What we think and how we think matters. What we think and document matters even more for what we think and document has power. That power separated from you, the author, has its own destiny engaging beyond your private universe and control. The desperate concept of “unknowing” came to us when we, as the science culture, created the nuclear bomb. After the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs stripped men, women, children, the old and the young, of their skin and lives, many people wanted nothing more to do with the concept of nuclear weapons or war. But what came to be known in Los Alamos could not be unknown. The power was unleashed and waiting for a governing administration like the current one we have to truly proliferate.

Yet we are on another Los Alamos type of threshold with AI. A company has not only developed and documented a lethal weapon, it has also taken it a further step and marketed it to the Pentagon in that drunken free-for-all called AI. Now in a rightful spasm of conscience they admit what they have always known about their weapon. Some of their weapon’s most far reaching, lethal, and powerful capabilities are not fully tested, reliable, or manageable. This government seems not to care and wants to use it anyway. This Pentagon leadership is like the canary in the coal mine except it sings a joyful song at the very prospect of lethality, and collateral damage be damned. As Pandora would say: “too late folks, once the jar (box) of evils is opened . . . too late”. This can’t be unknown.

Modest Proposal for Good

Science is like the coded key card for your hotel room. Science will open the doors to hell or heaven with equal equanimity if you own the code. Authentic science finds the codes, but true humans must be responsible for the interpretation of those codes, their meaning, consequence, and powers. What comes out of your mind, mouth, and writing hand is your responsibility. Knowledge is not independently good. Mental Health experts have known at all levels what one thinks matters. Sociologists, wise mothers, grandmothers, and contemplatives weathering on the mountain top, have warned forever what thoughts you have, express in words, image or discovery matter. The world is indeed inarguably interconnected and your very out breath pushes the universe up a nano notch or drags it down incrementally. This is not a guilt trip for the runaway mind. This is a suggestion that any effort you put into knowing and thinking good is one more aspect of you that will stay with you forever and you won’t want or feel the need to un-know . That would be good, for toxic knowledge must be contained and tamed at the expense of your vital life force as it can’t be unknown. Claim your mind and thoughts first to help others. Isn’t that the instruction of life savers?