By Samuel Prescott 

In Trump 1, the President was new at this. There was a real cabinet, government agencies were headed by people who understood that we – the citizens – were their bosses, and there was actual pushback to some of the President’s most extreme ideas.

Then, in response to questions about his mental stability, Trump described himself as being “like, really smart . . . not smart, but genius . . . and a very stable genius at that.” https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/06/politics/donald-trump-white-house-fitness-very-stable-genius.

During Trump 1 we were also then just entering the world of hoaxes. About Russian interference, the media, wind power, EVs, vaccines, the January 6^th insurrection, the 2020 election, and global warming. Isn’t it reassuring to know that as the world endures yet another year of record warmth, new insect borne diseases from species moving north, the poles melting, and smoke-filled days from raging wildfires, it turns out that more pollution is good for us, and for our children?

All afactual, all absurd, and all damaging to each one of us in many different ways. That was Trump 1.0.

Now we are in Trump 2.0.  All the same “hoaxes” are still being vigorously alleged and amplified. But with two very important differences. One is that now we have a cabinet of clowns running government agencies who answer only to Trump. The other is that none of the old, alleged hoaxes are as potentially dangerous as Trump’s latest one – the “hoax” about AI.

Imagine that your car breaks down while you are on a road trip. You take the car to two mechanics. One mechanic says you need a new transmission and four new tires. The other mechanic says your transmission is fine, but you need a new spark plug and have a nail in one tire that can be removed and the tire patched. Yes – we all want to save money. That said, you need your car to work. That is your goal. Which mechanic do you choose?

You should choose the second one. Here is why. All of us, to different degrees, pursue our own self-interest. If you own a business, it is in your self-interest to make money. Auto repair is a business. The more they sell, the more they make. For that reason, it is in their self-interest to repair more – not less. What makes mechanic two credible is not that his solution is cheaper. It is that he is telling you something against his financial self-interest. Which means he is almost certainly telling you the truth.

I don’t know much about AI, other than it makes me very nervous. But the hyperscalers do.  It is in their self-interest for AI’s development to proceed as quickly as possible, unhindered by regulations or guardrails. Because their companies have invested hundreds of billions into this technology (and related infrastructure), if bottom line results are not forthcoming soon the value of those companies will plummet and they stand to lose many billions in market capital and personal wealth.

So, when three of the biggest players in the AI space – Anthropic’s CEO, Open AI’s CEO, and Elon Musk – all publicly warn us that the pace of AI development is dangerous because we are not yet able to keep this technology from self-perpetuating and hacking (on its own into other systems) in ways we cannot yet control – they are being mechanic number two. And you can bet your last nickel that they are telling us the truth.

All of which creates a problem for Trump. The midterms are upon us. Having gratuitously imposed tariffs on a whim, taken a sledgehammer to our rules-based world economy, effectively (albeit unintentionally) closed off one fifth of the world’s oil supply, and pushed our deficit up over $40 trillion, Trump needs a rising stock market. What has kept it rising is not fundamentals. It is AI’s possibilities. If the now revealed danger of AI is widely believed, the stock market may tank. If the stock market tanks, the Republicans may do less well in the midterms.

Trump now proclaims that fears about AI are a hoax, and part of a “sick conspiracy.”  https://abcnews.com/Technology/wireStory/trump-calls-ai-risks-hoax-sick-conspiracy-ai-136423224. A conspiracy engineered, I suppose, by the AI hyperscalers; that is, the very people whom that this alleged “conspiracy” would harm the most.

At some point, a spade needs to be called a spade. Trump has told us that he is a very stable genius. His actions reveal him to be a very dangerous imbecile.