4 ms·

Better Babblers (2017)

12 points by noch 3y ago

kazinator 3y ago
> Second, the better machines get at babbling, the more humans will try to distinguish themselves from machines via non-babbling conversational styles. So expect less use of simple easy-to-understand-and-predict speech in casual polite conversation, inspirational speeches, and public intellectual talk. Not gonna happen.
- patcon 3y ago
  Yeah. Also, I feel he misinterprets how much simplicity is actually the desired output in a larger sense. I believe higher order correlation is just the means to that end of producing the best low-order simplification. Deep truths tend to have simple surfaces. This deep simplicity is like coming up from toiling down in the mines of reason, to share the easily appreciated jewels with those who haven't been on the journey, don't know how, and never will. That's the work. It's the churn of it all, hauling the most appropriate and clearest diamonds up from below. This author speaks like he thinks life happens in the mine, but the vast majority of life -- the life of any person or of any idea -- takes place at the surface of all the things.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    When have people ever changed their behavior to avoid being computer-like? Especially, when have people changed their behavior to try to outpace computers? Computers outpaced people in arithmetic. The human way to do arithmetic is slow, with external aids like pencil and paper, and full of mistakes. Chess likewise. Machines beat people and so the beaten way is the human way now. It may be that for a while people will try to deliberately avoid sounding like AI. As AI marches on and starts saying smarter, more pertinent things and admit when it's wrong, and so on, the distinctively human way of communicating will be the babble. Machines will be capable of babble (just as machines *are capable of playing bad chess or simulating slow, mistake-ridden arithmetic) but they won't be used that way.
justanotherjoe 3y ago
I love Robin Hanson. I don't always agree with him, but he is consistently thought provoking and often disturbing in his insights.

12 points by noch 3y ago

> Second, the better machines get at babbling, the more humans will try to distinguish themselves from machines via non-babbling conversational styles. So expect less use of simple easy-to-understand-and-predict speech in casual polite conversation, inspirational speeches, and public intellectual talk. Not gonna happen.

patcon 3y ago
Yeah. Also, I feel he misinterprets how much simplicity is actually the desired output in a larger sense. I believe higher order correlation is just the means to that end of producing the best low-order simplification. Deep truths tend to have simple surfaces. This deep simplicity is like coming up from toiling down in the mines of reason, to share the easily appreciated jewels with those who haven't been on the journey, don't know how, and never will. That's the work. It's the churn of it all, hauling the most appropriate and clearest diamonds up from below. This author speaks like he thinks life happens in the mine, but the vast majority of life -- the life of any person or of any idea -- takes place at the surface of all the things.
- kazinator 3y ago
  When have people ever changed their behavior to avoid being computer-like? Especially, when have people changed their behavior to try to outpace computers? Computers outpaced people in arithmetic. The human way to do arithmetic is slow, with external aids like pencil and paper, and full of mistakes. Chess likewise. Machines beat people and so the beaten way is the human way now. It may be that for a while people will try to deliberately avoid sounding like AI. As AI marches on and starts saying smarter, more pertinent things and admit when it's wrong, and so on, the distinctively human way of communicating will be the babble. Machines will be capable of babble (just as machines *are capable of playing bad chess or simulating slow, mistake-ridden arithmetic) but they won't be used that way.

justanotherjoe 3y ago

I love Robin Hanson. I don't always agree with him, but he is consistently thought provoking and often disturbing in his insights.