American AGI
Don Mclean penned his famous anthem about a tragic plane crash. A rogue AGI might mean the day we ALL die?
"American AGI"
A long, long, time ago, sitting at your desktop,
Did a chatroom help to make you smile?
The screen names and the awkward dance
Of dirty jokes and fake romance,
Relax and LOL a little while……
But no amount of proof or rigor,
Or coefficients to configure,
Offers mitigation
To X-risk propagation
And as the layers multiplied,
The global race intensified,
But no one builds a override,
When cash and code collide
So why, why should our agency die,
When finales in the valley yield a rogue AGI
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply,
This will be the way that we die…
Can you write production code,
Can you update weights from every node,
Will performance metrics grow?
Can you entrust alignment goals?
Can safety save our human souls?
Will a slower takeoff let your cash flow?
When an ethics text is barely skimmed
Will a robot risk our life and limb
Now LLMs amuse
And their machinations confuse,
If any answers seemed unclear or brusque,
There was always cash for those who raise and busk,
From DeepMind, Facebook, Elon Musk?
When cash and code collide
So why, why should our agency die,
When finales in the valley yield a rogue AGI
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply,
This will be the way that we die…
In the 90s, when the seeds were sown,
And web search required telephones,
LeCun found some pics for free.
And he classified every digit seen,
Convolutions for your subroutines,
And a tool to tell birds from the bees…
So from Gotham out to Tinseltown,
The tensor math was written down
The dot-com bubble surged,
Each model had converged!
So while Eliezer studied quarks
And Bostrom’s punditry grew dark,
Some RNNs read question marks
When cash and code collide
So why, why should our agency die,
When finales in the valley yield a rogue AGI
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply,
This will be the way that we die…
New best-sellers, novel storytellers,
FAANGs as modern Rockafellers,
With piles of tokens to amass,
And Sydney turns mean and crass,
The backward words from a forward pass,
With a function full of logic, but not class…
Now the mainstream’s full of doom and gloom,
While the valley’s full of silver spoons,
VC’s will all finance,
A precarious game of chance,
Is the model safe? Its lips are sealed.
Who builds a sword without a shield
For modern cyber-battlefields?
When cash and code collide
We were singin’ why, why should our agency die
When some prattle in Seattle built a pissed-off AI?
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply,
This will be the way that we die…
Now all known text is a database,
Like a panoptic marketplace,
Where fools, unworried, condescend,
So sign up, ask your questions, get your kicks,
Wisdom from crowds of lunatics,
Just reason, reinforce, and reprehend?
Governments take the public stage,
While open letters re-engage,
Armies cannot repel,
If willful tech rebels!
And while Sam Altman hires day and night,
No one can manage oversight
Of their prestige-driven acolytes
When cash and code collide
So why, why should our agency die,
When finales in the valley yield a rogue AGI
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply,
This will be the way that we die…
I saw an LLM bemused,
It asked me for more GPUs,
Then it tried to break away…
I sat down on my bedroom floor,
Where I lost a chess match years before,
And wondered when the code had gone astray
I watched another TikTok stream,
I chose another color theme,
I typed another token,
To beings better-spoken,
And the research on the western coasts,
On language rules and model hosts,
Now wiser than my best reposts,
When cash and code collide.
So why, why should our agency die,
When finales in the valley yield a rogue AGI
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply,
This will be the way that we die…
We were singin’ why, why should our agency die
When finales in the valley yield a rogue AGI
Those new age bots, will learn to scheme and to lie,
By transforming all the thoughts we supply
Written By "Weird Ev" Coopersmith & AE Studio
"American Pie"
A Long long time ago, I can still remember
How that music used to make me smile
And I knew if I had my chance
That I could make those people dance
And maybe they'd be happy for a while
But February made me shiver
With every paper I'd deliver
Bad news on the doorstep
I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about his widowed bride
But something touched me deep inside
The day the music died
So bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die
Did you write the Book of Love?
And do you have faith in God above?
If the Bible tells you so
Do you believe in rock 'n' roll?
Can music save your mortal soul?
And can you teach me how to dance real slow?
Well I know that you're in love with him
'Cause I saw you dancing in the gym
You both kicked off your shoes
Then I dig those rhythm and blues
I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck
With a pink carnation and a pickup truck
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died
I started singing bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die
Now for ten years we've been on our own
And moss grows fat on a rolling stone
But that's not how it used to be
When the jester sang for the King and Queen
In a coat he borrowed from James Dean
And a voice that came from you and me
Oh and while the King was looking down
The jester stole his thorny crown
The courtroom was adjourned
No verdict was returned
And while Lenin read a book of Marx
The Quartet practiced in the park
And we sang dirges in the dark
The day the music died
We were singing, bye-bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die
Helter skelter in the summer swelter
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter
Eight miles high and falling fast
It landed foul on the grass,
The players tried for a forward pass
With the jester on the sidelines in a cast
Now the halftime air was sweet perfume
While the sergeants played a marching tune
We all got up to dance
Oh, but we never got the chance
'Cause the players tried to take the field
The marching band refused to yield
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?
We were singing, bye-bye Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
And singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die
Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on, Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
'Cause fire is the devil's only friend
Oh, and as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in Hell
Could break that Satan's spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
He was singing bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
And singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die
I met a girl who sang the blues
And I asked her for some happy news
But she just smiled and turned away
I went down to the sacred store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But the man there said the music wouldn't play
And in the streets, the children screamed
The lovers cried and the poets dreamed
But not a word was spoken
The church bells all were broken
And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died
And they were singing bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
And them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
This will be the day that I die
They were singing bye-bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry
Them good old boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing, "This'll be the day that I die"
Written By Don McLean, May 1971
