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The Current Administration a Threat to Tech

A

Arthur Hanson

Well-known member
If the current administration can't even understand how to work with basic economics by missing the long short failure at Silicon Valley Bank what chance do they have of managing the AI/ML revolution to pull us out of the mess we are in. Vast power needs to be cultivated as a valuable resource to pull the US and the world is entering. AI/ML will be the new gold rush, only on a dramatically larger world wide scale if handled properly. This should the largest revolution in the history of man.
 
Please no political venting. If you're going to do it, at least cite some concrete facts and sources.

For what it's worth, Arthur, I don't think the argument of your first sentence holds water: you've talked repeatedly about how the US government has no business subsidizing semiconductor companies unless it receives a stake... but somehow the government has responsibility for isolated failures in the banking sector, and managing the progress of AI/ML development? What mess?
 
I'm not sure anyone is in a position to manage the AI/ML revolution today. Even the best regulators are always behind the curve with things like this and developments are likely to be too rapid. uneven and unpredictable to either direct or control. I suspect the most that can be done is to set up a robust legal framework to define some basic groundrules about where and where not such technologies should be applied (and some defined rules about how those rules would be maintained since they'll likely need to be refined). Then you have the problem of attempting to actually enforce this when activities banned in one jurisdiction can always be moved offshore to somewhere more accomodating. Though if anyone can force their law to apply in other countries, it's the US (refraining from political comment about whether this is good or bad, though living outside the US, I certainly have a view on some instances of this - it might be better to form some sort of international cooperation).

Perhaps it's not dissimilar to areas like genetic engineering where we're still working out the rules/guidelines. Perhaps we just need to aim for "good enough" regulation for now - knock off the first 80% (or more likely 50%) that a concensus can be reached on and deal with the rest as we learn more.
 
jms_embedded said:
Please no political venting. If you're going to do it, at least cite some concrete facts and sources.

For what it's worth, Arthur, I don't think the argument of your first sentence holds water: you've talked repeatedly about how the US government has no business subsidizing semiconductor companies unless it receives a stake... but somehow the government has responsibility for isolated failures in the banking sector, and managing the progress of AI/ML development? What mess?
Click to expand...
Look at our government spending in Viet Nam, Afghanistan and the war on marijuana. The government has created such a mess in medical our costs are one trillion dollars higher than Canada that even with waits, ranks seven notches better in quality and covers everyone. I have written on this in Barron's forums where it was reviewed for six weeks and then published by their staff. These are all trillion dollar failures when inflation is taken into account. Elom Musk is launching at a fraction of the cost of NASA. Just the proper integration of AI/ML into medical could yield large cost savings. Follow the money, for it tells the truth about what people/organizations really want and not what they say. Money/actions tell the truth far better than words. AI/ML hold more promise than any development in the history of mankind. Just look at the Silicon Valley Bank mess and hurt technology.
 
Arthur Hanson said:
I have written on this in Barron's forums where it was reviewed for six weeks and then published by their staff.
Click to expand...
Feel free to cite that... but so far I don't see a coherent discussion here.

What do you suggest as a solution? I'm still not sure what the problem is, and I don't see anything that would support the title as a thesis: "The Current Administration a Threat to Tech"
 
I would like to see total transparency in government actions by being put online. All public employee pay should be put online, if they don't like it, they are free to work in the private sector. All government transactions should be put online, real time, s except those involving intelligence. This is easily executed with modern technology and the net.
 
Arthur Hanson said:
All public employee pay should be put online, if they don't like it, they are free to work in the private sector.
Click to expand...
All federal public employee pay is already online. General Schedule employees are all in pay grades with ranges, which are public record. Within pay grade ranges there are "steps", which are a function of experience (really seniority). There are also geographic differentials, and these are public too.

Senior managers in the federal government are in the Senior Executive Service (SES), which has a fixed pay range, and it is very low compared to jobs with similar responsibilities in the private sector. Even the pay for presidential appointees is online, like Anthony Fauci, who was the highest paid member of the federal government. (At ~$435K/yr, it is not impressive at all by private sector standards.) Federal employees can get modest bonuses, and these aren't a matter of public record, but in general if you know an employee's grade you know their compensation +/- perhaps 20%.

All of this information is on the opm.gov website.

To attract specialty employees that that don't fit into the GS grades at all (top 2023 GS15 Step 10 pay is $152,771 before a geographic differential and not including bonuses), there are workarounds, like what the military does for doctors and dentists with special benefits. The national labs, for example, are managed by private companies, not the government. (Sandia National Labs, for example, is managed by Lockheed Martin.) So what they pay, while generally public, often substantially exceeds the GS and SES ranges. There are probably numerous other examples for competitive specialties.

The feds can also hire contractors, which are not bound by pay ranges.

If you're talking about state and local governments, every one is different, though most score every job, and job have grades with pay ranges.
 
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Arthur Hanson said:
what chance do they have of managing the AI/ML revolution to pull us out of the mess we are in
Click to expand...
Zero, of course. Why are you tilting at this windmill? AI algorithms are out in the wild, with hundreds of corporations and thousands of bright individuals exploring, around the world. Plus every major government security, military, and propaganda agency around the world. You ain't seen nothing yet, and worrying about government spending is .. irrelevant at this point.
 
Arthur Hanson said:
If the current administration can't even understand how to work with basic economics by missing the long short failure at Silicon Valley Bank what chance do they have of managing the AI/ML revolution to pull us out of the mess we are in.
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If you’re going to make the failure of SVB the centerpiece of your screed, then you best do the research.

Congress, at the urging of banks like SVB, decided to relax oversight for SVB-like banks in 2018.


It’s part of a typical cycle - expand oversight of banking, pandemic readiness, etc. during and after a crisis/disaster. Relax oversight and readiness as the memory of the crisis/disaster fades.
 
KevinK said:
If you’re going to make the failure of SVB the centerpiece of your screed, then you best do the research.
Congress, at the urging of banks like SVB, decided to relax oversight for SVB-like banks in 2018.
It’s part of a typical cycle - expand oversight of banking, pandemic readiness, etc. during and after a crisis/disaster. Relax oversight and readiness as the memory of the crisis/disaster fades.
Click to expand...

True but how did the collective "we" not see this coming with the Fed raising the rates? It looks to me like greed/stupidity failed these banks.
 
Daniel Nenni said:
True but how did the collective "we" not see this coming with the Fed raising the rates? It looks to me like greed/stupidity failed these banks.
Click to expand...
Agreed. We also know how these economic and legislative cycles work, yet very few players have the power to adapt ahead of the curve. Or maybe boom and bust is one of the most productive ways to adapt and adjust to major new business realities, because our natural business mode is only tuned for incremental optimization and tuning.
 
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