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The AI debacle is unusual as it's alive in disinformation at a scale that penetrates every status class. Of course AI is a failure of imagination. But so were
by mallowdram 1y ago
The AI debacle is unusual as it's alive in disinformation at a scale that penetrates every status class.
Of course AI is a failure of imagination. But so were symbols, which cannot reference, they can only represent, if at all.
The real function of AI appears to be the transition away from symbols, metaphors, folk science cause and effect ideation.
We're only barely sensing this, but if you listen to Gary Marcus, Rich Sutton and those willing to see the larger scales, they are bellwethers that are actually sinking their own approaches as well as LLMs.
In effect, labor is about to reap the benefits of the AI debacle. I see this in the AI at the major teaching hospital my sister is a department head of. In lead developers in gaming, in media. AI does not function well, it's essentially wax fruit, it's not even mimicry. That's going to lead to an analog rebirth.
- tolerance 1y agoCurious what your take on this piece might be. I recommend the last 1/3 of it if you’re pressed for time or wits. https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/lessons-of-babel/articles/the-word-made-lifeless https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/lessons-of-babel/articles/...
- mallowdram 1y agoThanks for sending, I read it all. I think it keeps its feet in two incompatible realms. Ultimately LLMs turn us into wax fruit, not stochastic parrots. The word is an arbitrary form, as myth is, (as symbols, money, news, states/politics) both are ultimately evolutionarily suspect in terms of animal signals, and we haven't found a specific workaround to that arbitrariness. That's extinction. The world is only specific, as is survival. I suggest the only function of arbitrary signals is to refute themselves into replacement. The good thing about the AI debacle is that it's about speeding that up.
- bonoboTP 1y agoI found it a bit pretentious and name-dropping more than having a cogent point. AI is not simply going to take jobs where you just have to blabber stochastically. It can execute commands, call tools, write code etc. I think the author got caught up too much in the fact that the "Word" in the Gospel of John seems to align with the fact that LLMs process words. But it's really not a very deep connection.
- mallowdram 1y agoThe input is arbitrary so claiming it can execute perpetually any of these is still trapped behind re arbitrary lens or threshold.