The New Conservative Bogeyman Is Not a Man at All: It's AI

When President Joe Biden issued an executive order that in part called for quickly evolving technology used by federal agencies to be non-discriminatory and advance equity instead of being racist AF, it seemed pretty reasonable, right? Who wants our eventual robot overlords to discriminate based on skin color or economic status? We already have plenty of humans for that.

Conservatives, however, are losing their minds over what they are now dubbing "Woke AI," conflating Biden's order for government agencies with the popularity of ChatGPT and Microsoft's back-from-the-dead Bing service. Activists like Christopher F. Rufo (personal motto: "The Rufo… The Rufo… The Rufo's on FIRE!") called out Biden for advocating for liberal AI.

Another cited an example where AI wrote a poem praising Biden, but refused to do so for former president Donald Trump. (Hey, you try writing a poem about Trump that's not a limerick. It's hard.)

Of course, the far right echo chamber did what it does and now Fox News is blaring headlines online referring to it as a "social cancer" while the National Review says the "pedal to the medal" is on to make AI tech progressively liberal. Adding fuel to the fire: Stories about specific queries making AI tech respond in seemingly liberal fashion.

This forgets that AI tech has historically been extremely bad at wokeness. Without correction of programming, AI traditionally has skewed super racist and sexist, even on a systemic level. Put them in charge of people's loan applications or federal assistance programs and you might be in for a world of problems.

So maybe chill a bit, alt-righters, and focus on the real social cancer: People who only tip 10 percent at restaurants.

More From LEVEL:

• New AI Tech That Lets You Speak With the Deceased Proves ‘Black Mirror’ Was Right About Everything
• Oh Great: Robots Are Racially Profiling Now, Too
• Some Conservatives Want DeSantis to Cool His War on Wokeness