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> But when it touches our ability to think we squirm. I think that's not the point. We're in awe by the machines' performances and then confused in how that co

> But when it touches our ability to think we squirm. I think that's not the point. We're in awe by the machines' performances and then confused in how that compares to our abilities. The actual threat is that in our minds we narrow our own capabilities and limit the comparison such that the computer is in fact better. When computers were first doing math quicker than humans, that might have touch some humans, sure. Similarly now that "AI"s produce convincing spam faster or photo realistic creative images — that hurts some, jobs or maybe a lot. But it doesn't come close to being "human" or "intelligent". Quite the opposite, the point is that we are getting dumber by focusing on human traits that can be measured or emulated by machines.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago
I think another general problem is that metaphors are quietly forgotten. The notion that computers "think" is something of a metaphor, but it is a superficial one that cannot be taken seriously as a literal claim. For example, when we say computers can "do math" more quickly than human beings can, this is fine as a matter of loose or figurative common speech. But strictly speaking, do computers actually do math? Do they actually compute? No, they don't. The computation we say a computer is doing is in the eye of the beholder. A better way to characterize what's happening is that human beings are _using_ computers _computationally_. That is, the physical artifacts we call computers participate in human acts as instruments, but _strictly speaking_, it makes about as much sense to say computers compute as it is to say that pencils write, hammers nail, vacuums cleaners clean, or cars drive. These things participate in the human act, but only as instrument. Whereas when human beings compute they are objectively computing, computation is not what computers are objectively doing (both Kripke and Searle make good arguments here). These artifacts only make sense in light of human intentions, as instruments of human intention and act. Human writing can be viewed similarly. Objectively, we only have some pigment arranged on some material. No analysis of a piece of written text will ever divulge its signification. Indeed, no analysis of a piece of text will demonstrate that what is being analyzed is a piece of text! Text, and even that something is a piece of text, needs to be interpreted as text to function as text in the eye of the reader. But the semantic content of the text is objectively real. It just exists in the mind of the reader. So we need to be careful because we can easily commit category mistakes by way of projection and confusion.

lo_zamoyski 4y ago

I think another general problem is that metaphors are quietly forgotten. The notion that computers "think" is something of a metaphor, but it is a superficial one that cannot be taken seriously as a literal claim. For example, when we say computers can "do math" more quickly than human beings can, this is fine as a matter of loose or figurative common speech. But strictly speaking, do computers actually do math? Do they actually compute? No, they don't. The computation we say a computer is doing is in the eye of the beholder. A better way to characterize what's happening is that human beings are _using_ computers _computationally_. That is, the physical artifacts we call computers participate in human acts as instruments, but _strictly speaking_, it makes about as much sense to say computers compute as it is to say that pencils write, hammers nail, vacuums cleaners clean, or cars drive. These things participate in the human act, but only as instrument. Whereas when human beings compute they are objectively computing, computation is not what computers are objectively doing (both Kripke and Searle make good arguments here). These artifacts only make sense in light of human intentions, as instruments of human intention and act. Human writing can be viewed similarly. Objectively, we only have some pigment arranged on some material. No analysis of a piece of written text will ever divulge its signification. Indeed, no analysis of a piece of text will demonstrate that what is being analyzed is a piece of text! Text, and even that something is a piece of text, needs to be interpreted as text to function as text in the eye of the reader. But the semantic content of the text is objectively real. It just exists in the mind of the reader. So we need to be careful because we can easily commit category mistakes by way of projection and confusion.