You Don’t Know What A.I. Is (an afternoon with Elon Musk)

Inspired by the Raymond Carver flavor of this post by Tom Davenport on Artificial Intelligence, here’s my take on Elon Musk’s warnings to a room full of governors about A.I. and the future of humanity. It is based on Raymond Carver’s You Don’t Know What Love Is (an evening with Charles Bukowski).

You don't know what A.I. is Musk said 
I'm 46 years old look at me 
There isn't one of you in this room
would recognize A.I. if it stepped up
and slapped you in the face
I'm telling you what it is 
but you aren't listening

I have access to cutting-edge A.I. tech
I know what's it like
What do any of you know about A.I.

I put on my classical music each morning 
and sit down in front of my laptop 
I light a cigar and I smoke it like this see 
and I say Musk you're a lucky man 
Musk you've gone through it all 
and you're a lucky man 
and the blue smoke drifts across the table

With A.I we're summoning the demon 
In all those stories there’s the guy with the 
pentagram and the holy water, it’s like – 
yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon
Doesn’t work out

I see a couple of governors in this room but 
I don't see any philosophers 
I'm not surprised
You have to have read Asimov's Foundation series 
to be a true philosopher

Shit I'm 46 years old and I'm afraid

There's only one philosopher in this room tonight 
only one philosopher in this town tonight 
maybe only one real philosopher in this country tonight 
and that's me

This guy LeCun he says 
Musk 
and I say What and he says 
I think you're full of shit