Will $500,000,000,000 in AI investment kill America?

Project Stargate: $500,000,000,000(i.e. $500b, the GDP of Singapore) in AI over the next four years, starting with $100,000,000,000 (i.e. $100b, the GDP of Bulgaria). https://lnkd.in/getadcFN

These numbers boggle the mind. The California fires have been estimated to cost between $250b and $275b, which is just about half the total investment into Project Stargate.

How much of this money is likely to be spent on mitigating bias? What about on exploring the risks of AI? I don’t mean AGI, Singularity, or about AI taking jobs. I mean the day-to-day risks to ordinary people: the spreading of misinformation and biases. We all saw the damage that Facebook and Cambridge Analytica brought to the world. How much more damage could this cause?

How might these new tools be used to manipulate, control and oppress? How might these tools further marginalise those who are already disaffected?

Yes, there might be fantastic breakthroughs, but at what cost?

I am somehow reminded of the poem “First they came…”:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—
And there was no one left to speak for me.

The Manhattan Project, which built the first Nuclear bomb, cost $2 billion, which, adjusted for inflation, comes to $27 billion. America wants to spend almost 20 times that amount over roughly the same time on Project Stargate.

I apologise for the doom & gloom, but I have genuine concerns about the risks at play here. How about you? Are you worried, excited or both?