What if the fears of artificial intelligence are unfounded? Is AI nothing more than a “mashup” of everything available online? And is there zero possibility that machines could one day build other machines, making humans irrelevant?

Earlier this month, host Steve Clemons spoke with computer scientist Jaan Tallinn, who argues that AI poses an existential risk to humans.

This week, Steve talks with computer scientist Jaron Lanier for a totally different take: Humanity has nothing to fear. Lanier argues that we’ve been conditioned to fear that technology will reach the point of sentient being – fears perpetuated by science fiction.

Jaron Lanier: Artificial intelligence is not a threat to humans | The Bottom Line

A weekly take on US politics and policies and how they affect the world.

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After Amazon and Google signed a $1.2bn contract to launch Project Nimbus, providing cloud technology to the Israeli government and the military, tech workers started to notice more Israeli use of artificial intelligence against the Palestinian people.

Many of those engineers have become activists for “No Tech for Genocide”, including Zelda Montes, who was one of the dozens of Google staff who were recently fired for protesting against their company’s involvement with Israel.

Montes and tech entrepreneur Paul Biggar, who founded Tech for Palestine, tell host Steve Clemons why they refuse to build technology used for oppression, surveillance, warfare and apartheid.

What role do US tech giants play in powering Israeli war crimes? | The Bottom Line

In this episode, host Steve Clemons speaks with Ussama Makdisi, professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley; and Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group.

The exchange of direct attacks between Iran and Israel is likely to subside, but the shadow war goes on, which could intensify as long as the war on Gaza continues, argues Vaez.

And as long as the wider Palestinian issue remains unresolved, there is little to no hope for long-lasting stability throughout the region, says Makdisi, especially with the US policy of rejecting equal regard for the rights of the Palestinian people.

US calls for ‘de-escalation’, but tensions rise in the Middle East | The Bottom Line

To the United Nations official tasked with reporting on Palestinian human rights, international law is clear: Israel should withdraw from the territories it occupied in 1967.

Instead, Israel aims for the “impossibility to continue civil life in Gaza,” as UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese tells host Steve Clemons.

Israel doesn’t deny the killings and mass destruction, but instead justifies its behaviour as “compliance with international humanitarian law”, Albanese says.

And the failure of governments around the world to force Israel to stop the onslaught only weakens the idea of international law, “because it creates precedents for others to violate it”.

Does Israel twist humanitarian law to justify Gaza carnage? | The Bottom Line

In this episode, Annelle Sheline tells host Steve Clemons that the contradictions in US policy toward Israel’s war in Gaza made her job as a State Department officer in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor “so difficult”. Sheline announced her resignation publicly on March 27.

And Khaled Elgindy, a political scientist at the Middle East Institute, argues that US President Joe Biden is a big factor in the country’s stagnant policy toward Israel – supporting the war, with some alleviation of the humanitarian crisis. “Most people in the administration have probably moved on in their thinking,” Elgindy says.

How credible is US rhetoric on ‘policy change’ towards Israel? | The Bottom Line

The Biden administration has fallen into a predictable pattern on Gaza, according to Kenneth Roth, former head of Human Rights Watch: Talk about concern for civilian casualties, but undercut any pressure on Israel to stop the war.

Roth tells host Steve Clemons that US President Joe Biden is engaging in “cynical” election politics by refusing to enforce the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, or the World Court ruling ordering Israel to allow more food into Gaza, where starvation and disease are spreading because of Israeli measures.

US disregard for international law will have far-reaching consequences, says Roth.

Jaron Lanier: Artificial intelligence is not a threat to humans | The Bottom Line

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