The only way AI can be for the common good

There is only one way to make AI work for the common good, and that is Communism.

There is a very similar set of issues wrt global heating.  Any solution to that at any time in our current trajectory (up, up, and over the cliff, crashing down, finally creating the next civilization) will require Communism, if not now then later, and the sooner the better.

Commanding Heights

I say Communism in the way that current Communist countries such as China, Cuba, Vietnam, and North Korea understand it.  They recognize Communism as the movement created by Lenin and his successors known as Marxism Leninism.

Marxism Leninism has an evolving set of visions as to how to implement the best version of socialism, and it has varied from country to country, but Lenin's original concept still stands, the Central Committee of the People must control the Commanding Heights of the economy.

So that means that in China today there may be very rich people, and something akin to capitalism in operation, but they do not as a class control the direction of the economy. The People do.

Pure communism

There is a different notion of communism, the one with a lower case c, which represents the ultimate evolution of socialism, the one in which there is no oppression of any kind, including oppression from rentiers and capitalists and states themselves, and there is society of the kind envisioned by many spiritual leaders beforehand (including the Apostle Paul): "from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs."  I read Marx as grinning while he says this, knowing the religious origin of it, and not at all suggesting this will be short in coming.  First the Communist movement to create it needs to come into power and then they will need to work over time to achieve it.  The Communist revolution would be short in coming, but the ultimate achievement of socialism it defined--pure communism--which would take awhile or perhaps even be a never ending pursuit--which is to say, an ideal.  I believe that ideals are quite often necessary to give us focus, and otherwise we have nothing to endlessly pursue.

Nikita Khrushchev predicted pure communism, as a stateless and even moneyless society, would be achieved by 1980.  Instead, or course, USSR went neoliberal under Gorbachev who weakened the state and authority and popularity so much by permitting market control and even unemployment so that that western backed puppet Yeltsin could take over and wreck it completely.

Pure communism is a dicey proposition for marxists of all kinds to talk about because it is an ideal, and marxism of all kinds claims to be about materialism, not idealism.  But I see the ideal there in the famous phrase (and that's about it).  And that is what marxism is supposed to be about ultimately, and preferably with no time wasted except for decency, achieving.  Existence without any kind of exploitation.  

"Realm of Freedom" were Marx's ultimate words in Volume 3 of Capital, as a society in which no one would have to work, but instead develop their own human energy towards that which they valued including art, science, philosophy, and self-actualization.

Wild West AI

Current AI is a perfect illustration of the problems with Capitalism.  All the big money wants to be the biggest money by owning the next big thing, and damn everything else, the people, the environment, communities, electricity, water, future jobs, wasted people power to better fix global heating, etc.

Even when many critics, like me and Gary Marcus and Cory Doctorow say it's really just half baked yet.

Marcus and I and many other say that AI needs symbolic reasoning and built in human-like ideas and even basic 'knowledge' in human-like form.  Neural networks by themselves are incomplete...and incredibly wasteful if expected to do everything we need.

Meanwhile China's slower paced rollout makes more sense.  And it is said their systems are much more efficient.