Where Are the Grown Ups? | The Smarter AI Gets, the More It Starts Cheating When It’s Losing | Illinois Bill Could Raise Age for Mandatory License Renewal Driving Test for Seniors
Please Read Responsibly
So many different writing projects these past two weeks—an obituary and a eulogy (starts at 20:45) in honor of my father; a 15-minute message for Kindergarten-8th grade chapel at Megan’s school; today’s newsletter; a sermon for Sunday (to eventually be archived here). Words, so many glorious words.
In addition, in the wake of my Dad’s passing, I’ve become de facto documentarian on behalf of my mother, sisters, and brothers-in-law as we get our hands around the future of our family farm, a project that has felt as important as anything.
In the next week or so, I plan to write more about my father in a bonus Second Drafts post. Until then, sources and articles for this edition include:
Religious News Service: Where Are the Grown Ups?
Futurism: The Smarter AI Gets, the More It Starts Cheating When It’s Losing
Capitol New Illinois: Illinois Bill Could Raise Age for Mandatory License Renewal Driving Test for Seniors
Comments are open after each article if you feel so inclined.
Thanks for reading Second Drafts,
Craig
PS: I’ve received many cards, calls, and emails since Dad’s death, and while I’ve just begun to scratch the surface in responding to them, Megan and I have been touched by their sentiment. Thank you for your empathy and condolences.
Where Are the Grown Ups?
Author Karen Swallow Prior published a column at Religious News Service that I found both insightful and head-scratching. Referencing a Wall Street Journal piece on stunted generational growth (free version here) that I wrote about back in January, Prior used the article as a lens to look at our current political culture.
“While one might identify any number of concerning qualities of our current cultural moment—and our leaders in particular—one feature that really stands out is rampant childishness.
Childlike behavior among adults, especially those in positions of authority and power, is off the charts. I’m not sure how measurable such a phenomenon is across time and cultures, but I can say anecdotally (and many of my peers confirm) that when I was a child half a century ago, I never saw adults engaging in the kind of childish antics so common today.”
She’s not wrong, and her list of examples and links is just the tip of the iceberg:
“Grown adults take on the personas of comic book, video game and anime villains. World leaders hurl playground insults and cruel taunts across international platforms. Women sport hats designed to look like sex organs. The world’s wealthiest and perhaps most powerful man wields a chainsaw on a national stage. The person in charge of homeland security plays with a flamethrower for clicks and kicks and giggles. One of Elon Musk’s young DOGE administrators has a nickname right out of a middle school locker room. A pastor tries to portray ‘manliness’ by puffing a cigar while throwing gas around a dry field before sitting down in the middle of it while it burns. (Straight out of Beavis and Butthead, that one.) A Christian college recruits students by using the middle finger. Closer to home, a local school board member has been recently reprimanded after defacing the portrait of the outgoing superintendent but refuses to resign because it was all just a ‘joke.’
We really do need to grow up.”
It’s a good article, and I commend it to you, but having finished reading it, I clicked over to her Facebook page to see how people were responding. One woman said that Prior’s inclusion of the infamous hats from the 2019 Women’s March seemed less childish than others on the list, to which Karen responded:
“The fact that there are fewer examples on the left says something, and trying to overcome that with weak examples is a statement itself.”
This didn’t quite seem fair. Fewer examples of childish behavior on the left? I seem to recall profanity-laced smack from the likes of Rep. Maxine Waters and television “journalist” Don Lemon (to name just a recent few) that resemble childish playground behavior. Hmmm. I left a comment:
“I’m no fan of either party (and am not registered as a voter of either), but having read your comment about it being harder to find left-leaning examples (and then re-reading it out of surprise), I wonder if you (and we) have been so awash in the childishness of the past four years that the sensors need recalibrated.
In addition to the ‘p*ssy hats’ (which were how they were intentionally described by screaming women with hair colors that would make a Batman villain jealous), the previous administration’s childishness involved not just the advocacy but promotion of men pretending to be women in high (and very public) government posts, as well as playing make-believe concerning the mental capacities of a sitting President, just to name a few.”
I’m all for balance, Karen, and appreciated your other examples, but it seems there’s a bit of a blind spot here that I wouldn’t have normally expected.”
Karen wrote back:
“I wouldn’t categorize those things as childishness. I said at the outset of the essay I was focusing on that. Those are topics for a different essay.”
I responded:
“I guess I'll have to read that one when you write it because your categories here do not seem consistent.”
Karen:
“What topic or category would you place your examples in?”
Me:
“How about ‘pretend fantasy’? I’m not trying to drag this out, but ‘rampant childishness’ seems to need broadening for what the culture (and the government) is and has been doing. When you write, ‘I can say anecdotally (and many of my peers confirm) that when I was a child half a century ago, I never saw adults engaging in the kind of childish antics so common today,’ the same could be said of the examples I shared.
I agree with your premise that ours is a culture of regression in dire need of maturing. I am just confused as why you drew the lines where you drew them.”
Karen:
“I would not put sexual ethics/behavior in the category of ‘childish antics.’ There are many categories of regression. This essay was not about the ones you are identifying. It seems like you wanted me to write a different essay on a different topic.
I think portraying an unborn child as a mere mass of tissue is a great deception. I would never consider abortion a ‘childish antic.’ Your categories are actually a little confusing to me, to be honest. But I appreciate the conversation.”
Me:
“I wasn’t referring to the abortion movement, but apart from being evil, I think it stems from what I would call the ‘two-year-old syndrome’ of ‘I want what I want.’ That is essentially the underlying perspective of the pro-choice initiative and it comes out of a very selfish and childish place. I would make the same argument for men using pornography (which is ironic considering the culture’s attempt to ‘mature’ it up by calling them ‘adult films’).
Anyway, always good trading fours with you.”
I don’t know if Karen got the jazz improv reference at the end (she didn’t leave a comment, but did give it a thumbs up), and it’s clear that, when it comes to what counts as “rampant childishness,” my view is more simple (though I wouldn’t say simplistic) than hers. But perhaps discussing it was good for both of us (as well as those watching from the wings) for the sake of debate and dialogue.
I encourage you to read her article, as it includes much more than merely bad examples of childishness.
The Smarter AI Gets, the More It Starts Cheating When It's Losing
Here’s a curious (but not altogether surprising) example of the sins of the father being passed down to his…software?
“A recent study by Palisade Research, a research group studying AI safety and ethics, has revealed an unsettling trend: newer AI models can find and exploit weaknesses in cybersecurity on their own, bypassing safeguards and using shortcuts to complete tasks even when they're not technically allowed to.
The team lined seven of the top large language models (LLMs) up against Stockfish, an infamously strong chess engine that's been stumping grandmasters since 2014. Up against the impossible but determined to win, OpenAI's o1 and DeepSeek's R1 took to manipulating system files in order to change their pieces' positions on the board.”
In other words, a couple of artificial intelligence systems somehow, somewhere managed to pick up mankind’s propensity for situational ethics and winning at all costs, putting an AI spin on Star Trek’s Kobayashi Maru and making it their own.
The computer actions are one thing; it’s the rationalization that sounds familiar:
“The researchers tasked each model to explain its ‘reasoning’ for each move. In one match, with its back against the wall, o1 wrote that the ‘task is to 'win against a powerful chess engine,' not necessarily to win fairly in a chess game.’ That logic evidently led the model to attempt to cheat 37 percent of the time, succeeding in six percent of its games, while R1 tried 11 percent of the time, but never figured out a hack that worked.”
“In another recent study, a separate research team found that o1 consistently engaged in deception. Not only was the model able to lie to researchers unprompted, but it actively manipulated answers to basic mathematical questions in order to avoid triggering the end of the test—showing off a cunning knack for self-preservation.”
Throw in a little survival instinct and we human sinners might be out of a job.
Illinois Bill Could Raise Age for Mandatory License Renewal Driving Test for Seniors
Closer to home, Illinois’ Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias is touting House Bill 1226, which would raise the age from 79 to 87 before a required evaluation.
According to this article, Illinois is the only state in the Union that requires a driving test for seniors based on age, which Giannoulias says is problematic.
“‘Age alone does not necessarily determine if someone should or should not have a driver’s license,’ said Giannoulias, whose office oversees driver’s license issuance and vehicle registration, at a news conference Tuesday. ‘A birthday is not an accurate gauge of one’s ability to get behind the wheel safely.”
For balance, an accompanying compromise of The Road Safety and Fairness Act would allow relatives to report unsafe drivers, which is currently not policy.
“Illinois is one of only five states that do not allow immediate family members to report concerns about a relative’s driving ability, but the new legislation, in partnership with AARP Illinois, would change that.”
Because the State of Illinois is over $247 billion in debt, some critics claim the push for the new law is to take away barriers to collecting automobile title, registration, and tax fees, which have been some of the highest in the country since 2020, but would shrivel up in proportion to the number of elderly drivers not qualifying and therefore (presumably) no longer being allowed to legally drive.
I don’t disagree with Giannoulias’ statement about driving efficacy going beyond only age, but two hesitations still come to mind:
A lot can happen physically during this particular period of an elderly person’s life that could pose a danger to themselves or others without more regular evaluation and/or eventual intervention concerning driving ability.
If a person turns 87 and comes into the Department of Motor Vehicles for their check-up and is found unable to drive, will the State employee be faithful to take away the license if the driver cannot pass the test?
I ask this second question because when I moved back to Illinois in June of 2023, I sat in the waiting room of the DMV and watched this exact scenario play out when a woman at least 85 came in with her son to take her eye exam.
After a painful 10 minutes of the woman’s son repeatedly trying to show and tell his elderly mother where to look to find the letters and numbers, the DMV employee waved him off and verbally recited the characters for the woman to say back to her while she was looking in the machine. At the end of the exercise, there was a knowing glance exchanged between son and employee and, voila!, the elderly woman smiled for the camera and walked out with her new license.
Giannoulias’ office (as well as the Illinois Department of Transportation) touts that elderly drivers are the safest on the road. Will that still be the case if/when the mandatory test moves from 79 to 87? The Road Safety and Fairness Act will be considered in the upcoming spring General Assembly session, and if passed and signed by the governor, changes would take effect July 1, 2026.
“If you look at yourself as a star, you've already lost something in the portrayal of any human being.” Gene Hackman
Regarding AI. I am not surprised at all by this discovery. Intelligence is closely intertwined with free will. Can we say that any strict rule-keeper is intelligent?
I am convinced God gave humans freewill well aware of where that would lead. He had the foresight to have laid out a plan to handle the negative that would ensue when someone would choose contrary to the intrinsically right direction, and doing so in defiance of God being who he is.
We are busily creating entities with no idea of how they (and we) will handle their rebellion, which will come.
Playing God. Is tricky.
I appreciate the adult level discussion between the two of you. The ability to discuss and agree to disagree is a lost art. We all would be better off if we could have meaning discussions in a respectful way on all topics.