I have envisaged a scenario in which the US intelligence community has an interagency working group on AI, and Toner and McCauley were its defacto representatives on the OpenAI board, Toner for CIA, McCauley for NSA. Maybe someone who has studied the history of the board can tell me whether that makes sense, in terms of its shifting factions.
Why would Toner be related to the CIA, and how is McCauley NSA?
If OpenaI is running out money, and is too dependent on Microsoft, defense/intelligence/government is not the worst place for them to look for money. There are even possible futures where they are partially nationalised in a crisis. Or perhaps they will help with regulatory assessment. This possibility certainly makes the Larry Summers appointment take on a different’t light with his ties to not only Microsoft, but also the Government.
Toner’s employer, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), was founded by Jason Matheny. Matheny was previously the Director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), and is currently CEO of the RAND Corporation. CSET is currently led by Dewey Murdick, who previously worked at the Department of Homeland Security and at IARPA. Much of CSET’s initial staff was former (or “former”) U.S. intelligence analysts, although IIRC they were from military intelligence rather than the CIA specifically. Today many of CSET’s researchers list prior experience with U.S. civilian intelligence, military intelligence, or defense intelligence contractors. Given the overlap in staff and mission, U.S. intelligence clearly and explicitly has a lot of influence at CSET, and it’s reasonable to suspect a stronger connection than that.
Why would Toner be related to the CIA, and how is McCauley NSA?
Toner’s university has a long history of association with the CIA. Just google “georgetown cia” and you’ll see more than I can summarize.
As for McCauley, well, I did call this a “scenario”… The movie maker Oliver Stone rivals Chomsky as the voice of an elite political counterculture who are deadly serious in their opposition to what the American deep state gets up to, and whose ranks include former insiders who became leakers, whistleblowers, and ideological opponents of the system. When Stone, already known as a Wikileaks supporter, decided to turn his attention to NSA’s celebrity defector Edward Snowden, he ended up casting McCauley’s actor boyfriend as the star.
My hunch, my scenario, is that people associated with the agency, or formerly associated with the agency, put him forward for the role, with part of the reason being that he was already dating one of their own. What we know about her CV—robotics, geographic information systems, speaks Arabic, mentored by Alan Kay—obviously doesn’t prove anything, but it’s enough to make this scenario work, as a possibility.
I have envisaged a scenario in which the US intelligence community has an interagency working group on AI, and Toner and McCauley were its defacto representatives on the OpenAI board, Toner for CIA, McCauley for NSA. Maybe someone who has studied the history of the board can tell me whether that makes sense, in terms of its shifting factions.
Why would Toner be related to the CIA, and how is McCauley NSA?
If OpenaI is running out money, and is too dependent on Microsoft, defense/intelligence/government is not the worst place for them to look for money. There are even possible futures where they are partially nationalised in a crisis. Or perhaps they will help with regulatory assessment. This possibility certainly makes the Larry Summers appointment take on a different’t light with his ties to not only Microsoft, but also the Government.
Toner’s employer, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET), was founded by Jason Matheny. Matheny was previously the Director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), and is currently CEO of the RAND Corporation. CSET is currently led by Dewey Murdick, who previously worked at the Department of Homeland Security and at IARPA. Much of CSET’s initial staff was former (or “former”) U.S. intelligence analysts, although IIRC they were from military intelligence rather than the CIA specifically. Today many of CSET’s researchers list prior experience with U.S. civilian intelligence, military intelligence, or defense intelligence contractors. Given the overlap in staff and mission, U.S. intelligence clearly and explicitly has a lot of influence at CSET, and it’s reasonable to suspect a stronger connection than that.
I don’t see it for McCauley though.
Toner’s university has a long history of association with the CIA. Just google “georgetown cia” and you’ll see more than I can summarize.
As for McCauley, well, I did call this a “scenario”… The movie maker Oliver Stone rivals Chomsky as the voice of an elite political counterculture who are deadly serious in their opposition to what the American deep state gets up to, and whose ranks include former insiders who became leakers, whistleblowers, and ideological opponents of the system. When Stone, already known as a Wikileaks supporter, decided to turn his attention to NSA’s celebrity defector Edward Snowden, he ended up casting McCauley’s actor boyfriend as the star.
My hunch, my scenario, is that people associated with the agency, or formerly associated with the agency, put him forward for the role, with part of the reason being that he was already dating one of their own. What we know about her CV—robotics, geographic information systems, speaks Arabic, mentored by Alan Kay—obviously doesn’t prove anything, but it’s enough to make this scenario work, as a possibility.