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Revision as of 08:58, 16 November 2023
, 16 November 2023→AI overreach
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===AI overreach=== | ===AI overreach=== | ||
The magic of sufficiently advanced technologies like artificial intelligence induces us to look too far ahead. We see an AI art generator and immediately conclude that the highest order of human intellectual achievement is at stake. Not only does reducing art to “[[Bayesian prior]]s” stunningly miss the point about art — in a strangely artificially intelligent way, ironically — but it is to skip over all the easier, drearier, more machine-like tasks with which the human intellect is still burdened | The magic of sufficiently advanced technologies like artificial intelligence induces us to look too far ahead. We see an AI art generator and immediately conclude that the highest order of human intellectual achievement is at stake. Not only does reducing art to “[[Bayesian prior]]s” stunningly miss the point about art — in a strangely artificially intelligent way, ironically — but it is to skip over all the easier, drearier, more machine-like tasks with which the human intellect is still burdened, got which there is apparently no technological resolution in sight. Machines that can fold washing, remember where you put the car keys, weed out fake news, and wipe down the kitchen table. Imagine a machine that could search through all the billions of books and recordings and surface the undiscovered genius, to give the Bayesian priors a chance? | ||
''This is not just the Spotify algorithm'', as occasionally delightful as that is. That has its own revenue maximisation as it's primary goal, and reader enlightenment is an occasional by product. That will serve up the reader’s personal “[[cheesecake for the brain]]”. Per Anita elberse’s {{br|The Blockbuster Effect}} commercial algorithms have had the counter-intuitive effect of ''truncating'' the [[long tail]] as envisioned by Wired’s Chris Anderson. A sensible use for this technology would ''extend'' it. | |||
This would be a personal LLM, private to the user, free, therefore, of data privacy concerns, that would pattern-match purely by reference to the user’s actual reading habits, instructions and the recommendations of like-minded readers. This algorithm would be tasked with ''diversifying'' — finding undiscovered works — rather than ''converging'' — gravitating towards common, popular, commercially promoted ones. | |||
A rudimentary version of this exists in the LibraryThing recommendation engine, but the scope, with artificial intelligence is huge. | |||
This role — seeking out delightful new human endeavours — would be a valuable role ''that is quite beyond the capability of a human'' and which would not devalue, much less usurp the value of human intellectual capacity, but ''empower'' it. This is a suitable application for technology. It respects the division of labour between human and machine. | |||
Note also the system effect it would have: it would encourage people to create unique and idiosyncratic things. It would distribute wealth along the curve, rather than concentrating it at the top. | |||
We have lying all around us, unused, petabytes of human ingenuity, voluntarily donated into the indifferent maw of the internet. ''We are not lacking ingenuity''. This is one problem homo sapiens ''does not have''. Why would we spend our energy on creating artificial sources of new intelligence?Surely the best way of using this brilliant new generation of machine is to harness the ingenuity that is literally lying around. | |||
The JC is not at all bearish on technology in general, or artificial intelligence in particular. He’s just bearish on dopey applications for it. | |||
Information technology has done a fabulous job of alleviating boredom, by filling our empty moments with a 5-inch rectangle of gossip, outrage and titillation, but it has done little to nourish the intellect. This is a function of the choices me have made. They, in turn are informed by the interests. Maybe we are missing something by never being bored. Maybe that is a clear space where imagination can run wild. Perhaps being fearful of boredom, by constantly distracting ourselves from our own existential anguish, we make ourselves vulnerable to this two-dimensional online world. | |||
===A real challenger bank=== | ===A real challenger bank=== | ||