used resource — is the trigger to World War III. Well, that does make sense since Cape Town (South Africa) is cutting off access to running water from homes and businesses as of July 15, 2018. People there are using disposable plates and utensils, and are only using… 6.5 gallons of water per day (while the average American family uses about 300 gallons per day). Besides, if you saw The Big Short — what a great movie! — then you might remember that at the credits scenes, it’s said that Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale) has all his investment chips on one commodity: water. Well, but that’s only one resource. We have more problems — YEY! — with other resources, like this: Did you know that Sand — the world’s 2nd most used resource — is now also running out?! That’s right: The World is running out of Sand! We use 50 billion tons of it every single year, and we use it for several purposes like to make food, wine, glass, buildings, computer chips, breast implants, cosmestics and the list goes on. Hard to believe, right? But let that aside for a minute. Let’s fast forward a little bit and talk about something I love and everybody needs: Food. You see, here’s the reality about food today: “By 2023, the population in China, India, and Africa will combine to make up over half the world’s population. Africa already has to import food, and by 2023, India, which currently doesn’t import food, will have to start. In China, population growth will eventually level off, but overall calorie intake in the country will continue to increase through the early 2020s, Menker says. In recent years, people in China have begun to add more and more meat—and especially red meat—a very high-calorie food to their diets. By 2023, even if all the surplus produce from countries in Europe, North and South America was solely exported to China, India, and Africa, it still would not be enough, says Menker.” – SOURCE: Quartz. Plus, crop yields — the amount of crops harvested per unit of land cultivated — are growing too slowly to meet the forecasted demand for food. And since you’re a smart person, you can make an educated guess that water shortage definitely worsens the problem. But enough about resources. Let’s talk about what moves the world: Money. Ok, as you may know, the power of A.I. lies in massively cutting down company costs while brutally increasing daily production and business agility at the same time, bringing down the competition to their knees. Today’s world is too interconnected, after all globalization is here. With that in mind, here’s a good summary of today’s global market situation just so you have an idea of how many huge problems we’re experiencing. Now, after putting all those problems together you can basically understand one thing: There will be a fight for resources. That’s obvious. One way is through business and the other way is through war. On the business side, A.I. makes a huge difference because of the advantage it gives a business. The faster your business produces its products/services, the faster you bite a chunk of the money on the market, leaving a big money gap between you and your competition. However, since the world is too interconnected, there’s The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence (which many people don’t know about). One country can take over another country’s resources with A.I. (read the article). And since China is probably ahead of the United States regarding the A.I. race, you can guess there’s a problem there. But besides that, there’s the War side. If you can’t get resources for your people through business means, then the next option is war. Now, did you know that Russian weapons maker Kalashnikov is developing Killer A.I. Robots? Did you know that? Click the link and check out the quick video from Russian researchers. Some nations are already putting big money on the military because they already know what’s about to take place. So now what? Do you really think Google is leaving contracts on the table? Definitely not. Because this is all much bigger than Silicon Valley, Google and whatever. Much bigger. And you bet those people inside the Pentagon have a lot more scary, never-published information to convince A.I.-first companies to join the game. Wake up.