Okay, it’s not exactly a hallucination, but how about this allegation that Meta “willfully and intentionally” pirated terabytes of “high-quality” adult entertainment to train its A.I. models? That’s the somewhat surreal claim at the center of Strike 3 Holdings v. Meta, a fascinating lawsuit that alleges the intentional infringement of nearly 2,500 adult films owned by the plaintiff, all for the express purposes of training Llama and other Meta A.I. video models. Meta, which is disputing the claims, did not return a request for comment.

And now for the main event…

It’s all a bit ironic, as Dr. Matthew H. Hersch, a history of science professor at Harvard, pointed out when we exchanged notes earlier this week. Modern technology has almost always been regulated by governments, its proliferation curtailed, encouraged, or guardrailed at one time or another. It’s these efforts, Hersch said, that have spurred the existence of passenger aviation, space travel, microelectronics, and the internet itself. But with regard to A.I., he continued, “we’re seeing something new in the history of regulation—not that technologies are receiving active support from the federal government, but that this is happening more quickly, and without sufficient expert study, public debate, or judicial scrutiny.”

As it turns out, Hersch was just warming up. “Why, then, the rush to implement A.I.? Because it’s the ultimate con: the promise of something for nothing, of work without paying workers, and of a bucketload of money for whoever is able to monopolize the technology, their investors, and the political candidates they support,” he said. “The me-too-ism of A.I. has been disappointing to watch.”

It’s true, as Hersch went on to say, that institutions are falling over themselves to embrace technologies they don’t fully understand—including plugging A.I. into “mission-critical” tasks. In the United States, the push for less regulation and more adoption has followed the Trump administration’s calls for severe reductions to the budgets of key innovating agencies, like the N.S.F., the N.I.H., DARPA, and NASA. And yet, as Ramzanali pointed out, “A.I. wouldn’t exist without the N.S.F., DARPA, and others having funded it for decades.”

Notably, China just released an A.I. Global Governance Action Plan that, among other things, calls for international cooperation on the development and deployment of A.I. technologies—a concept that is diametrically at odds with the American approach. (“I like America’s odds of success,” Michael Kratsios, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, recently said.) Of course, this isn’t apples-to-apples—China operates a form of state-run capitalism that conveniently mixes private and public sector interests, and no one thinks the U.S. should rely on the government to lead on A.I. advancement.

In any case, China’s competing A.I. plan highlights the stakes of the battle, which appears to be turning into a war for spheres of influence across the globe. Viewed another way, it’s also a proxy battle between capital-C capitalism and a state-run, socialized version of it. “It’s a pretty explosive situation,” as Bateman put it. The goal, he said, seems to be the creation of multiple “distinct” technological ecosystems. The race is “to incorporate the rest of the world into those ecosystems.”

In this emerging reality, innovation alone is not enough; incorporating A.I. into the public and private sectors is the next frontier—even as the tech remains unaccountable and unreliable. What worries skeptics, of course, is whether all this “uncritical adoption,” as Ramzanali put it, creates new risks: to our civil rights, democratic decision-making, freedom from surveillance, etcetera. “The push to integrate A.I. products everywhere grants A.I. companies power that goes beyond financial incentives, enabling them to concentrate power in a way we’ve not seen before,” Dr. Heidy Khlaaf, chief A.I. scientist at the A.I. Now Institute, told me. “The U.S.-China A.I. arms race is now being used to drive industrial policy initiatives designed to boost the tech industry, and avert safety and security scrutiny within military applications, while also winning government favors by promising unsubstantiated technologies that, purportedly, will strengthen defense.” What could possibly go wrong?

Up yours, robotaxi!: “I was stopped in traffic a few weeks ago and a Waymo came pulling into my lane. It was backing up, and came within an inch of contact with my car. Not sure whether I was in a ‘blind spot’ or if they’re programmed to get that close or what. I felt a powerless sense of dread as it crept closer. I should’ve honked just to see whether it would respond, but I was frozen. Anyway, it stopped in time. I pulled around next to it, leaned over, and flipped a very deliberate bird at the empty vehicle. Hopefully there was a witness… somewhere. Then a week later, I saw another Waymo while driving, and thought to myself, I hope it’s not keeping score!” —A Puck subscriber

Waymo in the carpool lane: “I live in Phoenix and take Waymos all the time. It’s an amazing service that I’ve really enjoyed. I’ve never had any safety concerns or issues. They go the speed limit (I’ve never been in one that’s gone over the speed limit), and appear to be overly cautious in how they operate; they follow every rule of the road that we humans should always be following. That said, they’re still machines, and still learning. One time, at pickup at my kid’s school, there was some construction happening that was really odd and nonsensical, and a Waymo got stuck in it and had a hard time figuring it out. However, it appeared to learn from the issue, and a few days later it navigated it perfectly fine.” —A less belligerent Waymo user

That’s all for today. I’ll see you Thursday.

Ian

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