81,898
edits
A World Without Work: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 14: | Line 14: | ||
[[This time it’s different|This time is ''not'' different]]. | [[This time it’s different|This time is ''not'' different]]. | ||
=== | ===But [[chess]]-playing supercomputers - === | ||
Hand-waving about [[Chess]] and [[Go]]-playing supercomputers — there is a lot of that in {{br|A World Without Work}} — does not change anything. In the world of [[systems analysis]], [[Chess]] and [[Go]] are [[complicated]], not [[complex]], problems. Both are hermetically and — ahh — ''[[hermeneutics|hermeneutically]]'' sealed zero-sum games on small, finite boards with simple sets of unvarying rules between two players sharing a common and static objective. Their risk payoff is normal, not exponential. They can, in theory, be “brute force” managed by skilled operation of an algorithm, and the consequences of failure are predictable and contained — you lose. | Hand-waving about [[Chess]] and [[Go]]-playing supercomputers — there is a lot of that in {{br|A World Without Work}} — does not change anything. In the world of [[systems analysis]], [[Chess]] and [[Go]] are [[complicated]], not [[complex]], problems. Both are hermetically and — ahh — ''[[hermeneutics|hermeneutically]]'' sealed zero-sum games on small, finite boards with simple sets of unvarying rules between two players sharing a common and static objective. Their risk payoff is normal, not exponential. They can, in theory, be “brute force” managed by skilled operation of an algorithm, and the consequences of failure are predictable and contained — you lose. | ||
| Line 30: | Line 30: | ||
Until they can do these things — and conceptually there is no reason a machine ''couldn’t'', but that’s just not how modern computers have been designed — they can only aid, and in most circumstances, ''complicate'', the already over-complicated networks we all inhabit. | Until they can do these things — and conceptually there is no reason a machine ''couldn’t'', but that’s just not how modern computers have been designed — they can only aid, and in most circumstances, ''complicate'', the already over-complicated networks we all inhabit. | ||
But, but, but — how can we explain this relentless encroachment of the dumb algorithm on the inviolable province of consciousness? Well, there’s an alternative explanation, and it’s a bit more prosaic: it is not so much that [[AI]] is breaching the mystical ramparts of consciousness, but that much of what we ''thought'' required the ineffable, ''doesn’t''. | === But [[chess]]-playing supercomputers - === | ||
But, but, but — how can we explain this seemingly relentless encroachment of the dumb algorithm on the inviolable province of consciousness? What will be left for us to do? Well, there’s an alternative explanation, and it’s a bit more prosaic: it is not so much that [[AI]] is breaching the mystical ramparts of consciousness, but that much of what we ''thought'' required the ineffable, ''doesn’t''. Much of what we thought was “human magic” turned out to be just, in Arthur C. Clarke’s worlds, “sufficiently advanced technology”. | |||
This isn’t news: | This isn’t news: impish polymath {{author|Julian Jaynes}} laid it all out in some style in 1976. If you haven’t read {{br|The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind}}, do. It’s a fabulous book. In any case, a lot less of what we ''take'' to require conscious thought actually ''does'' require conscious thought. Like driving a car. Or playing the piano. | ||
And even this is before considering the purblind, irrational sociology that propels all organisations, because it propels all ''individuals'' in those organisations. Like the academy in which {{author|Daniel Susskind}}’s millenarianism thrives, computers work best in a theoretical, [[Platonic form|Platonic]] universe, governed by unchanging and unambiguous physical rules, and populated by rational agents. In that world, Susskind ''might'' have a point — though even there, I doubt it. | And even this is before considering the purblind, irrational sociology that propels all organisations, because it propels all ''individuals'' in those organisations. Like the academy in which {{author|Daniel Susskind}}’s millenarianism thrives, computers work best in a theoretical, [[Platonic form|Platonic]] universe, governed by unchanging and unambiguous physical rules, and populated by rational agents. In that world, Susskind ''might'' have a point — though even there, I doubt it. | ||