Is AI Liberal?
I suppose that depends upon who one asks. But some time ago, I read that conservatives believe that AI is too liberal. I’ll explain that later. Recently, the military dropped their contract with Anthropic. Could it be that Anthropic AI was questioning the viability of some of the basic principles of military strategy? Perhaps not, but perhaps. Anthropic has also come out asking for a halt in AI development. Not sure that it is in the interest of everyone for it to be developing faster than human ethics can keep up.
First, let me tell you what I think I know about the underpinnings of AI. Basically, digital and at the elemental stage simply on and off, + and - or whatever way one wishes to describe these two opposing elemental principles that are the basis of all computing languages. Basically, so simple and run on electricity, that they can calculate mathematically extremely fast doing millions of calculations in nanoseconds or even faster. At their current stage, they can search the entire data of the Internet in seconds. But that’s all fast computing and AI have become. Data Input into the Internet database is also increasing as all knowledge is being coded and entered in from everywhere on the globe in every language.
By contrast, the human brain is a remarkable reasoning entity that we are just now starting to understand. The brain’s capacity and reasoning ability is mind-boggling but entirely different from digital operating (not thinking). The human brain is entirely analog by tiny exchanges of chemicals that allow us to think. So far, no AI has ever had a thought. Only humans can think.
AI only looks backward at the past. It searches the Internet based on some human generated premise and concludes from the data that it finds. If the data is not there, it can't come up with a unique theory like the human brain can. It just gives one garbage or nothing. AI can predict the future, but only along the narrow data trends of the past. We all know that human progress comes through unforeseen human breakthroughs. Some result in trends from the past, but many are actually entirely new. Theories that come to human brains but never will come to an AI database.
At the very base of the human brain function is our memory. AI’s advantage is the storage of not just one human’s memory, but the recorded memory of everything in the AI data center’s grasp. Something that allows AI to be very good at chess and trivia. While the human brain can store a tremendous amount of trivia or the spelling of almost every word in the English language, AI can do more and much faster. Thus, freeing the human brain from having to memorize all that stuff like reading the Bible every day to memorize it, memorize almost everything and storing languages in order to read and write in them, speak to them.
What is a conservative? From an early age I was and am still, very conservative. Especially, when it comes to money, chasing frivolous fads, joining time wasting organizations, and spending my time socializing and not focusing on the best things in life: keeping an open mind; lifelong learning; respecting and enjoying the natural world the way it is and not trying to change it; respecting others who are different and not getting angry over what I can't change. That is true conservatism.
Political conservatism is something else. It tends to look backward at what it thinks was a good life. Basically, from a memory that fades all the bad in favor of what was assumed to be good. And prosperous. Prosperity seems to be the underpinning of all conservatism. Political conservatism is a myth. A very strong myth that is very attractive because everything is fixed and simple. Not complicated like the real world and full of disparities and contradictions…issues that need to be addressed and corrected. Conservatives do not want to change the way things were before, not the way they are and will be into the future.
That is why I believe conservatives are worried about AI. When asked, AI looks into the past for the facts of the matter. What it comes up with, may be distasteful to conservatives because much of what conservatives hold true is debunked myth rather than reality. AI doesn't understand lies and propaganda. AI just focuses on finding the truth. If that is liberal, so be it.
I welcome your comments on the matter. Discourse is good. Keeping an open mind is good. Seeing that the king has no clothes is good. I am not a politician and never will be, but I'm liberally spirited, I'm free to explore knowledge and learn new things. I don't worry about losing out on millions of dollars because I didn't get elected. That's why we need to change the government of the United States to short term, unpaid citizen service rather than the way it is being done today where we are having low-grade people wishing to move ahead and prosper in their personal lives in politics reaching for the golden ring of sitting in the power pulpits of government.
Copyright 2026 © Ronald W. Hull
6/7/26
There are thoughts of his that parallel yours. Thanks for posting.