If you are a die hard “Trekkie”, you may recall the following line in the script of the movie “Star Trek 3: Search for Spock”:

“How many have paid the price for your impatience? How much damage have you done? And how much more is yet to come?”

It was a question asked of the young impetuous 20 something scientist (Capt. Kirk’s long lost son), who recklessly decides to use a scientifically unethical new technology to create the ‘Genesis’ planet.

Flashing forward to present day reckless technology…

With the second unnecessary crash in 6 months of one of Boeing’s new 737 Max airliners apparently due to new A.I. technology, that in both cases the pilots could not override when it took over the aircraft, the above Star Trek movie quote is a very fitting and timely question. It’s a question that needs to be asked of companies today who are impetuously racing to use artificial intelligence and ‘software’ to replace human control in cars, semi trucks and airliners where countless lives hang in the balance.

“How many have paid the price for your impatience(ignorance)? How much damage have you done? And how much more is yet to come?”

The answer to the first part of the question is at least over 300 lives have paid the ultimate price. Boeing is now in damage control mode, assuring everyone that a simple ‘software patch’ is on the way.

Hey Boeing…While many Americans are beginning to question whether to every fly in one of your ‘software piloted’ planes again, how about you take your f-ing ‘software patch’ and go…

Mmm…I will try a little harder to exercise some restraint. If this kind of artificial ‘intelligence’ is allowed to continue to go unchecked, you can set your clock to the fact that there’s always going to be that sort of robotic response from corporations, anytime their ‘artificial intelligence’ inevitably kills people…

While they will certainly never, ever admit it, you the general public are seen as nothing more than guinea pigs in the A.I. development process, with the holy grail of higher and higher profits being what is truly valued. And their ‘software patch’ can never patch the wounds of the dead or the wounds of their devastated families left behind.

This is an out of control Big Tech trend by a hugely unethical partnership between nothing but money motivated corporations and artificial intelligence creators, and one does not need a crystal ball to see that it is predicting a very dangerous and high number to the second part of that question above, regarding how much more loss of life is YET to come.

If one is ethical and holds an ounce of common sense, one understands that you don’t take the human element out of situations that require such fine and delicate decision making. Yet, they are planning on putting not just driverless cars on the road, but DRIVERLESS SEMI TRACTOR TRAILERS!

We’ve already seen lives lost from the driverless cars when there’s a glitch in the system or a need for DEFENSIVE driving action that the computer couldn’t recognize…Yet they are impetuously moving on with the plans for huge semi trucks to be controlled only by software and computers.

Why? You know the answer to that…it’s entirely about increasing profit at the EXPENSE OF JOBS FOR HUMAN BEINGS who are absolutely needed to prevent crashes and implement defensive driving actions when the ‘software program’ can’t do that or when it malfunctions. And when those inevitable fatal crashes do happen, they’ll just flippantly announce that it’s nothing that an upcoming ‘software patch’ won’t fix.

We’ve already seen the pictures of the decapitated driver of the Tesla that was placed on ‘auto pilot’. While the driver was distracted thinking it was OK to relax, take their eyes off the road and use their smart phone, they didn’t notice the quick need for emergency defensive action, and the Tesla crashed under an 18 wheeler trailer.

Just because we have technology that can do something, obviously doesn’t mean we SHOULD do it…But that has to do with ethics, human ‘community mindedness’ and basic morality, something that is grossly missing in our current culture. This of course is so clearly reflected by the mind-blowing number of hypocrites and/or ignorant Americans who actually voted for such an obviously dishonest, unethical and criminally corrupt individual as Donald Trump to the highest office of our country.

Fortunately, we who have such ethics and human community mindedness are the majority in our country, and as we showed in the 2018 mid term elections, we are repairing that ignorant political damage that has threatened our nation’s fundamental democratic principles. However, this entirely profit motivated “A.I. ignorance” is just as much of a threat to the democratic community morals our country was founded upon.

Understand this basic democratic precept: Our forefathers did not intend for Capitalism to become all about putting profit BEFORE the people.

That is a direct, clear and present threat to the intent of capitalism, which was intended to be a DEMOCRATIC ECONOMIC SYSTEM! It was intended to be all about empowering ‘We the People’, not disempowering them with robots taking their jobs!…

It was intended to FIRST AND FOREMOST protect our freedom from greed driven monopolizing giant corporations, so that every citizen could have an opportunity to achieve the American dream.

But the opposite is taking place with giant mom and pop killing companies like Amazon and Walmart, that are leading the charge with the use of artificial intelligence.

Amazon is now bragging about their recent roll out in select cities of retail stores with NO EMPLOYEES at checkout, entirely dependent on artificial intelligence to sense what you are picking up from the shelf and charging it to your payment card of choice.

This is all about PROFIT at the expense of PEOPLE. Hypocritical conservatives who love to claim to be the ‘family values party’ almost always default to thinking that anything that means more profit for a corporation’s stockholders must be ‘SACRED’ and ‘HOLY’.

But that is where the hypocrisy is obviously seen, because our system of American capitalism was designed with anti-trust protections and was entirely intended to empower We the People, not We the Corporations a the EXPENSE of the people. If you believe in treating others as you would want to be treated, you immediately recognize the hypocrisy involved in such monopolizing corporate greed at humanity’s expense.

So as we continue to take the necessary steps and actions to remove this corrupt criminal from the White House and replace him with an ethical and moral-minded public servant, we must also simultaneously work to reverse this trend of anti-American CORPORATISM and artificial intelligence.

Capitalism is about empowering ALL of the people with protections against such corporate monopolizing greed.
Corporatism and rampant artificial intelligence is about empowering the very few and their elite stockholders, as We the People consequently lose those freedoms and economic self sufficiency that our forefathers intended, and that are fundamental to the pursuit of happiness.

And I don’t know about you, but for me, DRIVING is fundamental to the pursuit of happiness…Americans DRIVE CARS!
DRIVERLESS ANYTHING IS CLEARLY COMMUNISM!!

Connie Bryan

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(Connie Bryan is a writer in Sacramento, CA…Check out all of her material on her website and blog at www.conniebryan.com)