What does freedom mean in the age of AI? | Shimmy Says Ep. 17

Hey everyone, it's Alan Shimmel here for Shimmy says, special July 4th edition coming at you tomorrow. You know, we think of July 4th, and a lot of us think of fireworks, family, hamburgers, hot dogs, barbecue, summertime for growing up it was out being out at the beach and in the water and all of that kinda stuff. But we shouldn't lose sight of what July 4th is really about.

That's about freedom, right? And whenever I hear the word freedom, well, the first thing I think of is Richie Havens at Woodstock. It's freedom.

Freedom. Sometimes I feel like a motherless child. It's, it's a great song if you've never listened, heard it or listened to it.

But the, the real lesson of July 4th is that a few people in some measly colonies across a great ocean away from the greatest empire of its day, decided that all men, and unfortunately it said all men, but it, let's extend that to all people. All people are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are freedom, liberty, freedom, the pursuit of happiness. And there's more.

We have a bill of rights that encompasses a lot of these freedoms. And, and that's really what July 4th is about. It's about celebrating our independence and celebrating our freedom.

And, you know, freedom is a fragile thing, as is democracy. And there are a lot of places in the world where people have paid, have traded their freedom or some of their freedom for prosperity, for stability, for peace. And you know, I think the lesson of the American Revolution is that if you, as Ben Franklin paraphrasing Ben Franklin is if you, if you trade your freedom for security, you have neither.

And part and parcel with that is technology always has a way of budding in, of getting involved in our freedoms for good and bad. And, you know, the technology of today is ai. And when we look at ai, like a lot of technology, it's a bit of a double-edged sword in many ways.

It could infringe on our freedoms like, like we've never had before. Like we've never seen, whether we're talking about facial recognition to identify, I don't know, illegal aliens, undesirables wanted people or what have you, or, you know, a big brother state as it exists in certain parts of the world where, you know, you're under constant surveillance and it, it, AI could take it from there to like a minority report kind of thing, where the thought police are gonna to come take you away for what you may think or what you may do in the privacy of your home, or the privacy of your own computer or what have you. There is certainly a future fraught with infringements on freedom, you by government and people using ai.

But at the same time, there is a lot to be said about AI increasing our freedom, AI giving us more time to do things we want to do less time and drudgery, AI giving us medical breakthroughs and, uh, creative type of endeavors beyond the imagination, quite frankly. AI extending our conscious, or maybe not our consciousness, but our, our thinking, our thoughts, our essence beyond our physical life in our bodies even. I mean, you know, it's that kind of, you know, it's that kind of, uh, uh, of opportunity.

So ai, you know, we could have a Skynet kind of thing that we'll all be slaves doing ai. We could have a Star Trek kind of future where we're all just doing what we find really interesting and not worried about work and money and everything else. But, you know, it's all possible with ai.

And I don't, you know, maybe since the internet had a little bit of this, but I don't remember anything that has this much potential for both good and bad on hu for humanity and, and for our freedoms. So it's gonna be interesting to see how this plays out, right? Over the next weeks, months, years.

But, you know, I, I hope, and I'm, I'm an optimist. I'm a glass half full kind of guy. I hope that at the end of the day, AI does make for us to have more freedom, more independence, more being able to do what you want to do without infringement by the government or, or other groups or anyone else.

So as we head into this long July 4th weekend, you know, for those of us here in the us, I don't think they throw any parades in the, in the UK about it, but it's, it's a se it's a time where all of us should celebrate our freedom, our independence. All of us need to remember that we are born with inalienable rights that no one should be able to infringe upon. And before you give away those rights, you, you should think long and hard about what people have done.

They fought and died for those freedoms. And I wouldn't be quick to give them away for a quick buck or some temporary stability. Celebrate our freedom.

Celebrate what a great country we live in, and what opportunities it affords. You have a great happy 4th of July. This is Shimmy.

I'll see you next week. Freedom.