Empowering Grassroots Movements with 21C Tools

A book project led by Ralph Hughes.

What fascinates us about this project? Well…

We’re using AI to research and report upon how to use AI to ward off the harm from AI that many AI experts are warning us about.

That makes the project pretty recursive and therefore deeply fascinating.

We’ll post our work-in-progress and chapters here as they reach successive checkpoints in the development process.

The People’s AI:

Track the Book’s Progress by Chapter

Introduction: What The People’s AI Would Look Like

Part 1: What Good Is AI?

1] The Marvelous Future “Thinking Machines” Could Bring Us

2] A Citizen’s Guide to the Technology’s Inner Workings

3] How AI Could Drain the “Post-Truth” Swamp We Wallow In

4] Case In Point: How We Created this Book Using AI

Part 2: Who’s In Control of AI?

5] Couldn’t Trust American Businesses Before the Internet

6] Certainly Can’t Trust the Oligarchs Who Own the Internet

7] The Oligarchy Seizes Control of Artificial Intelligence

8] The Dystopia the Oligarchs Are Creating for Us Now

Part 3: How Do “We the People” Get a Seat at the Table?

9] Popular Insurgencies in U.S. History, Both Good and Bad

10] Policy Solutions to Ward Off the Coming AI Dystopia

11] Step 1: Know What We Want

12] Step 2: Making Sure We’re Getting It

13] Step 3: Updating Our Methods Until Until We Do

Part 4: Join the Party

14] Non-Profits You Can Collaborate With

15] Politicians You Can Support

Afterword: “May You Live In Interesting Times”

Project Approach

  1. Start with the thesis.

  2. Identify and use AI to search for recent works with similar and counter orientations.

  3. Identify the “unresolved edge” of the thesis that requires further research before we can express an opinion.

  4. Identify an AI-assisted method for translating research into first-draft material.

  5. Identify & use an AI-powered method of critiquing first-draft material.

  6. Send material to human reviewers for comments.

Project Status

Step 2b: Use AI to search for recent works with similar and counter orientations.

Book’s Thesis

AI is here, accelerating, and will change society for decades to come. Ominously, the rich and powerful currently control its development and usage, the same rich and powerful who now cows the government and who have given us an Internet widely reviled for its commercialism and its pernicious influence. For this reason, ordinary people should expect the implementation of AI to be—at best—the familiar blend of amazing capabilities wrapped with so many downsides that we’ll doubt whether the technology is a net benefit for humanity.

But AI has the potential for liberating everyone and dramatically removing the drudgery of everyday life. Why shouldn’t that be the polar star AI development moves toward, and why shouldn’t those blessing be widely shared with everybody?

Ordinary people have not only a stake in how AI gets deployed, but a latent degree of ownership in the technology, given that AI is trained upon the store of human knowledge and was developed through government-funded programs.

Unfortunately, we cannot count on either the corporations or the government to shepherd AI in the direction that would be best for common person. So, we—the masses—need to participate in determining the arc of this technology, which means elbowing our way into the conversation and gain a seat at the table. Luckily, we can use AI to assist us in both coalescing ourselves into a potent, public voice and then swaying the direction of the regulatory process. This book focuses upon using AI to accomplish those two ends.

Findings: Similar and Countervaling Recent Works

We used AI to search for recent works with similar and counter orientations. Here’s what it found.