5 ms·

> Say you learn the feat was done using some clever use of mechanical 3D tracing or casting and chemicals that rapidly dissolve the rock and took no effort at a

> Say you learn the feat was done using some clever use of mechanical 3D tracing or casting and chemicals that rapidly dissolve the rock and took no effort at all just knowledge of the trick. Now you would no longer be awestruck? Value for you is in the difficulty not the result? No, if I found out that the sculpture was 3d printed instead of sculpted by hand I wouldn't be as impressed. The value for me is derived both from the difficulty and the result. The result itself is impressive — if I saw a 17 foot tall statue towering over me I would be a bit impressed regardless of the methods used to produce it, but I also find it impressive imagining a man operating under the constraints of his tools, and the skill those constraints require. > https://youtu.be/WPL7D0Ha1kQ https://youtu.be/WPL7D0Ha1kQ It's a cool thought experiment to imagine the Dutch Masters using a camera lucida to trace their paintings. If Vermeer traced his paintings I would indeed be less impressed with his work. I feel like we're going in circles restating the same points over and over again. > It was a scandal because many use costly signals (ability to play sports / games or create or acquire stuff like “art”) to rank each other in hierarchies. What matters is the ranking. If the result mattered, anything that improves the result would be welcome, not rejected as “cheating”. In the example we're discussing what is the meaningful "result" of a game of chess? It's literally a board game where you move small objects across a tiled surface for entertainment. To me you sound like someone saying "if people cared about the result of a foot race, they would let the runners drive cars". You've gone so far down the rabbit hole of defending AI that you're trying to undermine the idea of sports and games. > Do you not question whether the enormous amount of time and effort various historical works cost was well spent? What if that time and effort was instead spent researching something useful? How much time and effort have you spent trying to persuade me that art, sports, and games are frivolous? Maybe your time would be better spent researching something useful rather than writing these comments. > Are science research / publications such an activity? For some, yes. For others, no. How do you see it? I must have said this at least 5 or 6 times at this point, but I don't mind someone using AI to help them write a scientific paper. I just want creators who don't use AI to be credited for their work. > If instead the author was told it was the work of a genius and not hers that may actually be accepted as a compliment -- if she maintains that high quality in the future what else can that be but an honest compliment on the quality of her work? It could be considered a way of dismissing someone's effort and talent. If for example reviewers only questioned women about whether or not they were plagiarizing geniuses, I don't imagine they would find that very flattering. > Many see a sharp difference between “human” and “machine” yet the medicine we rely on assumes we are machines. I think many know this but do not realize the implications. To think about it can be uncomfortable. The idea that you can use the English word "machine" to describe a human being is not the deep philosophical insight that you perceive it to be. There's nothing uncomfortable about it, because you're just playing a language game. A doctor would have no problem treating your illness without referencing the word "machine". This would maybe be an uncomfortable truth to an undergrad taking their first philosophy course. > Your attitude I suspect is because you do not see you already are upgraded from what you would be otherwise. Your mind has been upgraded with language and is full of useful concepts and techniques that are not your own. I'm fully aware of the fact that human beings are already being upgraded. I specifically gave you the example of cochlear implants in my previous comment to indicate my awareness, which are a much more concrete example than your abstract "language, concepts, and techniques" example. I know these concepts feel revolutionary to you, but they're not to me. We've gone astray here but the topic of human upgrades came up because I asked you a simple question: if you only value the results of a process, rather than the human who derived the result, then what happens when humans are no longer required to produce any result? Do you propose that the only way we can stay relevant in such a society is to upload our minds to AWS where hardware can make us more intelligent than our wetware? I don't know about you, but I don't plan on becoming a brain in a vat in some datacenter, and I definitely don't plan on becoming a file on someone's Digital Ocean droplet. We might just have different preferences.

czl 3y ago
> The value for me is derived both from the difficulty and the result. “Labor Theory of Value” vs “Marginal Utility Theory of Value”: you are familiar with these yet you still hold that view? The output of a less efficient process to create something comparable is more valuable _because_ a less efficient process was used? > If Vermeer traced his paintings I would indeed be less impressed with his work. The excellent https://youtu.be/WPL7D0Ha1kQ https://youtu.be/WPL7D0Ha1kQ documentary presents evidence that he did use tracing. In contrast to you that evidence made me more impressed with Verneer’s work. > In the example we're discussing what is the meaningful "result" of a game of chess? I answered that. Above I said “many use costly signals (ability to play sports / games or create or acquire stuff like “art”) to rank each other in hierarchies”. GPT4 explains: ”From an evolutionary standpoint, games and sports can be seen as extensions of primal competitions for resources, mates, and status. Competing and displaying skills in a controlled environment can serve as a non-lethal way to establish dominance and hierarchy within a group. This is similar to how animals engage in play-fighting or displays of strength to determine pecking orders without resorting to serious conflict.” What evolutionary purpose do you think games and sports serve if not the purpose above? It seems to me you like the “labor theory of value” because for you creating things is like a sport or game where ranking is important and difficulty of the task matters and innovation is “cheating” for the purpose of ranking. > How much time and effort have you spent trying to persuade me that art, sports, and games are frivolous? Maybe your time would be better spent researching something useful rather than writing these comments. Our chat is like a dialogue I have with myself (or with chatGPT) when I debate views to make up my mind about them: A joint search for truth. When a smart person (as you obviously are) changes my views on an important topic I am obviously better for it. And even if you do not change my mind, the thinking exercise is valuable. Thank you! > I just want creators who don't use AI to be credited for their work. Why would creators who do not use AI not get credit for their work? When you say the above you mean they should get extra credit? And would you give them even more extra credit when they did all their research without the help of any machines? Why does it matter if machines helped? Why not judge the research publication on its own merits? You want extra credits to handicap those using better tools because research is a game in which the difficulty must be maintained otherwise it is “cheating”? > The idea that you can use the English word "machine" to describe a human being is not the deep philosophical insight that you perceive it to be. There's nothing uncomfortable about it, because you're just playing a language game. A doctor would have no problem treating your illness without referencing the word "machine". This would maybe be an uncomfortable truth to an undergrad taking their first philosophy course. Your mind perhaps rejects the idea that why you think I am playing a language game using a metaphor when I am not using a metaphor. For you there is nothing uncomfortable accepting that living things are machines? I think you have not thought about the consequences of accepting this view: https://chat.openai.com/share/2fdd8863-6a3b-4a09-9d9c-b2f196e19b73 https://chat.openai.com/share/2fdd8863-6a3b-4a09-9d9c-b2f196... > if you only value the results of a process, rather than the human who derived the result, then what happens when humans are no longer required to produce any result? Our lives will likely change much like our lives of wandering around from place to place hunting gathering changed and then lives of subsistence farming changed, etc. If you accept the view that living things are machines (not as a metaphor but in reality) the concept of computational universality may give you a clue about our likely future. GPT4 explains: https://chat.openai.com/share/4dd5e6b3-6136-408a-a05a-10261d7fcc3d https://chat.openai.com/share/4dd5e6b3-6136-408a-a05a-10261d... > I don't know about you, but I don't plan on becoming a brain in a vat in some datacenter, and I definitely don't plan on becoming a file on someone's Digital Ocean droplet. We might just have different preferences. Assuming it is possible: How do you feel about having observations of what you say and write and do being used to create a model that can predict these things about you with such accuracy that those that know you can not tell the difference? Will that model in a “computational sense” not be you? Say, if given a matching body, that model can replace you such that those that know you cannot tell the difference. Will that also not be you? If you accept the reality that you are a machine, why will that not also be you? Because you are the atoms that make you you?

czl 3y ago

> The value for me is derived both from the difficulty and the result. “Labor Theory of Value” vs “Marginal Utility Theory of Value”: you are familiar with these yet you still hold that view? The output of a less efficient process to create something comparable is more valuable _because_ a less efficient process was used? > If Vermeer traced his paintings I would indeed be less impressed with his work. The excellent https://youtu.be/WPL7D0Ha1kQ https://youtu.be/WPL7D0Ha1kQ documentary presents evidence that he did use tracing. In contrast to you that evidence made me more impressed with Verneer’s work. > In the example we're discussing what is the meaningful "result" of a game of chess? I answered that. Above I said “many use costly signals (ability to play sports / games or create or acquire stuff like “art”) to rank each other in hierarchies”. GPT4 explains: ”From an evolutionary standpoint, games and sports can be seen as extensions of primal competitions for resources, mates, and status. Competing and displaying skills in a controlled environment can serve as a non-lethal way to establish dominance and hierarchy within a group. This is similar to how animals engage in play-fighting or displays of strength to determine pecking orders without resorting to serious conflict.” What evolutionary purpose do you think games and sports serve if not the purpose above? It seems to me you like the “labor theory of value” because for you creating things is like a sport or game where ranking is important and difficulty of the task matters and innovation is “cheating” for the purpose of ranking. > How much time and effort have you spent trying to persuade me that art, sports, and games are frivolous? Maybe your time would be better spent researching something useful rather than writing these comments. Our chat is like a dialogue I have with myself (or with chatGPT) when I debate views to make up my mind about them: A joint search for truth. When a smart person (as you obviously are) changes my views on an important topic I am obviously better for it. And even if you do not change my mind, the thinking exercise is valuable. Thank you! > I just want creators who don't use AI to be credited for their work. Why would creators who do not use AI not get credit for their work? When you say the above you mean they should get extra credit? And would you give them even more extra credit when they did all their research without the help of any machines? Why does it matter if machines helped? Why not judge the research publication on its own merits? You want extra credits to handicap those using better tools because research is a game in which the difficulty must be maintained otherwise it is “cheating”? > The idea that you can use the English word "machine" to describe a human being is not the deep philosophical insight that you perceive it to be. There's nothing uncomfortable about it, because you're just playing a language game. A doctor would have no problem treating your illness without referencing the word "machine". This would maybe be an uncomfortable truth to an undergrad taking their first philosophy course. Your mind perhaps rejects the idea that why you think I am playing a language game using a metaphor when I am not using a metaphor. For you there is nothing uncomfortable accepting that living things are machines? I think you have not thought about the consequences of accepting this view: https://chat.openai.com/share/2fdd8863-6a3b-4a09-9d9c-b2f196e19b73 https://chat.openai.com/share/2fdd8863-6a3b-4a09-9d9c-b2f196... > if you only value the results of a process, rather than the human who derived the result, then what happens when humans are no longer required to produce any result? Our lives will likely change much like our lives of wandering around from place to place hunting gathering changed and then lives of subsistence farming changed, etc. If you accept the view that living things are machines (not as a metaphor but in reality) the concept of computational universality may give you a clue about our likely future. GPT4 explains: https://chat.openai.com/share/4dd5e6b3-6136-408a-a05a-10261d7fcc3d https://chat.openai.com/share/4dd5e6b3-6136-408a-a05a-10261d... > I don't know about you, but I don't plan on becoming a brain in a vat in some datacenter, and I definitely don't plan on becoming a file on someone's Digital Ocean droplet. We might just have different preferences. Assuming it is possible: How do you feel about having observations of what you say and write and do being used to create a model that can predict these things about you with such accuracy that those that know you can not tell the difference? Will that model in a “computational sense” not be you? Say, if given a matching body, that model can replace you such that those that know you cannot tell the difference. Will that also not be you? If you accept the reality that you are a machine, why will that not also be you? Because you are the atoms that make you you?