[throwanem]

> What does anyone care what that war criminal Kissinger thinks?

I addressed that point elsewhere. [1] I'll expand on that here by saying that I don't know or care what Kissinger thinks, but as an eternal student of the present moment I do pay attention to what he says, because so do a lot of other people and because he hasn't spoken only for himself in public since well before I was born if ever. One doesn't therefore need to believe what he says, of course, but petulantly refusing even to attend or consider the fact it's him saying it is like disregarding Cicero's place in Roman history because you think he personally was an asshole. (He was an asshole! But an asshole can still need taking seriously.)

The opinion section of a modern paper is written for the rubes. The Journal's is no different - which is why Kissinger is a sometime contributor there, in general. Even so, finding Kissinger there alongside gray eminences drawn from both the academic and the industrial tendencies of computing is novel. The byline is a tour-de-force performance of authoritative knowledge, partly to reassure any rubes who do remember Theranos, mostly on behalf of arguing that AI is a new thing in the world and will produce a new humanity altogether - or, stripping the text of esoteric baggage, that AI is the mother and grandmother of all growth sectors, and can't help but produce enormous returns for anyone who pours funding into it early.

People will act on that, is the point that I'm making, and I wouldn't assume it will be limited only to funding or only to the private sector. More people will be trying to make an AI future happen tomorrow than were trying to do that last week.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34942962