This commentary is by Narain Batra of Hartford, who publishes the Freedom Public Square podcast and newsletter. He’s affiliated with Norwich University Graduate College.
Fears about AI-Chatbots and how the emerging technology would threaten our lives and values is not something new. There was a time when we thought that there was no better sin-delivery system than a smartphone with a superfast internet connection. A digitally smart person could download a Kinsey erotica library, steal a studio’s entire movie repertoire, and play hooky at the stock market and win/lose a small fortune.
But today AI-Chatbots can do it in a jiffy. Every technology is a dual-use technology system.
You might, for example, call a gun a death-delivery system, but no one dares run a political campaign against guns in the United States and get elected. If you talk against guns, some gun lovers might fire back, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” If a politician runs against guns, it means that not only he is challenging the people’s right to bear arms, but also getting into crossfire with the National Rifle Association — the 500-pound gorilla who does not need a gun to destroy a politician.
John Kerry, who lost his presidential race to George W. Bush, eagerly flaunted his love for hunting by going on a goose hunt. Recently, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noam told an NRA conference that her 1-year-old granddaughter has “already a shotgun and a rifle.”
On the other hand, in Vermont, Rob Backlund, a school board member and father of a 3½-year-old daughter, asked a tongue-in-cheek question in a VTDigger commentary, ”What keeps me awake at night? No child is safe at school.” Backlund is a gun owner and loves to hunt but when he drops off his daughter at school, his “see you later” to his daughter sounds so ironic.
Guns and sex — what can be done? If politicians don’t know what to do about guns, and they can’t fight against the “girlie men” and “bush-whooping women” of Hollywood, how would they control social media and AI, where no one has much control?
Whether it was Dr. Alfred Kinsey or Playboy that “liberated” Americans, sexual imagery — heterosexual, homosexual, omnisexual and nonbinary — has been seeping into American public discourse, even into corporate brands. The Bud Light’s transgender TikTok influencer (10.8 million followers) Dylan Mulvaney’s Instagram beer promotion on April 1 caused a MAGA backlash that slumped the brand’s sales. Anheuser-Bush promptly backtracked.
A constant hovering anxiety in “Sex and the City” used to be the question on the mind of every single woman who met a hunk: Is he gay? Of course, if he were a heterosexual, a girl could have a chance. She could steal him from his girlfriend or wife. But what can a girl do with a gay?
Oh, yes! She could have cried with drag queen Dame Edna (played by Barry Humphries, who died recently in Sydney, Australia): “Darling, this is not a shoe. This is a cry for help, my possum.” Dame Edna had an act for the world and could get away with her conceit, “Sorry dear, I am just not feeling naughty tonight,” but what can a single girl with romance on her mind do in New York, the city of spin and sin?
Girls are not age-resistant, are they? They wrinkle. They shrivel. Men move on. Look at Donald Trump, age-resistant, scandal-resistant, making another move to the top of the political pyramid while E. Jean Carroll cried her heart out before the New York jury about how Trump raped her. Men, rich and powerful, are age-resistant, and they have lawyers.
And that reminds me of something else that was touted as age-resistant. A young 30-something brunette was shown gloating over her watch: “My husband has left me, but my Seiko is still with me.” Joy to the world! Seiko is ticking and the woman is waiting for another gentleman caller.
Talking of gentlemen and lovers, a few years ago I overheard an ambitious academic humming to herself: There are 50 ways to leave your lover. And she got rid of him, kept the sprawling house and the kids, and moved on to another city, another hunt.
In a red, red state in the South, where I was a professor once upon a time, in the Bible Belt — where there are, perhaps, more divorces and single moms than in the blue states — a colleague whose department work I was evaluating said to me in a tongue-in-cheek whisper, “In my county, we don’t kill anyone unless there’s a reason.” I got the message loud and clear.
But that was no better than two men of God who one evening came to my house on the beautiful Eagle Lake and said they wanted to deliver me from my sins. One of them said, “Do you go to church?” I said, no, but why? The other said, “Do you want to go to heaven or hell?” I said I would rather stay here on the lakeside. They laughed and departed.
Just as social media and Hollywood deliver to us our daily dreams of fun and fun, “White Lotus,” “Succession” and more, godly men are always ready to deliver us from our daily sins. But AI-Chatbots promise to do more.