Month: July 2025

Epstein’s Political Inconvenience

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I guess I am a bit pissed that this Epstein controversy is even an issue. Not because I believe the sitting President was not involved, but because I believed he was involved. To bring everyone up to speed this has become a big issue over the past couple of weeks. Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, said she would release the list of Jeffrey Epstein clients. It was sitting on her desk. Then suddenly there was an about face and there is nothing to see here. No list and Epstein committed suicide back in 2019. To set the table I am going to focus on the former not the latter. I guess the question is we have known all about this for some time (like decades). Nothing was done, many stood on the sidelines and remained silent. Yet when political opportunity arises it is time for a inquest.

The crimes committed by Epstein were numerous and documented. There was an excellent series on Netflix and an even better book by Julie K Brown “Perversion of Justice”. We have a court case brought against his former lover, lead recruiter and best friend Ghislaine Maxwell. In the end leading to her conviction. What bugs me the most is the now of this all. We all know that Epstein was allowed to operate for years. Developing a system of recruiting young under aged girls to his predatory lair. We know he was busted in 2007 in a FBI led investigation. Only to have then Florida Attorney General Alexander Acosta agree to a plea deal. The victims were not notified of this plea deal. Why? We can only guess at this point. Epstein had been operating his recruitment of young, under aged girls for a decade. Based on flight records, we know he had been transporting these girls between multiple locations. These include his Island in the Caribbean, New York, South Florida, New Mexico, and Paris. Alexander Acosta would later be appointed Labor Secretary by Trump. He would resign less than two weeks after the arrest of Jeffrey Epstein. All I can remember was him standing at the podium during his press conference with his wife and two young daughters. What was he thinking?

We know long lists of people who attended his parties, vacationed at his island. These are very wealthy and powerful individuals. Understandably who do not want their reputations ruined. The air around the ultra wealthy is thick with “I am successful and therefore should be perceived as good”. The fallacy of modern aged wealth, but maybe it has just always been that way. The list is made trick as it has no party affiliation just dollar and power affiliation. Names like Clinton, Trump, Gates, Decaprio, Prince Andrew, Kevin Spacey, etc…The thing about wealthy folks is they have PR people who are focused on maintaining their saintly image. Obviously association with Epstein goes against that image.

The current state of politics is to rip whoever is in power down. I find it like throwing darts at a board to see what sticks. In Trump’s world the Epstein issue has found the board and stuck. The MAGA supporters are even pissed about this. Democrats are weighing in saying, “release the files we need the truth”. It seems convenient. Trump says he his relationship with Epstein ended years ago. Which it did. Problem is by then he had spent too much time with Epstein. There is video evidence all over YouTube. If anyone had the guts they would have torn this down long ago. Instead we are left with vague requests and answers by a bunch of cowards. On both sides of the political aisle. We are a country who historically prides ourselves on the rule of law. The right for justice. It would seem it only goes so far.

Virginia Giuffre committed suicide this year on April 25, 2025. She was one of the leaders in the case against Jeffrey Epstein. She had the courage to try and take Epstein down. She originally was recruited while working at Mar-a-Lago. She would be trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell, which included the now famous photo with Prince Andrew. She would escape Epstein, fall in love, have three kids and live in Australia. In the end life’s horrific scars would be too much. Virginia is but one of many girls who were trafficked, who were raped, who were dehumanized. Many of their stories remain hidden for fear of coming forward. To a bunch of educated, wealthy elite they were merely toys. The only fear these elite have is for the broader public to know what they really are, pedophiles.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann July 22, 2025

The Future of AI: Navigating the Path to AGI

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There has been a lot of press around Artificial Intelligence since OpenAI and Microsoft announced ChatGPT nearly three years ago. There are a lot of questions to ask, to contemplate. Answers are far and wide. We are in the early stages of the next generation of AI. The next wave of innovation will have far greater impact on our day to day lives than anything in human history. A lot of questions are concerned about a dystopian future. A threat to human existence. The replacement of jobs. What will the human purpose be? For all the celebrations in the high tech world, the real world is less enthusiastic. The real humans that drive our economies can only be left with a feeling of loathing, with a feeling of fear. If I ever get around to posting this segment it will probably already be out of date by the time I hit publish,

I read a book by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan titled “AI 2041: 10 Visions for our Future”, which I rather liked. It tackled both the fears of AI and the opportunities before us. What I particularly liked is to get to those positive outcomes it will take real effort on the part of both Public and Private Industry. The disciplines required for AI are not new, they have been studied and nurtured for decades. At this point in time we are rapidly moving from the theories of academia to the real world implementation of AI. It is happening at a dizzying pace. In many ways Lee and Quifan’s book are already falling behind as many of the things they predict for 2041 will arrive much earlier and the focus will shift from AI to AGI to ASI.

Having grown up in tech, I get it. The tech sector is one of the most hyper competitive sectors on the planet. If you fall behind you may as well be dead. A case in point is the Microsoft Windows Phone. A classic case of a company resting on its laurels. Thinking it was poised to make the next great leap forward in technology, only to be convincingly crushed. Kudos to the Apple iPhone. At its core technology has always been a race towards the future, whichever way the tech industry chooses to define that future. The next big market opportunity is always in the hundreds of billions of dollars, in fact we now even talk about trillions. I would like to believe these high tech leaders have considered the consequences of their actions, but whatever warning they provide are purely lip service to the weak minded. They are more caught up in their cult of personality, than to have the time to think about moral outcomes.

If you think this is going to be a blog about creating fear about the end of humanity, do not fear as that has already been set in motion. Oppenheimer and Sakharov felt these fears after taking the world nuclear. In a odd and round about way we may see history repeating itself. When ChatGPT first was released on November 30, 2022 the discussion turned to Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and how long before that becomes reality? A a crisp and quick definition of AGI comes from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt: AGI becomes reality when it achieves “self determination”. The first answer on when this would occur was around 20 yrs. In the 2 1/2 years since the launch that time line has come way down. In a recent talk Eric gave he quoted one San Francisco think tank as forecasting 3 years. Then added Artificial Super Intelligence in 6 yrs, that is when all human intelligence is AI and will allow AI to see and solve things humans simply do not have the capability to do. Super Intelligence passes the human mind,

I posed the question to ChatGPT “how long before we have AGI”? The answer came back that it was a theoretical question. It would likely by 2050 before we see AGI. Though the optimists say it could happen in the 2030’s. Then I watched a TED Talk with Chris Anderson and Shane Legg. Shane was a co-founder of DeepMind, one of the first AI companies. DeepMind was eventually acquired by Google. Shane believes we will have AGI by 2028. Maybe ChatGPT is trying to play me. The point here is things are advancing at an ever increasing velocity. We are talking about current tech that lives and learns 24 by 7 365 days a year. The fact that it may go faster than humans had predicted should not be that surprising.

Poking around YouTube there is a lot of great TED talks and interviews one can listen to. Some of the leading academics, tech industry experts, former CEO’s etc..provide in depth insights into the history of AI and the future of AI . I have watched Kai Fu Lee, Geoffrey Hinton, Eric Schmidt etc..talk about the imminent arrival of AGI and then soon to be followed by ASI. One of the things they talk about is can we put guardrails around this pending new era? I have to admit the suggestions they come up with I am not to enthusiastic about to downright skeptical. Hinton says we need to regulate capitalism as it works best with regulation. I agree but the path to do this is fraught with political hell. Can we program it? Programming is soon to be dead so it’s a time issue. Not to mention the real king of AI is algorithms.

It is an awesome undertaking of the mind to have to ponder the question “can humanity be replaced?” It makes us uncomfortable, but that is the question that has to be asked when you are talking about Artificial Super Intelligence. What is the definition of ASI? Well here is what Google AI provided me: Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) is a theoretical form of AI that surpasses human intelligence in all aspects, including problem-solving, creativity, and emotional understanding. It represents a hypothetical stage of AI development beyond Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), where AI not only matches but exceeds human cognitive abilities. While ASI remains largely theoretical, it is a topic of ongoing discussion and research due to its potential implications for humanity.  That is a load to take in, Good news is at this stage it is purely theoretical. The theory being when achieved the human brain will be irrelevant. Will we get there? It would seem that question is irrelevant as we are already on our way. How far is it off? Is it ten years? 40 years? Longer?

Finally you have to ask as a people are we ready? Ready for massive job displacement across all sectors. Many companies are yet to fully embrace the cloud and still have a lot of hardware and software that is sitting on premise. Even some tech companies have yet to fully embraced the changes that AI is driving. At the forefront of this transition will be the big tech leaders like Microsoft, Google, NVidia, Facebook, Amazon, Apple etc.. We are already seeing this as large layoffs are taking place and expected to continue. What has always been great about these companies is the simple philosophy “we eat our own dog food”. When I was at Microsoft a product was never released before all internal employees had tried it first. A easy beta test. In the era of Cloud Services this now all happens in the background without all the media fanfare. The difference is now some of those tests will have jobs attached to them. Some, if not many jobs to be lost.

Finally it may seem as one of those things you need to be frightened of. It would not be human if you were not. As mentioned technology always increases in velocity. We are entering a world where it will go much faster than most ordinary humans can comprehend. Could you imagine a day where all paralegals are just wiped out? There are 366,000 paralegals in the US and it is projected to grow by 4000 by 2033. That could all change in an instant, so what will we do with 366,000 available paralegals? The future of AI will change society and how we as humans adapt will determine our fate. Are we ready for this change? That may already be in the past.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann July 18, 2025

The Erosion of Trust in Government

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It seems not a day goes by without some cry or anger over fiscal government responsibility. Concerns about government overreach and visions or delusions of a deep state are frequent. People seem to have lost faith in their federal and local governments. It’s interesting in that the US Constitution established our republic. It created the three branches of government. It allowed its citizens to vote for representation in the government. It revolutionized politics on a global scale. For many a decades their was a country enamored with its Constitution. At times it seemed more popular than the Bible. The preamble to the Constitution provided the foundation, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” This is arguably one of the most eloquent phrases in political history (though AI seems to think this is a long sentence and needs to be changed). Yet today this very concept of government seems under threat.

When Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980, it signified a shift in American politics. The conservative movement had found a home. A drumbeat beat of fiscal and social responsibility was heard loud and clear for decades. During the Reagan administration a key piece of legislation was put to rest. The fairness doctrine was allowed to expire in 1987. It was deemed not necessary anymore. The Fairness Doctrine was put in place by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 1949. It was implemented for holders of broadcast licenses. When they presented controversial issues, it ensured that viewpoints of both sides were presented. Following its demise in 1987 a whole host of shows appeared expressing a singular point of view. Radio was the initial frontier. The early star of this new format was conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Rush would spend his entire career playing the oldest trick in the book. Your problems are not your fault they are someone else fault. In Nazi Germany it was the Jews. In modern America it was your government. He would be loud on radio. Then tell of the evils of the democratic party, sewing the seeds of division in America. When a national healthcare program was created by Barack Obama he could not have been angrier. A government program was a corrupt program in his view. He would be nationally syndicated on radio from 1988 until his death in 2021. His influence lives on,

The legacy of Rush, love him or hate him, is still being felt in this country. This has just metastasized in the current political environment. There among many is a loathing and hatred of government. The government wastes our tax dollars. It is inefficient. Federal and State bureaucrats simply punch the clock and collect a paycheck. They are deemed lazy by many in the public. Judgments are made about people that most people do not even know. It has gotten worse of late as we now have fear of a deep state. A government working against its people. In the decades of the internet one thing has become clear. If you can make a compelling conspiracy theory, the world wide web is a phenomenal platform to make your voice heard. These ideas, and some may have a shred of truth, have grown louder. As the old saying goes, “if you say something loud enough and long enough eventually it becomes truth”.

In the end this question of government ineptitude is a question of trust. Can a republic survive in a nation where faith in government institutions has fallen? The recent creation of DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) has shown just not the largeness of government. It has shown the challenge of shedding government programs. Should it be done with a chainsaw or a scalpel? During the Clinton Administration the scalpel approach was tried. Then Vice President Al Gore was assigned the task of reducing government spend. The approach was simple. As people retired, a simple question was asked: “Do we need to replace their work? Or should we reassign their work?”. It was the last time the US Government had a surplus. In 2001 it was $128 billion. The scalpel approach was clearly not the sole reason for the surplus, but it helped. Fast forward to DOGE and we did the chainsaw approach. In some areas it is just cruel. Slashing foreign aid to African nations will result in millions of deaths. We have slashed agencies like FEMA with a desire to push recovery down to the states. That is hard to accept. You do not know when a catastrophe will strike. You also do not know how many billions will be needed to recover. Most states lack the girth and financial resources to handle these catastrophes. As we spiral downwards trust is being replaced with confusion which leads to anarchy.

One question we seem not to be able to address is “what do we want our government to be”? We know the four biggest ticket items on our government tab are as follow: 1) Defense Spending 2) Healthcare (Medicaid and Medicare) 3) Social Security 4) Interest on Debt. Government does a lot of other things for its citizens. One of the great achievements of the United States is our globally recognized university system. The federal government provides grants to universities who do research on areas like infectious diseases. This then eventually makes it into the private sector spurring economic growth. The PhD’s who lead this field work in conjunction with the CDC. A lot of knowledge is exchanged and shared. This would appear to be a good thing and it is. In today’s conspiracy world many find it wrong and so they look to defund. In the wake of the massive flooding in Texas we hear discussion around funding for the National Weather Service. In today’s climate fueled world I would argue that their importance is growing not shrinking. The US Government is responsible for the infrastructure in the United States. However we do a infrastructure bill which creates jobs and updates roads, bridges, waterways etc…many call it waste. It is hard to achieve greatness when the countries infrastructure is falling apart. This makes it resemble the third world more than the first world. These are just a few examples but their are dozens more agencies that do critical work on behalf of the American people.

I think in the end we all believe we want a more efficient government. We also believe we do not want our healthcare placed in the hands of the private sector. We want our veterans to be taken care of after having served. We do want retirement benefits. We want a strong defense. When tragedy occurs on a massive scale we want help from our government. We want to be able to have good roads to drive on. Everyone should have access to the internet, no matter where you live. We want research to create a cure for cancer. To help prevent the next COVID outbreak. To make sure everyone has equal access to a good education. We want a strong energy infrastructure so we all have access to basic amenities. To make sure whatever your faith you will not be persecuted. Government is a key partner in all of these areas.

We want our country to be a beacon of hope, a light on a hill. We were a brave new idea when the constitution was completed in 1783. We gave the people at the bottom a say in their government. A vote by a plumber was equal to a vote of the wealthiest American. We dared people to dream big. We dared people to fail. The American dream was built on the idea that one could achieve a better life. One could dream for their children that they would be educated. That each person had the right to pursue their own path to success no matter how they define it. The lights of the future shown brightly. If that light should ever go out, this country will be less, the world will be less.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann July 14, 2025

America’s Emotional Turmoil and Its Consequences

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America is a diseased nation. Seemingly stumbling through a belief in its own greatness, while tearing itself apart with internal strife. We have been on a journey to the least of human emotions, one built on anger, envy and greed, to name but a few. We find comfort in playing the victim, while holding others accountable for our failings. Rather then helping ourselves we find ourselves desiring punishment for those who have failed us, based more by perception than reality. We have turned on ourselves. That is a reason why many say in this day of age that the greatest threat to American democracy does not come from external forces but internal corrosion.

The Cold War was in hindsight a world structured on order. You had two camps, the Soviet camp and the American camp. There is something to be said for order, who are the good guys, who are the bad guys. Identifying with one camp or the other. It provides a sense of belief a sense of purpose. When that order is disrupted a slow painful descent into chaos ensues, and it is not just the loser who spirals downward, the winner also struggles to define a new role, a new world order. Over time that leading position begins to erode and eventually as in all good stories a challenger arises. This sums up the American plight since the end of the Cold War.

Now in seemingly quick fashion things are quickly unraveling. We can point to several news items. We have the congressional hearings on January 6 and then the pardoning of everyone who was convicted of crimes on January 6th. White Nationalism now has a place in our political discourse. The Supreme court has acted out of vengeance. We have Russia and Ukraine at war now for three years. We now have Israel destroying Hamas while killing tens of thousands on Palestinians’ living in Gaza. Now Israel and Iran are at war, though as of this writing we have a “temporary” cease fire. As we watch a middle east that we ae worried is in danger of spiraling out of control. We have global economies that have been crippled as trade wars rage. We have a nations whose most compelling emotion is hatred. Hatred is not sustainable, it eventually has to burn everything in its path.

America was founded on an ideal. The rights of the individual. The right of self determination. We built a republic based on the constitution. We turned our backs on monarchies. We were one of the worlds’ first attempts in a democracy for the people, by the people. Along the way we stumbled. First not addressing one of humanities’ greatest crimes: slavery. Then addressing it in the bloodiest war in US History: The American Civil War. It however did not end there as it was followed by a century of Jim Crow laws, leading to the civil rights movement and the bloody images of Selma, Alabama. We also did tremendous things particularly in private industry creating some of the largest well known brands in the world from Standard Oil, Coca-Cola, Ford Motor Company to today’s Tech Titans like Microsoft, Apple Facebook etc..We launched men to the moon. We provided aid to third world countries combating some of the worlds greatest diseases such as AIDS. As much as Donald Trump detested COVID-19 it was the United States that came up with vaccines to stem the tide

Yet despite the great aspects of the US we have now decided to go down an isolationist path in our foreign policy and seek to solve our perceived problems by looking inward. One thing that seems clear in recent history is we have come to believe we are a burdened nation due to heavy handed tax policies. Even though among developed countries (OECD) we rank 31st out of 38, indicating a lower tax burden. But corporate America loves to cry and to pay lobbyists to get Washington DC to bend to their will. On the flip side the US has amassed a huge deficit (spending versus revenues). In 2024 the US deficit was $1.8 trillion. This is down from 2020 when it was over $3 trillion, but still I think many would say not sustainable. We are in the process of passing a bill that by all accounts will only increase the deficit. A bill designed to appease the very wealthy while conning the lower income and poor households into believing the bill is for their benefit while it strips away their healthcare. Rush Limbaugh must be smiling from hell.

America has dissolved, certainly in my lifetime, to one of outright hostility among its citizens. If you are on the right you are a fascist conjuring up name like Hitler and Mussolini and if you are on the left you are a communist conjuring up names like Stalin and Mao. I would probably say most who throw out these allegations are very poor students of history. At the turn of the century Fascism was coming into view. Beginning in 1922 with the rise of Benito Mussolini and the March on Rome. It would gain significant momentum with the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany. I think we all know the rest of history. Communism would launch in 1917 in Russia with the Russian Revolution and the first attempt at a communist state in history. There are really two sides to communism. One was the economic policies where the state controlled all aspects of industry and set forth 5 year economic plans. The second was the Party as the one entity that controlled government. The first proved ineffective and was crushed by the free market policies of the west. The second is still practiced in China today and love it or hate the Chinese economy is performing very well. Many citizens have risen out of poverty. This name calling without historical context is rather vile and is in no way helpful to the political dialog in the US, Once you go down that rabbit hole it is hard to come back up. Columnist David Brooks calls this explosive distrust “It’s not that I think your ideas are wrong, I think your ideas are illegitimate”. When you are in this phase there is no conversation or intellectual thought to be had.

At the start of this discussion I mentioned the innate American belief in our greatness. America has always believed in its unique place in history. We have the largest economy in the world with only China being in the ball park in terms of size (US $30.5 Trillion, China $19.2 Trillion Germany $4.7 Trillion). We have the largest and most well funded military in the world. With all this going for us why are we playing the victim? Why do we have a campaign slogan called Make America Great Again? The slogan implies we are not great, so who is better than us? Every year we seem to slide on the happiness scale, the Scandinavian countries seem to be alternating first place every year. Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost confidence, not in the numbers (GDP) or our power (Military). We have lost confidence in our ability to achieve the American dream. Listening to younger generations the idea of owning a home already seems out of reach. The average age of first time home buyers had increased to 38. When I bought a house in 1995 the average age was 29 and at the time I was 29!

What comes next? Where do we go from here? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel or will we prefer to wade more into darkness? I cannot offer hope for a brighter future as I see the noose of technological progress tightening. Despite some rosy employment reports I view that as more a blip. We tend to view success by the performance of the stock market. It is apparent the market is just for the really wealthy who play in it. About 61% of Americans do not have a secondary education and jobs have fled the country and technology is automating manufacturing that it is pointless to try and bring it back. What happens when people get desperate? They become irrational, violent and susceptible to conspiracy theories (and we have some great ones such as QANON, Vaccine denial, etc…). We have heard whispers of civil war, though that still seems far fetched, the mere fact some our thinking along those lines is concerning. Can we ever have a government that acts like it is functioning? In the short term I do not see that happening. But in the long term I see a younger generation with a different set of values. One not so rooted in money and material items. One that believes the earth is suffering and want to help. We can cling our hope to them to restore a dialog and discourse that will be productive rather than vindictive. Lets hope for that

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann July 3, 2025