Doctorow: 'rogue AI drone' story was hypothetical, not real

The 'rogue AI drone' story that ricocheted through news feeds in early June 2023 never happened. Writing at Pluralistic on June 4, 2023, Cory Doctorow relays the correction: Col. Hamilton 'admits he "mis-spoke" in his presentation at the FCAS Summit and the "rogue AI drone simulation" was a hypothetical.'

Doctorow argues the story spread because it flatters the product it criticizes. He borrows Lee Vinsel's term 'criti-hype' for 'criticism that incorporates a self-serving commercial boast': the alarm doubles as a claim that the technology is powerful enough to be worth being alarmed about.

Framing generative AI as existentially dangerous, Doctorow writes, lets vendors 'demand "regulation" in the form of licensing regimes that would prohibit open source competitors,' pulling attention away from enforcement of existing laws against monopolistic practices. He reaches for the crypto comparison directly, calling out the same figures who 'extracted $100,000,000,000 from the capital markets on the imaginary promise of self-driving cars,' and writes that 'the pitchmen who made out like bandits on crypto are precisely the same people beating the drum for AI today.'

The essay argues the pattern, not a specific bill; Doctorow does not name the regulators or companies pushing the licensing regimes he criticizes.