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Template:M intro technology rumours of our demise: Difference between revisions
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, 18 November 2023→Digression: Nietzsche, Blake and the Camden Cat
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(Digression over.) | (Digression over.) | ||
Imagine personal large language model, private to | === If AI is just a cheapest-to-deliver strategy you are doing it wrong === | ||
Imagine personal [[large language model]], private to a single client user — free, therefore, of data privacy concerns — that would pattern-match purely by reference to its client’s actual reading and listening history, its prompts, instructions and the recommendations of pattern-matched like-minded readers, and which searched through all of those billions of books, plays, films, recordings and artworks we already have and, instead of using them to generate random mashups, uncovered genius? | |||
Rather than ''converging'' on common ground, this algorithm would be designed to ''diversify'' — to find things its client would never otherwise find. | Rather than ''converging'' on common ground, this algorithm would be designed to ''diversify'' — to find things its client would never otherwise find. | ||
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''This is not just the Spotify recommendation algorithm'', as occasionally delightful as that is. That has its own primary goal of revenue maximisation: client illumination is a necessary by-product, but only where the primary goal is met. But as long as clients are illuminated ''enough'' ''to keep listening'', it doesn’t care. | ''This is not just the Spotify recommendation algorithm'', as occasionally delightful as that is. That has its own primary goal of revenue maximisation: client illumination is a necessary by-product, but only where the primary goal is met. But as long as clients are illuminated ''enough'' ''to keep listening'', it doesn’t care. | ||
Commercial algorithms follow a ''[[cheapest to deliver]]'' strategy: they | Commercial algorithms follow a ''[[cheapest to deliver]]'' strategy: they “satisfice”. Being targeted primarily at revenue optimisation, they will tend to converge upon what is popular: the reader’s personal “[[cheesecake for the brain]]”. This, as per {{author|Anita Elberse}}’s [[Blockbusters: Why Big Hits and Big Risks are the Future of the Entertainment Business|''Blockbusters'']], targeted will have had the counter-intuitive effect of ''truncating'' the “[[long tail]]” of consumer choice. A sensible use for this technology would ''extend'' it. | ||
In any case, if artificial intelligence is so spectacular, shouldn’t we be a bit more ambitious in our expectations about what it could do for us? Isn’t “giving you the bare minimum you’ll take to keep stringing you along” just a little ''underwhelming''? | In any case, if artificial intelligence is so spectacular, shouldn’t we be a bit more ambitious in our expectations about what it could do for us? Isn’t “giving you the bare minimum you’ll take to keep stringing you along” just a little ''underwhelming''? | ||
. | ==== LibraryThing ==== | ||
A rudimentary version of this exists in the [https://www.librarything.com/ LibraryThing] recommendation engine: you upload all the books in your personal library, score them 1-5, and it will match your library with other like-minded users on the site. The non-matched books from libraries of similar users are often a revelation. It isn’t wildly clever '''—''' LibraryThing has been around for nearly twenty years and doesn’t, as far as I know, use AI, but the scope if it did, is huge. | |||
==== This is something humans cannot do ==== | |||
This role — seeking out delightful new human endeavours — would be a valuable role ''that is quite beyond the capability of any group of humans'' and which would not devalue, much less usurp the value of human intellectual capacity. Rather, it would ''empower'' it. | |||
This is a suitable application for artificial intelligence. This would respect 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. | Note also the [[system effect]] it would have: it would encourage people to create unique and idiosyncratic things. It would distribute wealth and information — that is, [[strength]], not [[Power structure|power]] — ''along'' the curve of human diversity, 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. | 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. | 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. | ||