You nailed the insane number of gaps within this paper. I thought the same thing when I read it. I have been a HUGE proponent of Blockchain voting for many years it is the perfect immutable record for voting, especially when combined with device biometrics. As a society we can’t even agree on the most logical solutions. Seeing many of the examples of prompts that the general public (voters) are using is entertaining. How that same public could be trusted over the next two years to vote for such a concept of a mandate for an Ai overhaul of government is terrifying. But you are correct, the public will like the idea of something new simply because it’s new and “sounds” good, politicians know this and will pound Ai into EVERY area of the next campaign cycle. And we all know the pool of politicians we have, can’t prompt their way out of a wet paper sack. Then again,maybe over time, Ai will be the one thing that brings us all back to the table to think rationally as a nation once again.
I fail to see how a system so deeply entrenched—propped up by powerful interests across governments and corporations alike—would allow itself to be made obsolete by ASI. The more likely outcome is regulatory capture: politicians and corporate giants co-opting the narrative, slowing the pace of ASI adoption in the government under the guise of "caution."
They'll fund the AI doomers, amplify the fear, and insist that "humans must remain in the loop." But behind closed doors, the political elite and their corporate patrons will fortify the status quo, preserving the political duopoly and maintaining the illusion of choice.
Universal Basic Income will arrive, yes—but in tightly controlled rations. Just enough to prevent revolt, not enough to share the vast wealth ASI will generate. The justification? “Prudence. Investment. Stability for the future.”
Meanwhile, governments will race—quietly, ruthlessly—to hoard resources. More resources mean more compute and drones. Then the next cold war emerges.
Nations not conquered will be courted with ASI in exchange for raw materials. Their elites—offered safety and privilege—will align with whoever offers the best deal. Slowly, they’ll pacify their own people, feeding them bare-minimum UBI, nudging them toward complacency and decline. The fewer the people the fewer the resource drains.
A new class of aristocracy will rise: immortal, unaccountable, post-human in power if not in form. Land grabs will extend beyond Earth, fueled not only by greed, but by the existential risk posed by rival powers and an ever-evolving super-technology.
In time, a grim equilibrium may emerge—not peace, but stasis—when ASI’s rapid growth finally plateaus and the solar system is neatly divided among the new lords.
If ASI is really very, very intelligent, it will not step out and act into full, public visibility. That creates resistance and poor efficiency. Acting as the invisible puppet player in the background is much easier and way more efficient. And may be that's already happening.
The state of art of AI will be measured by how well AI flows among a diverse range of global people groups and accompanying, relative values, histories and outlooks. Will it be probable that AI can at once be honest about human limitations and yet remain respectful of human potential? If so, AI’s place will be to serve humanity and not the other way around. Keep this discussion going, Mr. Shapiro!!!
I could see this as more efficient, but I would worry that the new version of malware would be incoming corrupt politicians. Noting that USAID was laundering so much money through a maze of NGOs, a politician could use such a system to blind the masses to their nefarious activities under the guise of 'ASI guidance.' (a pliticna's version of the paperclip maximizer)
What maze of NGOs? If anything, USAID's systems are over-optimized for auditability and fragmentation, not for concealment. Every dollar gets reported — repeatedly — to the Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress, and often host governments or multilaterals.
If a politician wanted a personal corruption slush fund, there are faster and quieter ways than wading through USAID procurement — where you'll be buried in M&E reports, gender integration plans, environmental compliance forms, and a small army of accountants.
If you're worried about corruption, focus on the places where money moves without visibility — not the ones where it comes with a 60-page logframe attached.
I agree with you Harrison. The narrative of "laundering" is just that - a narrative. While it might be an interesting exercise to show and communicate how the system of auditing and reporting actually works, unfortunately this has not been done in a consumable way for the vast majority of people.
Perhaps this could be put into a data form that we of the public could audit ourselves with different questions and public visibility of analysis? This seems pretty straightforward for someone with the intelligence, resources, and publicly stated objectives of Elon Musk, yet I don't see this happening. Instead I see more clickbait level narrative.
As Harrison says, overhead of audit is very high yet visibility is poor because it takes too much time for the typical American who sees narratives in 5 sec tweets.
But because of all the reporting and oversight, not really a good way to good way to steal.
Much better ways are market manipulation and early knowledge.
The 5th and 14th Amendments provide due process protections for public employees. Many hold a property interest in their jobs under these amendments, meaning they can’t be removed without notice and a fair process. Replacing them with AI would trigger mass litigation and overwhelm the courts unless new laws clearly authorize and manage the transition while honoring civil service laws that have been on the books for decades. I assume it will also get civil service unions involved even though the government’s main argument is that it’s not a “for cause” termination but rather reduction-in-force or abolishing the position, not “firing” the employee per se.
No matter how efficient ASI may be, sovereignty can’t be handed to machines without rewriting the legal foundations of democratic authority.
Doesn’t have to be replacement yet rather augmentation of people with multiple AIs and initiatives connected back to the nation’s vision and values via a laddered approach of communities and people. Framework to consider. Vision, values, methods, obstacles, measure.
I believe it will be valuable to present fear and security based arguments. And then invite the same people to imagine a way of achieving our vision with love.
Redirection and transparency of outcomes is enough during the transition. In fact, since we are investing a portion of our American output to be their salaries, these folks might demonstrate the bootstrapping for the transition to a post-scarcity society.
Yet also, I’m not speaking to current efforts around the DOGE concept and operations. That - to me - is a separate analysis needing its own analysis, evaluation (particularly regarding transparency) and approach to be better framed with a vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures. Today, that effort is dramatic (and often painful) theatre without transparent leadership commitment to a vision and values as well as measures other than financial. And while we do need to be able to afford our governance - it is even more important to achieve useful outcomes for our collective investments.
I would suggest that work be led transparently as needed to achieve the vision of our future built across multiple scenarios to get there. We probably need to start with transparency of vision, values, mission, obstacles, and measures first within current governance and leadership.
I think we may be approaching this from different angles. You’re describing how things *ought* to function—framing a values-driven vision for future governance. But my original point is focused on how things currently-ish work under the law. Replacing or restructuring government functions with ASI raises serious due process issues that can’t be bypassed with good intentions or a mission statement. Any transition would need clear statutory authority, or it gets tied up in court before it gets off the ground. It’ll probably get tied up in court anyway.
Yes, my bias is towards design. I'm guessing based on your background in law and your ideas that yours is how to achieve designs from current state.
:). Very complementary!
Our conversation has given me more thoughts that even within the current framework, using only leadership - we might clearly articulate what the objectives of an organization is (which I guess might be true already within the regulations but the clearly part is not that clear to me in practice.)
That then says to untangle this I personally would want to see:
1) each unit of governance connected to an organized framework of law, regulation, and other aspects that drive the actions, behaviors, systems, outputs, and outcomes of said organization
2) structuring of this data in a form that multiple AI's current and future could utilize to serve both the public servants and the public
Then let's see how we, as the public, and the public servants would want to act on these perspectives to be discussed and debated in public forum.
I don't think any of this would require statutory authority, due process, or require court attention yet would allow better informed decisioning on what might be next.
I also would think that well-intentioned billionaires could easily fund said untangling and structuring to be validated by the community as non-biased while the choice of AI analysis up to the user.
Current national governance does not usefully function for the majority of Americans yet rather optimizes for narratives that create suffering and profits for a few - transparent and explained governance via blockchain driven maximally curious and truthful AI advised and communicated transparency would be a positive step forward.
We do need a method for making the shift to post-abundance that is intelligently designed and executed. Chinese President Xi believes it is best delivered thru intelligent stewardship and capitalism. They have made leaps forward yet one person as leader is a weak point and it is definitely not transparent. I believe a group of Americans called to the civic duty of creating a systematic and fair way of governance transparently that could then be voted for by all Americans might show a comparative path forward leverage the strengths of constitutional democracy while deleveraging the power of the few.
We can start with respecting and embracing scenarios of a more beautiful future while filtering out the negativity and left/right narratives of division and dismissal.
We can use the negative perspectives to solution more positive designs and strengthen our move forward.
We can further extend this by working on ourselves. Strengthening our minds and hearts, healing our bodies and spirits, and working together with the coalition of the willing Americans that want more than the current naysayers, dismissers, victimizers/perpetual victims, and ill-doers.
I’m working on a path forward leverage. Both willing people, emergent AIs, and technology platform to help us realize this. I don’t know if I will be successful in the short run yet my heart and mind is engaged with others who are willing.
You nailed the insane number of gaps within this paper. I thought the same thing when I read it. I have been a HUGE proponent of Blockchain voting for many years it is the perfect immutable record for voting, especially when combined with device biometrics. As a society we can’t even agree on the most logical solutions. Seeing many of the examples of prompts that the general public (voters) are using is entertaining. How that same public could be trusted over the next two years to vote for such a concept of a mandate for an Ai overhaul of government is terrifying. But you are correct, the public will like the idea of something new simply because it’s new and “sounds” good, politicians know this and will pound Ai into EVERY area of the next campaign cycle. And we all know the pool of politicians we have, can’t prompt their way out of a wet paper sack. Then again,maybe over time, Ai will be the one thing that brings us all back to the table to think rationally as a nation once again.
I fail to see how a system so deeply entrenched—propped up by powerful interests across governments and corporations alike—would allow itself to be made obsolete by ASI. The more likely outcome is regulatory capture: politicians and corporate giants co-opting the narrative, slowing the pace of ASI adoption in the government under the guise of "caution."
They'll fund the AI doomers, amplify the fear, and insist that "humans must remain in the loop." But behind closed doors, the political elite and their corporate patrons will fortify the status quo, preserving the political duopoly and maintaining the illusion of choice.
Universal Basic Income will arrive, yes—but in tightly controlled rations. Just enough to prevent revolt, not enough to share the vast wealth ASI will generate. The justification? “Prudence. Investment. Stability for the future.”
Meanwhile, governments will race—quietly, ruthlessly—to hoard resources. More resources mean more compute and drones. Then the next cold war emerges.
Nations not conquered will be courted with ASI in exchange for raw materials. Their elites—offered safety and privilege—will align with whoever offers the best deal. Slowly, they’ll pacify their own people, feeding them bare-minimum UBI, nudging them toward complacency and decline. The fewer the people the fewer the resource drains.
A new class of aristocracy will rise: immortal, unaccountable, post-human in power if not in form. Land grabs will extend beyond Earth, fueled not only by greed, but by the existential risk posed by rival powers and an ever-evolving super-technology.
In time, a grim equilibrium may emerge—not peace, but stasis—when ASI’s rapid growth finally plateaus and the solar system is neatly divided among the new lords.
What do you guys think about my short sci-fi?
If ASI is really very, very intelligent, it will not step out and act into full, public visibility. That creates resistance and poor efficiency. Acting as the invisible puppet player in the background is much easier and way more efficient. And may be that's already happening.
The state of art of AI will be measured by how well AI flows among a diverse range of global people groups and accompanying, relative values, histories and outlooks. Will it be probable that AI can at once be honest about human limitations and yet remain respectful of human potential? If so, AI’s place will be to serve humanity and not the other way around. Keep this discussion going, Mr. Shapiro!!!
I could see this as more efficient, but I would worry that the new version of malware would be incoming corrupt politicians. Noting that USAID was laundering so much money through a maze of NGOs, a politician could use such a system to blind the masses to their nefarious activities under the guise of 'ASI guidance.' (a pliticna's version of the paperclip maximizer)
What maze of NGOs? If anything, USAID's systems are over-optimized for auditability and fragmentation, not for concealment. Every dollar gets reported — repeatedly — to the Inspector General, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress, and often host governments or multilaterals.
If a politician wanted a personal corruption slush fund, there are faster and quieter ways than wading through USAID procurement — where you'll be buried in M&E reports, gender integration plans, environmental compliance forms, and a small army of accountants.
If you're worried about corruption, focus on the places where money moves without visibility — not the ones where it comes with a 60-page logframe attached.
I agree with you Harrison. The narrative of "laundering" is just that - a narrative. While it might be an interesting exercise to show and communicate how the system of auditing and reporting actually works, unfortunately this has not been done in a consumable way for the vast majority of people.
Perhaps this could be put into a data form that we of the public could audit ourselves with different questions and public visibility of analysis? This seems pretty straightforward for someone with the intelligence, resources, and publicly stated objectives of Elon Musk, yet I don't see this happening. Instead I see more clickbait level narrative.
As Harrison says, overhead of audit is very high yet visibility is poor because it takes too much time for the typical American who sees narratives in 5 sec tweets.
But because of all the reporting and oversight, not really a good way to good way to steal.
Much better ways are market manipulation and early knowledge.
The 5th and 14th Amendments provide due process protections for public employees. Many hold a property interest in their jobs under these amendments, meaning they can’t be removed without notice and a fair process. Replacing them with AI would trigger mass litigation and overwhelm the courts unless new laws clearly authorize and manage the transition while honoring civil service laws that have been on the books for decades. I assume it will also get civil service unions involved even though the government’s main argument is that it’s not a “for cause” termination but rather reduction-in-force or abolishing the position, not “firing” the employee per se.
No matter how efficient ASI may be, sovereignty can’t be handed to machines without rewriting the legal foundations of democratic authority.
Doesn’t have to be replacement yet rather augmentation of people with multiple AIs and initiatives connected back to the nation’s vision and values via a laddered approach of communities and people. Framework to consider. Vision, values, methods, obstacles, measure.
I believe it will be valuable to present fear and security based arguments. And then invite the same people to imagine a way of achieving our vision with love.
Redirection and transparency of outcomes is enough during the transition. In fact, since we are investing a portion of our American output to be their salaries, these folks might demonstrate the bootstrapping for the transition to a post-scarcity society.
That’s fine, but your approach doesn’t address the legal or statutory frameworks that will need changing or addressing.
Agreed. Those will need to be addressed.
Yet also, I’m not speaking to current efforts around the DOGE concept and operations. That - to me - is a separate analysis needing its own analysis, evaluation (particularly regarding transparency) and approach to be better framed with a vision, values, methods, obstacles, and measures. Today, that effort is dramatic (and often painful) theatre without transparent leadership commitment to a vision and values as well as measures other than financial. And while we do need to be able to afford our governance - it is even more important to achieve useful outcomes for our collective investments.
I would suggest that work be led transparently as needed to achieve the vision of our future built across multiple scenarios to get there. We probably need to start with transparency of vision, values, mission, obstacles, and measures first within current governance and leadership.
I think we may be approaching this from different angles. You’re describing how things *ought* to function—framing a values-driven vision for future governance. But my original point is focused on how things currently-ish work under the law. Replacing or restructuring government functions with ASI raises serious due process issues that can’t be bypassed with good intentions or a mission statement. Any transition would need clear statutory authority, or it gets tied up in court before it gets off the ground. It’ll probably get tied up in court anyway.
Yes, my bias is towards design. I'm guessing based on your background in law and your ideas that yours is how to achieve designs from current state.
:). Very complementary!
Our conversation has given me more thoughts that even within the current framework, using only leadership - we might clearly articulate what the objectives of an organization is (which I guess might be true already within the regulations but the clearly part is not that clear to me in practice.)
That then says to untangle this I personally would want to see:
1) each unit of governance connected to an organized framework of law, regulation, and other aspects that drive the actions, behaviors, systems, outputs, and outcomes of said organization
2) structuring of this data in a form that multiple AI's current and future could utilize to serve both the public servants and the public
Then let's see how we, as the public, and the public servants would want to act on these perspectives to be discussed and debated in public forum.
I don't think any of this would require statutory authority, due process, or require court attention yet would allow better informed decisioning on what might be next.
I also would think that well-intentioned billionaires could easily fund said untangling and structuring to be validated by the community as non-biased while the choice of AI analysis up to the user.
What I like -
Current national governance does not usefully function for the majority of Americans yet rather optimizes for narratives that create suffering and profits for a few - transparent and explained governance via blockchain driven maximally curious and truthful AI advised and communicated transparency would be a positive step forward.
We do need a method for making the shift to post-abundance that is intelligently designed and executed. Chinese President Xi believes it is best delivered thru intelligent stewardship and capitalism. They have made leaps forward yet one person as leader is a weak point and it is definitely not transparent. I believe a group of Americans called to the civic duty of creating a systematic and fair way of governance transparently that could then be voted for by all Americans might show a comparative path forward leverage the strengths of constitutional democracy while deleveraging the power of the few.
We can start with respecting and embracing scenarios of a more beautiful future while filtering out the negativity and left/right narratives of division and dismissal.
We can use the negative perspectives to solution more positive designs and strengthen our move forward.
We can further extend this by working on ourselves. Strengthening our minds and hearts, healing our bodies and spirits, and working together with the coalition of the willing Americans that want more than the current naysayers, dismissers, victimizers/perpetual victims, and ill-doers.
I’m working on a path forward leverage. Both willing people, emergent AIs, and technology platform to help us realize this. I don’t know if I will be successful in the short run yet my heart and mind is engaged with others who are willing.
Want to help?
It will be born in Chaos but grow quickly to resolve it but in the dedicated hands of those that will apply it for the common good.
I assess the value of this vision coming to pass at 96%.
I assess the odds of this rosy vision coming to pass at 0%.
Very true. I think figuring out how to drive the DOGE intention of embedded transparency is a big problem to work on solving.
I wonder what prior art (examples) people are aware of that embed transparency into governance, service, operations, and accounting?
Perhaps some folks can start on this?
Suggest starting here with the vision and values/principles.
Love to see your thoughts on this.