OPINION:
Barack Obama used his former presidential position to push fellow Democrats at a private fundraiser to manage, oversee, regulate and, ultimately, control the direction of artificial intelligence development.
He wants the government to do to AI what his administration did for health care — to take it over as a means of controlling the masses.
At the closed-door Manhattan event, Obama told House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that once he assumes the position of leadership, he should quickly plot a course to congressional oversight of AI. He didn’t call it that, of course. He called it a “framework for a very public conversation,” The New York Times wrote.
His words: “Once you are speaker, I would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation. … This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don’t get on top of it, I think it can be dangerous. If we do get on top of it, I do think it’s beneficial. I genuinely think it’s going to accelerate, for example, drug development in ways that can help us cure diseases. I do think that this can help us figure out pathways for a clean energy future.”
It’s important to note that when Obama said “if we don’t get on top of it,” he was speaking of “we, the government.” And given Obama’s history of using concern for humanity as a means of taking over entire markets, i.e., Obamacare, and then blithely ignoring or outright denying the chaos and clamps on individualism that result, i.e., turns out, you can’t keep your doctor — his views on the direction government should take on artificial intelligence are concerning, to put it mildly.
With Obama, as with all Democrats, as with most politicians of both major parties, it’s more often what’s not said than explicitly stated. That’s where the details are found; that’s where the real devil of the plan reveals itself. Obama, on AI, gave clues.
Drug development.
Clean energy.
In the hands of the right person — someone who cherishes America; someone who believes soundly in the idea of individual rights and liberties that come from the Creator; someone who understands the proper role of government is to serve, not rule — in the hands of someone like this, the notion of using AI to bring about better medical treatments, more effective drugs for health care, cleaner and more efficient and cheaper sources of energy is all good. It’s all positive. It’s about tapping into the best and most inspirational of humanity to create and produce the most ingenious products and services that benefit all, in a way that doesn’t require stripping individual liberties, or taking resources from the masses to provide for the select few, or redistributing money from the hard-working to give to the lazy and entitled.
It’s about beating the competition — China — and beating back those who would use the technology for evil.
It’s about being American and winning for the cause of freedom.
But Obama is not this man.
He does not represent this spirit.
He doesn’t believe in individual achievement.
“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen,” he said in 2012, in reference to the roads and bridges that bring private businesses their customers.
His meaning?
Without government, you — the business owner — the private citizen — would have nothing; would be nothing.
This is what Obama means when he says government needs to get a grip on AI.
“This is something that is moving very fast in private hands,” he said.
“If we don’t get on top of it, I think [it] can be dangerous,” he said.
And wouldn’t you know it, right on cue, Democrats returned from a recess and immediately proposed new regulations for AI.
“We certainly need to begin to act urgently to address the challenges that exist,” Jeffries told ABC’s “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday.
Right from Obama’s lips to Democrats’ mouths.
It’s not that Obama doesn’t have a point about the dangers of AI and the potential for technology to inflict vast damage on humanity. Everybody knows that; everybody’s been warning about this for years — decades.
But whom to trust more?
Democrats? Obama? Republicans? President Trump?
The private sector?
The answer will shape Americans’ individual freedoms forever more. And it starts with this: Not Obama.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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