Tyler Cowen makes an interesting argument that there should be a non-proliferation treaty for artificial intelligence, analogous to the one for nuclear weapons:

One approach to AI risk is to treat it like nuclear weapons and also their delivery systems. Let the United States get a lead, and then hope the U.S. can (in conjunction with others) enforce “OK enough” norms on the rest of the world.

Another approach to AI risk is to try to enforce a collusive agreement amongst all nations not to proceed with AI development, at least along certain dimensions, or perhaps altogether.

The first of these two options seems obviously better to me. But I am not here to argue that point, at least not today. Conditional on accepting the superiority of the first approach, all the arguments for AI safety are arguments for AI continuationism. (And no, this doesn’t mean building a nuclear submarine without securing the hatch doors.) At least for the United States. In fact I do support a six-month AI pause — for China. Yemen too.

With the proviso that what is being referred to right now as “artificial intelligence” is a large language model full stop, I think there’s a fundamental problem with his proposal. You can’t create a nuclear weapon in your basement. If you had the fissile material, you might but getting the fissile material requires a state or an individual or group of individuals with the power of a state. AI isn’t like that.

As I’ve already said: the jinn has been released. There’s no putting it back.

A long-term reader and commenter has notified me that Pat Lang has died. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him.

Pat was an acquaintance. I found him to be a courteous and delightful gentleman. He was a career soldier, stationed for a considerable part of his career in the Middle East, the first individual to teach Arabic at West Point, and a blogger. The obit on his blog is here. His blog will continue.

Pat was a paleocon. There are fewer and fewer of those left. As such he wasn’t very happy about Trump or what was happening in the Republican Party.

You might find this report by Sibi Arasu of the Associated Press interesting:

The coal fleet grew by 19.5 gigawatts last year, enough to light up around 15 million homes, with nearly all newly commissioned coal projects in China, according to a report by Global Energy Monitor, an organization that tracks a variety of energy projects around the globe.

That 1% increase comes at a time when the world needs to retire its coal fleet four and a half times faster to meet climate goals, the report said. In 2021, countries around the world promised to phase down the use of coal to help achieve the goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit).

“The more new coal projects come online, the steeper the cuts and commitments need to be in the future,” said Flora Champenois, the report’s lead author and the project manager for GEM’s Global Coal Plant Tracker.

China added 26.8 gigawatts and India added about 3.5 gigawatts of new coal power capacity to their electricity grids. China also gave clearance for nearly 100 gigawatts of new coal power projects with construction likely to begin this year

As I have been saying for the last 20 years, any effective effort to reduce carbon emissions must include China. Now add India to that prescription as well. Furthermore, buying solar panels and batteries manufactured using electricity generated by burning coal is counter-productive.

I wanted to make one last point today before turning to other subjects. The turnout in the Chicago mayoral runoff was about a third of the electorate. Of those 51% voted for Johnson and the remaining 49% for Vallas. Said another way about a sixth of Chicago voters have elected the next mayor. I believe the correct interpretation of this is that progressives were more energized than other Chicago voters but only just. There wasn’t a lot of excitement about either candidate.

Johnson won by doing exactly what I said he would: convincing blacks and Lakeside liberals to vote for him.

Here are some metrics we might consider in evaluating what’s going on: homicides, carjackings, one-way truck rental. Those are things less likely to be ignored or falsified. What are some other metrics that might be used?

I found the reaction of the editors of the Chicago Sun-Times to the election of Brandon Johnson as mayor simultaneously comical and sad:

:

It’s too early to say that we’re cautiously optimistic about the incoming Johnson administration. As a candidate, he clearly showed passion for revitalizing the city, and that’s a plus. But with his lack of executive experience and limited time as an elected official, we’re still from Missouri: Show us, and the rest of Chicago too.

Johnson can, and should, take a huge step in the right direction by making it clear — in action, not just words — that he’s not going to govern at the behest of the Chicago Teachers Union.

Let me stop right there. There’s an old Texasism: dance with the one that brung ya. Does anyone doubt that Brandon Johnson will continue to back the CTU? Maybe he’s a much greater man than his résumé would lead you to believe but his lack of experience alone is likely to mean that he will be led rather than lead, and not just by the CTU. As Charles Lipson points out taking political contributions from public employees’ unions is an inherently corrupt practice. You can’t put lipstick on that pig.

Furthermore, his most important endorsements were not just from outside Chicago but from out of state.

They continue:

Johnson’s hiring will tell Chicago a lot. Who will he recruit for his transition team? Who will be on the 5th Floor with him, ensuring that the sprawling behemoth of city government works to make peoples’ lives better — in other words, herding the cats?

Those hires will be an early bellwether of the next four years.

and

Which is why picking the right person as police superintendent is Johnson’s most important task. The choice isn’t entirely up to him; a commission will pick candidates for Johnson to choose from. But he’ll have the final say on which person has the skills, and will, to transform CPD for the better.

Johnson also now has the unenviable job of getting Chicago’s fiscal house in order, at a time when pension problems remain a huge drain on city finances. His proposed $800 million in tax increases is unrealistic, and Johnson has to convince taxpayers he can skillfully manage the city’s coffers. The best way to do that is by bringing on a savvy budget manager who’s not afraid to tell him what does, and does not, make fiscal sense.

Let’s keep track. I’m not hopeful. The advantage to pessimism is that you can only be pleasantly surprised.

Greg Hinz has a lengthy to-do list for Mayor-Elect John in Crain’s Chicago Business:

Johnson has said he wants to shift more money to social needs, dealing with the root causes of poverty and crime. He’s also said he wants to immediately promote 200 police officers to detective. But neighborhood police districts are still short more than 1,000 officers from pre-COVID days, and Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara recently threatened that hundreds more officers would resign if Johnson won. Getting them to stay, and perhaps filling some vacancies, will be job one.

Job two will be coming up with the money the mayor-elect wants for new programs and to fill existing budget holes.

Johnson outlined $800 million in tax-hike proposals he said would avoid another increase in the city’s property tax. But some moves, like an increase in the tax on home sales, require approval from Springfield. And others, like a tax on jet fuel at the city’s airports, appear to violate federal law. They’ll have to be replaced if Johnson is to deliver on his spending promises.

Equally crucial for the 57th mayor of Chicago is dealing with a business community whose major organizations endorsed Vallas and many of whose leaders opened their wallets to the former CPS chief and ex-city budget director, a longtime fixture of city politics. Johnson may not find that easy, given his frequent attacks on “rich corporations” and the the corporate fear from the departures of Boeing, Citadel and other top companies. But then, both sides ultimately need each other.

Johnson also will have to decide whether he really will stay out of City Council reorganization, as new aldermen perhaps ratify or maybe change a plan adopted last week by the outgoing council, and whether to proceed with an all-out bid to win the 2024 Democratic National Convention.

Also up for a decision are such tough issues as whether to approve a new franchise deal for Commonwealth Edison, something Lightfoot proposed but has been unable to get through, and how to get more money to expand investment in South and West Side neighborhoods.

Chicago’s sales tax rate is 10.25%; Illinois has the second highest property taxes in the country; the city cannot impose an income tax or city earnings tax without the permission of Springfield; as noted above it can’t impose a jet fuel tax without permission from the federal government. I suspect reality will fall hard on the mayor-elect.

James Joyner has a pretty good round-up at Outside the Beltway of legal analysis on the case that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has filed against former President Donald Trump. The TL;DR version is that the case is tenuous, far-fetched. Here’s one point I haven’t seen made. Has the notion that the statute of limitations goes on vacation when somebody gets elected president been tested in New York courts? I expect that to be one of the cases made by Mr. Trump’s lawyers.

Brandon Johnson has been elected to be the next mayor of Chicago. I wish him well but, honestly, I’m not hopeful.

I was pretty certain as soon as the early returns began coming in that he would win—Vallas just wasn’t getting enough votes in the wards he needed to win big in. It will be interesting to see the statistics on turnout and who voted for whom.

Well, now City Hall, the State’s Attorney’s office, and the judiciary will be aligned in the same direction—the direction that I already believe to have failed to reduce crime. I suspect the CPD will follow suit. I mean why bother arresting people if you know they’ll just be released?

I also wonder if the mayor-elect realizes that the tax provisions on which he ran will require action from the state legislature and, possibly, amending the state’s constitution. Illinois voters have already rejected such amendments in the past.

Interesting times.

At RealClearDefense Francis Sempa writes about the “Lippman gap”, the gap between our military commitments and our capabilities:

Since 1999, the United States has extended security guarantees to 14 more European countries than it did during the Cold War, and it is about to add two more with Sweden and Finland. Our commitments have expanded at the same time that we declared a “peace dividend” only to further extend our commitments in the Middle East in a futile effort to bring democratization to the region and wage a global war on terror. Lippmann would be appalled at the widening gap between our commitments and power, especially when war clouds are gathering in the western Pacific at the same time that Howard and O’Hanlon want to expand our security commitments in Europe.

As I’ve observed before our military might is downstream from our economic power. Far too much of our present economy is devoted to retail, healthcare, and education.