hansh51

Genesis

Published on August 12, 2025 by hansh51Leave a comment

This could easily be called a book review. The book by the late Dr Henry Kissinger, former Microsoft CTO Craig Mundie, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. The book, after all, is titled “Genesis”. And in a way the title is appropriate, Genesis is the biblical tale of the beginnings of man. The lovely story of Adam and Eve. When life was innocent. But in innocence evil finds an easy victim. Eve meets the serpent in the Garden of Eden. She is tempted to bite the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and does. There we have it: the original sin. The book however does not contain a new original sin. The definition of Genesis is “the origin or mode of formation of something”. We are now at a new beginning. We are long past the formation of man but at the birth of Artificial Intelligence. We are at the formation of something new and awesome.

What is this something? While the tale of Adam and Eve can be viewed as myth, this story is right in front of us. We have been preparing for this moment since 1958. That was when an engineer at Texas Instruments built the first integrated circuit. Jack Kilby has passed, but the legend remains. This laid the foundation for what would become the Technology Industry. Since that time the pace of technology has been on an accelerated path. It seems like yesterday when I was at Microsoft we were trying to pass our certification for MS-DOS 5.0. That was 1992. In the 30+ years since then the industry has continued to innovate at an accelerated pace. We commercialized the internet. Launched the iPhone. Built the cloud. Now we are on the cusp of a new era of intelligence. The future will come as to when I do not know. As famous Business Intelligence guru Bill Baker said, “The future comes slowly, change happens quickly”.

What the book does ask is about this race to build and control AI. It will end when super intelligence is realized. By then, we will have accomplished a goal of a new order. For centuries now the apex predator on planet earth has been mankind. When super intelligence is realized that will no longer be true. That is a daunting reality. Super Intelligence will be able to look at things and find complex patterns that humans could not discover. In the realm of research there will be no human equal. All the human race can do is sit on the sidelines and watch in awe. At some point between AGI and ASI the jump will be made from the digital realm to the physical realm. What form it will take when this jump is made we do not know. I was thinking the Stay Puff marshmallow man. I ran this joke by Mundie and Schmidt, but it turns out tech execs have limited capacity for humor. Assuming the physical AI will have two arms and two legs seems obvious. However, given we are talking ASI, it may have a better design in mind.

A common question being asked is as we move forward what will be the purpose of humanity? Many execs say new training will be needed for this new economy. I get it. The questions I always have is what kind of training? What education level will be needed? If it is at least a bachelors, that is problematic. According to College Transitions website only 37.7 percent of US citizens have a college degree. Which raises another set if questions. What kind of degree will you need? If you are pursuing a LIberal Arts degree or Math degree are you wasting time? Will ASI in physical realm replace all blue collar jobs? How will the 62.3% make a living? Will we need a Universal Basic Income? There are already examples in China of robots doing drywall work. According to AI there are 116,400 drywallers employed in US. What will their pending new line of work be? Depending on ASI’s intent will it take over Mexican the drug cartels? Random thought on my part. Turns out AI says Mexican drug cartels employs 175,000 people. I guess big question here is will ASI be here for the good of humanity or its detriment?

As we started with a quick review of the tale of Adam and Eve its worthy to note its progression. The new story of innocence will not be nearly the same. The tree of knowledge has grown and multiplied as the passage of time has only increased humanities hunger to learn. The path was set in motion through the age of discovery with Columbus and Magellan. The sciences began to emerge through Newton and Galileo. Aristotle laid the foundations of democracy. Through the ages they continued to share and grow giving us Edison, Tesla, Einstein and Oppenheimer. All along the way pushing humanity forward. Now we come towards its destined conclusion, our replacement. We are at the beginning or origin of a new being. One that will be superior to our own species. It was Eric Schmidt who was once asked “what is Artificial General Intelligence”? His reply, “Self determination”. What will this new intelligence make of its human creators? What will it decide?

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann August 12, 2025

Trouble with Tariffs

Published on August 6, 2025 by hansh51Leave a comment

It seems not a day goes by where we are not inundated with the word “tariffs”. Not that they are new, but that they are being used in new and naive ways. The American public is being fed a plethora of great and terrible news based on the messenger. Is it a revenue generating machine or a tax? Who is paying? To be clear here it is not the exporter. Does it give us leverage in the negotiations? A short versus long term question. Manufacturing will be brought back to America and create jobs. We will never be going back to the fifties, but some will try. Foreign nations with a trade surplus with the United States have been screwing us for decades. Maximizing shareholder wealth would say otherwise. Will inflation come back with a vengeance? It almost certainly will. In the end we are left with uncertainty. Global markets hate uncertainty.

Tariffs are pretty simple, they are a tax on American consumers. The Country levies a 25% tariff which the importer pays upon receipt of the goods. The importer than must decide do I eat the cost of the increase in cost or pass onto to consumers. Since eating the cost eats into profits the latter is usually preferred. Tariffs were one of those things you learned about in business school. A pretty simple device for aiding domestic industry. The steel industry was always a good case study. Unable to compete against foreign competitors from South Korea and Japan. The US government many times has issued tariffs to help make US Steel producers more competitive with foreign competition. But this is a individual industry case. Today we are looking at Tariffs more broadly. Blanket tariffs on entire countries.

One thing that gets underestimated in this disputes is foreign nationalism. In Denmark for example they are learning to not to be dependent on US manufactured or produced goods. They do not need Coca-Cola they have local colas they can turn to. On the labels of goods it is marked if it is made in European Union. The arrogance of the US is the belief that the world cannot live without us. This is always mystifying to me (USAID could be the subject of another post). Can a German citizen live without Nike? Probably very well. The Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, out lined to her a country a whole list of alternatives to American goods. Buy Mexican…sounds kinda familiar. Countries when challenged or threatened look inward for solutions

China is the big target with tariffs. China has the largest trade surplus with the United States. In 2024 the United States had a goods trade deficit with China of $295.4 billion, according to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) (.gov). This represents a 5.8% increase, or $16.3 billion, compared to the previous year. A massive amount by any stretch of the imagination. China also holds $784.3 Billion in US Treasury Bills. This is down from the peak in November 2014 of $1.3 Trillion. During this Trump tantrum they have not played along. Though it looks like Trump will be visiting China in the near future. The difference with China is that it is the world’s second largest economy. It does have levers it can pull, unlike other nations. Given that we are adversaries I think it odd that China buys US Treasuries thus funding the US war machine. Though the downward direction I expect to continue. This would mean the United States needs someone else to pick up the tab. China also plays the currency markets. China pegged its currency from 1997 to 2005 to the U.S. dollar but since has managed its currency against a basket of currencies. The effect of the peg and the low currency is that Chinese exports are cheaper and, therefore, more attractive compared to those of other nations. China is investing heavily in tech and competing aggressively with the US. Thinking that China would bend the knee to US pressure was never a wise strategy.

The biggest issue facing the world is US leadership. In three years when there is another election the administration will change. Trump says he will try to change the election system. He wants to run again, however, he will be 82 years old. Thus the world can play the long game and wait until they get a more favorable alternative. The US capitalist system is designed for the short run. The two part election system is designed for the short run. As former House Speaker Tip O’Niel said, all politics is local. Most voters want to know, “What have you done for me lately”? Countries like China are thousands of years old. A decade is but a blip in time. WIll tariffs generate success for the US? I am skeptical as it has created an environment where the US is viewed as not trustworthy. The costs will be passed to US consumers, effectively a tax. Higher costs equals inflation and no Presidential candidate survives inflation. Just ask Joe Biden. In my view when it comes to Tariff’s 101 the current admin has a failing grade. They are treating the public as if they are dumb. We can read and the logic of tariffs is not that difficult. We have come across as a uncivil society. When you are the largest economy on the planet it is hard to argue you are being screwed. Threatening trading partners will have long term consequences. I am not too concerned about the US economy in the next 1-2 years but in the next 4 to 5 years….yes I am.

Good Night and Good Luck

Hans Henrik Hoffmann

August 6, 2025

Epstein’s Political Inconvenience

Published on July 23, 2025July 23, 2025 by hansh51Leave a comment

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

Published on July 18, 2025July 18, 2025 by hansh51Leave a comment

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

Published on July 14, 2025 by hansh51Leave a comment

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