This is just as outrageous as my post yesterday. Today the Trump administration released an "A.I. Action Plan" that (free NYT link): "outlines measures to “remove red tape and onerous regulation, as well as make it easier for companies to build infrastructure to power A.I."
Here is the (most) frightening part:
The plan also calls for the government to give federal contracts to companies that “ensure that their systems are objective.” It said a government agency should revise guidelines for A.I.’s development to remove mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion, climate change and misinformation.
What??
They expect AI companies to suppress the actual truth--not just whether climate change is anthropogenic or not (of course it is anthropogenic)--they expect companies to remove all mention of climate change, as if it isn't even happening??
This almost rises to the level of a crime against humanity. I'm willing to call it that.
What kind of even moderately educated person is going to trust an AI whose programmers built in special checks for "climate change" and eliminate any mention of it? Let alone the other topics like DEI.
And what companies would go along with this? We all know who--Google, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, xAI--and all the corporations willing to sell their very soul to get big government contracts to, among other things, find new and more efficient ways to kill people. Expecting corporations to cooperate with government edicts, and then having them do it, is a big bullet point under the topic of "fascism."
From now on the very first question I will ask a new AI (I was using CoPilot, then switched to Grok) will be "Is anthropogenic climate change real?" If it can't answer that question honestly, I'll go to some AI from China (DeepSeek?) or Europe or another part of the world.
Today Grok answered that question honestly. But it's too early to judge.
Suppression of an entire body of knowledge. It's absurd, it's stupid, and I can't believe they think they can get away. I expect AI companies to push back hard, but am not at all confident they will do that.
Another day, another step deeper into Trump's dystopia.