As you've heard me say many times, I’ve always believed the No.1 application of AI should be to improve human health. It’s time for AI to prove its unequivocal value to the world, and what better way to demonstrate that than to help finally cure diseases like cancer.
When I see any AI make any progress on the amelioration (not even the cure) of any disease, I’ll treat this as something other than the sales pitch of a con man. Not until. And I think that should be everyone’s attitude. The Big Tech companies have been so indifferent, or even hostile, to human well-being for so many years now that their promises are worth absolutely zero. Maybe they (or people using their products) will indeed cure some diseases; and if they do I will thank them and praise them. (h/t @manton for the quote)
What makes the Arday situation distinctive, and different from the Platner situation and from my former colleague who claimed she was chased by a rhinoceros once too often, is that the organization — Cambridge University — doesn’t seem to have responded with any recognition that the organization’s mission was in any way damaged or threatened, other than in a public relations sense, if the accusations against Arday were true. That raises the reasonable suspicion that the organization doesn’t recognize that it has a mission, or, alternatively, believes that whatever Arday was doing was unrelated to that mission. That suspicion, in turn, is a far, far greater threat to the organization than Arday’s hire was.
Whether they know it or not, the laissez-faire techno-optimists in those parenting manuals are taking issue with the words of King Thamus, the legendary Egyptian monarch invoked by Plato in the Phaedrus. According to the parable, Theuth, the father of writing, boasted that his invention would aid human memory. Having none of it, King Thamus retorted that those who read will lose “their memory and become forgetful” because they will rely on books instead of their brains. People will be “thought very knowledgeable when they are for the most part quite ignorant,” and because they are filled “with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom, they will be a burden to society.” That prediction may have been premature, but I contend that the widespread embrace of AI thoroughly vindicates Plato’s warning. As more and more people buy into the promises of this new technology, we are witnessing the full consummation of the “conceit of wisdom” that was made possible with the advent of writing and reading.
Why did Plato’s argument take more than two millennia to be borne out?
I’ve made this point several times over the years — for instance here and here — and I guess I will keep making it: Plato did not utter a “warning” on this subject. Plato did not make an “argument” on this subject. If Plato was so critical of writing and reading, why did he write dialogues for us to read? People need to stop taking that passage completely out of its context.
The practices of present-day ‘comparable’ communities strike me as a very poor guide. We have at different times labelled such groupings Indigenous, Marginalised, Tribal, Primitive; all names, tabooed or not, that circle around some kind of rearguard action – societies (cultures) on the defensive in a pitiless present. But at Chauvet, just look, the arrogance of achievement is unmistakable. The architectural historian Sigfried Giedion thought the paintings in the caves – he did not know Chauvet when he wrote, but Lascaux and Altamira were enough – celebrated the superiority of the world of beasts. His thesis, which was politely ignored, has much to recommend it. In the warm pockets of the Ice Age, the thunder of woolly rhinos going past must have spoken for itself. (Such animals were very little hunted, so the bone heaps suggest. No wonder.) But the Chauvet masters knew one thing the rhino and mammoth couldn’t do. There was a strange kind of action on the world in which human superiority, maybe uniqueness, was undisputed – already gloried in. It was there on the walls. Humans were able to represent the mammoth, make a convincing likeness of it. Was that ability driven by envy or homage? Was it a way of borrowing the giant’s strength, or a means of (fantasy) domination?
Well before they begin schooling, children are driven to look beyond the obvious. They spontaneously explore and uncover hidden parts that provide pleasing insights into the underlying causal machinery governing their visible properties and behavior. This is where some of the most striking development can occur and where guidance by knowledgeable adults may be most powerful.
But today, children are increasingly confined to considering the surfaces of things and their uses or functions. Information that was easily available a few decades ago has largely evaporated, with no other, deeper webs of information becoming available. It would be remarkable if such dramatic changes in children’s exposure to the underlying architectures of devices had no downstream effects on how they think about causal relationships in the world around them. Our job is to understand whether such effects are likely to be negative, positive, or largely inconsequential.
Someone Is Mysteriously Snapping Up Used Books Around the World - The Atlantic:
For now, this is what we know: A lot of used books are suddenly being bought up by companies including Zoom Books. But we do not know how many of these orders are coming from AI companies, or whether these books will be destroyed. Based on the practices of Anthropic and the attempted purchases by 2077AI, it seems very possible that the books are destined for AI companies, but we can’t be certain.
Regardless, the idea of an AI behemoth destroying books has sent a bolt through the collective psyche. Book destruction is historically linked to authoritarian regimes and attempts to control public discourse, as well as ancient tragedies — the burning of the Library of Alexandria comes to mind.
Wendell Berry, in a 2006 interview about his novel Jayber Crow:
Jayber, as he looks back on his life, feels that he was called to be a member and a servant of Port William. Looking back on my own life, I have a similar feeling — that I was called to do the work I’ve done. Like Jayber, I was a long time figuring out what my calling was and making a response that seemed to me to be creditable. It was an awkward business. There was of course some error and misconception. I really can’t imagine how it could have been otherwise, and of course one learns from one’s errors and misconceptions, and perhaps this learning gathers toward an outcome that is in some way substantially different from error and misconception. I don’t want to make too strong a claim or pretend to too much understanding, but my experience has caused me to believe that help does come. It comes by way of inspiration, and it comes from friends and books met with at the right time.
The Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art is an extraordinary work of architecture — but it was badly damaged in a 2018 fire and the school can’t afford to restore it. I very much hope some persons or organizations with deeper pockets will step up.
Baylor is transitioning from a monthly to a semi-monthly pay schedule, so this assignment just showed up in my inbox: “Your Semi-Monthly Payroll Readiness Journey has been assigned to all monthly-paid employees.”
My “journey.” My journey.
My Readiness Journey.