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Artificial Intelligence is Human Ignorance. Being able to do things without insteranding why can only be temporary stop-gap in the knowledge-gaining process. It

Artificial Intelligence is Human Ignorance. Being able to do things without insteranding why can only be temporary stop-gap in the knowledge-gaining process. It cannot revolutionize science by definition. The biggest effect it could have is ending science, convincing the powers that be that understanding is no longer a prerequisite of capability, and thus science can once again be relegated as a nerdy hobby that is of no interest to the state or corporation.

alar44 4y ago
Agreed. This is why I do long division by hand.
- Ericson2314 4y ago
  What the hell. The ALU of the machine does something not to dissimilar to long division. I would be fine with saying no getting to program with division until you learn how to do the long division algorithm by hand, however. But once you have learned to do the algorithm it's fine to let the computer do it. Anti-ignorance != anti-automation
visarga 4y ago
When you do a Covid test do you understand why the colour changes? Some people do, but not most. We can use black box systems and we understand how they make false positives and negatives. In fact most complex systems are impossible to "understand". We still have to act with imperfect understanding.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > Some people do, but not most Knowledge (of something) is something one could achieve, not something everyone must achieve. The relevant purpose is that those who should become competent and knowledgeable do so - for judgement and for production of further knowledge.
- Ericson2314 4y ago
  That is not a good comparison. People taking the test are not in general scientists. There was never any expectation they would understand how the test works. The proper analogy would be scientists have some big machine which tries different chemical experiments until it has a Covid test that matches the training data. But how would we even trust the training data in that case? Having a good understanding of the basics of genetics and microbiology allows us both to understand how the tests work, and tests in the QAing of the testing procedure. There is no substitute.
coliveira 4y ago
I agree that this has a potential to make people consider ignorance as a feature. AI is useful as a helper technology, the same way as telescopes or computers. But saying that it will discover new science is just a misleading idea. Even if AI is really capable of doing so (I don't think it is), it is similar to saying that a different species (not human) will now do science for us. How useful is that for humans? If that were even true, it would mean that humans will be left in ignorance and start to rely (without ways to confirm it) on the results provided by this new species. In other ways, the whole hoopla about AI doing science is nonsense on its core.
- Ericson2314 4y ago
  > Even if AI is really capable of doing so (I don't think it is), it is similar to saying that a different species (not human) will now do science for us. How useful is that for humans? Oh nice, thank you for that. Letting AIs doing science is domesticating ourselves. Shall the general AI feeds us kibbles too?

alar44 4y ago

Agreed. This is why I do long division by hand.

Ericson2314 4y ago
What the hell. The ALU of the machine does something not to dissimilar to long division. I would be fine with saying no getting to program with division until you learn how to do the long division algorithm by hand, however. But once you have learned to do the algorithm it's fine to let the computer do it. Anti-ignorance != anti-automation

visarga 4y ago

When you do a Covid test do you understand why the colour changes? Some people do, but not most. We can use black box systems and we understand how they make false positives and negatives. In fact most complex systems are impossible to "understand". We still have to act with imperfect understanding.

mdp2021 4y ago
> Some people do, but not most Knowledge (of something) is something one could achieve, not something everyone must achieve. The relevant purpose is that those who should become competent and knowledgeable do so - for judgement and for production of further knowledge.
Ericson2314 4y ago
That is not a good comparison. People taking the test are not in general scientists. There was never any expectation they would understand how the test works. The proper analogy would be scientists have some big machine which tries different chemical experiments until it has a Covid test that matches the training data. But how would we even trust the training data in that case? Having a good understanding of the basics of genetics and microbiology allows us both to understand how the tests work, and tests in the QAing of the testing procedure. There is no substitute.

coliveira 4y ago

I agree that this has a potential to make people consider ignorance as a feature. AI is useful as a helper technology, the same way as telescopes or computers. But saying that it will discover new science is just a misleading idea. Even if AI is really capable of doing so (I don't think it is), it is similar to saying that a different species (not human) will now do science for us. How useful is that for humans? If that were even true, it would mean that humans will be left in ignorance and start to rely (without ways to confirm it) on the results provided by this new species. In other ways, the whole hoopla about AI doing science is nonsense on its core.

Ericson2314 4y ago
> Even if AI is really capable of doing so (I don't think it is), it is similar to saying that a different species (not human) will now do science for us. How useful is that for humans? Oh nice, thank you for that. Letting AIs doing science is domesticating ourselves. Shall the general AI feeds us kibbles too?