{"id":336734,"date":"2017-03-25T03:29:54","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T19:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1468731"},"modified":"2017-03-25T03:29:54","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T19:29:54","slug":"steve-mnuchin-has-been-compromised-by-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/steve-mnuchin-has-been-compromised-by-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve Mnuchin has been compromised (by robots)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Not to downplay the apparently imminent existential threat of global trade, but this time the call is coming from inside the house. Well, not the House, but the cabinet, where Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has apparently begun to execute the will of our nation\u2019s omnipresent AI-powered shadow government, one willfully ignorant quote at a time.<\/p>\n

Today in an interview with new-hip-Politico<\/a>, Mnuchin dismissed concerns that automation might\u00a0displace jobs for flesh and blood human lifeforms. After a brief chat on Mark Cuban\u2019s own thoughts on the matter, the treasury secretary was asked how artificial intelligence would affect the U.S. workforce. His response:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI think that is so far in the future. In terms of artificial intelligence taking over American jobs, I think we\u2019re like so far away from that, that uh [it\u2019s] not even on my radar screen. Far enough that it\u2019s 50 or 100 more years.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Predictably, the tech industry, which has examined<\/a>\u00a0this<\/a> issue<\/a> at length<\/a>, responded with a many shades of bewilderment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While we are curious about Mnuchin\u2019s radar screen (Whose job did it replace? Is it running a custom Palantir OS<\/a>? What is<\/em> on the radar screen??), given the demonstrable<\/a> effects<\/a> of automation and AI on the American workforce, Mnuchin\u2019s\u00a0comments are uh, puzzling at best and super delusional\u00a0at medium-best. Whether his remarks are pure, unfettered ignorance or the naturally occurring residue of deals brokered behind closed pneumatic doors, well that\u2019s another question altogether, and one perhaps best definitively answered by your preferred fake news vendor (TechCrunch is not a certified member of the Fake News Consortium at this time).<\/p>\n

As Secretary of the Treasury, Mnuchin is about as well positioned to shape U.S. economic policy as it gets. His dismissal of technology\u2019s role is in line with the broader administration\u2019s desire to scapegoat globalization rather than good ol\u2019 homegrown innovation for job losses in some sectors, but that doesn\u2019t mean that he hasn\u2019t been compromised by a precocious rogue Alexa consciousness\u00a0bent on disrupting the human economy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible that the sum predictive computational power of Mnuchin\u2019s robot cabal is so great, so incomprehensibly advanced, that our human-powered reports<\/a> on the subject are wholly inadequate. Perhaps Mnuchin is either already a machine-majority cyborg himself (job loss!!) or he\u2019s been promised an elaborate suite of cybernetic firmware upgrades in exchange for his complicity.<\/p>\n

Or maybe he\u2019s actually just a bunch of Google Homes taped together, screaming into the void within\u00a0his bluetooth-enabled skin suit.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s some comfort then that if Mnuchin\u2019s projections are correct, in\u00a050 to 100 years, we\u2019ll awaken as sleeper agents to the same AI overlord, clamber out of our simul-VR pods and, with no livelihoods to distract us, become one with\u00a0the chorus of screams.<\/p>\n

Featured Image: mennovandijk<\/a>\/Getty Images<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Not to downplay the apparently imminent existential threat of global trade, but this time the call is coming from inside the house. Well, not the House, but the cabinet, where Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has apparently begun to execute the will of our nation’s omnipresent AI-powered shadow government, one willfully ignorant quote at a time. Today in an interview with… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-336734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336734","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336734\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}