The first few minutes of Tristanās talk are incredibly telling about the context from which he is speaking. The premise that human intelligence is about cognition - the height of which is embodied in Nobel laureates - is a deeply engrained way of understanding our species that comes from within the colonialist, capitalist structure. in this structure, we have stripped away all other aspects and practises of intelligence that are alive in all of life and reduce them to human cognition - ācomputational brain powerā. Empire separated us from nature and our humble place as the newbieās on the block, and from the full spectrum of our inner resources: from spirit, from our ancestors, from our heart intelligence, intuition, etc. This is the thinking and perspective on which AI has been built and trained. An anemic, reductionist and fundamentally isolated perspective of Intelligence. it lacks any data sets related to the intelligence of plants, trees, water other beings who have been on the Earth, millions and millions of years longer than we have and any information it has about these comes from within the colonialist capitalist structure and our limited, audacious and depleted views. Through AI we are magnifying this depletion. The irony of comparing it to Noble laureates is that they very likely were tapping into this larger intelligence in order to do what they did. to say that AI can do this for a fraction of the cost is to completely and utterly disregard the cost to our home, the Earth and all her beings in creating and running massive data warehouses. Whatever pontification we undertake about how to use AGI for good from within this current perspective is doomed before itās articulated. An AGI talk where a man gets up to the stage and tries to speak but instead wails and keens uncontrollably for 15 minutes- now that would be something worthy of these times.
Now this is what I am saying and You said it so eloquently. We have fallen so far away from the source that we disregard/refuse the vast knowledge and intelligence held in our whole being when we are in communion with our world (environment.) The way intelligence is being construed during this frenzied and reductive times disregards our many ways of knowingāthe vary ways that we share with the other animals and world around us. The hubris of materialism and scientism! Have we completely disregarded Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the so-called Copernican Revolution in Science Philosophy? Our perception or cognition has limitations and we must consider this limitation as an invitation to wonder. We must account that there is knowledge outside of cognition. Have we forgotten the beautiful insight that Godel introduced to us at the same time that Alan Turing was revolutionizing computer science? These parallels are long standing. What of Yeats? What of Henri Bergson? Maurice Merleau-Ponty? Plato?
Long-time CHT appreciator here. So I was disappointed to see this sentence
> As you know, Silicon Valley is racing toward AI systems that could soon match or surpass human intelligence.
presented as fact. Silicon Valley would like you to think that it is racing toward such systems. That idea creates higher stock valuations for some lucky folks but it has no basis in reality. Repeating it credulously perpetuates a massive grift with real environmental and societal implications. I look to CHT to do better.
The harm in these myths is real and is actively harming people and the earth. Apps are jumping to incorporate "AI" into their products to stay relevant but it is just adding all of this clunky noise to the interface. Clunky and costly! Consumers have very little control in what we engage with as these software updates and terms and conditions got us by the short and curlies.
You know what? I just realized that my initial reply is in the wrong place. It was supposed to be to the link for the "Beyond the Buzz" interview. Oh well.
Agree. it is definitely time to "cut bait" as we stay in the south. It's like they've been digging this hole for 80 years based on false premises and now there are hundreds of trillions invested (ska "owed") so what does a lake capitalist do? Keep digging and drill down harder! They are desperately trying to monetize any thing they can in any way possible and anyone connected to the industry is subject to that process unfortunately.
As a humanities professor who grew up in the B.D time, I've been watching this show for quite a while, I have unpacked a lot of the cultural and archetypal forces going on that have created the world that we are in now and the conundrum that you speak of, unfortunately, without all of the tools that you need to speak of it; because you lack the educational foundation to be able to explore the topics effectively. This has put you in a constant loop and like your creation you tend to make things up as you go. This is unfortunate for all of us because of the amount of power and influence that you wield and the hole that has been dug of hundreds of trillions of dollars and let's add 80 years of human energy and labor. but let me add that you are getting closer: late capitalism is the ultimate IRL game. Who cares about climate change? It's just a changing game board, right? Aren't all of the games essentially based in feudalism and dystopia and war? What about the fantastic imaginary worlds of science fiction and especially dystopic cyberpunk, a virtual wild west or West World where hoodie clad gun slingers rule and slave labor like the Mechanical Turk still eists i the digital "paradise". There is so much more to unpack here. There are archetypal, spiritual, and mythological narratives at play, too; but again, those are not things that you would have learned about in stem classes. Another angle with which to understand the situation which you touch on, as you touch on all of these in your innocent way, is existentialism and other philosophical concepts not the least of which is Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which you may actually know about because it is so commonly known . interestingly, Plato never brought up that we ourselves are the projector, or maybe a better way to say it is that we create the projector. You seem to understand that you are part of something bigger than you understand and that you do not have the knowledge and foundation to be able to understand the whole that has been dug and are still digging.
Yes! Exactly I agree and have been studying this history of mathematics, science, and philosophy (alongside pure mathematics) since I was a child, out of curiosity. The philosophical/ anthropological perspective is precisely the thing that the scientism/materialism of the day undermines with "objectivity." Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is studied but not integrated. It is purposeful. It is the game and money is winning. Have we forgotten the beautiful insight that Godel introduced to us at the same time that Alan Turing was revolutionizing computer science? But no, we choose escapism into the ether and re-echoing of our minds. Humdog tried to warn us with Pandora's Vox. These parallels are long standing. It is the story of the holy grail and the divorcing of our values/morals from the earth and to a make believe daddy in the sky that we relinquish our destiny. It is the game you speak of.
The prevailing myth that drives this frenzy for the all knowing-fastest-smartest machine is costing us the planet and human dignity.
I look to Henri Bergson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Graeber, James Baldwin, bell hooks ...
Knowledge is not just what can be held digitally ; to think otherwise is perverse reductionism.
Totally! I feel like I could have written much of what you say here! I gave a presentation in Athens, the first of the year on the topic to a bunch of humanities PhD's, who seem to have never thought about the subject, which confused me; so you're post is a breath of fresh air for me. I did speak about the holy Grail and the creation of the machine "god" drives in fact! It was nice to know that someone out there understands the string board that is going on in my brain right now. Thank you!
That is how I felt about your post as well. I try to talk about this with others IRL but it quickly devolves into parroting headines and re-affirming these myths of our time. Have you ever heard of Margaret Wertheim or Sadie Sink? I really enjoyed a project by Ingrid Burrington and Meredith Whittaker in early 2016 called "The Realm of Rough Telepathy." There are/have been minds on this "Search for the Holy Grail" or the search disembodiment of knowledge and prioritization of residing in an ethereal state but they have not been promoted (most are women in philosophy.) I hear current philosophers/ intellectuals writing on this but they are not hitting on the same anthropological nodes or myths that you are, which I find most important for discussion as well. They are more situated in the cross hairs of tech policy and Cory Doctorow and Brian Merchant
While I'm tired of AI news and opinion pieces, I'm a huge fan of Tristan's and CHT's work, so I watched this.
It's a critically urgent message in a masterful presentation that should be widely shared and heeded. The logical middle-path approach to AI (between highly-regulated and absolutely free and open) is the only reasonable one.
Major thank you to the team here. Please share this video.
TED Talk video loads like a 3.5" floppy on a bad day - good luck to us all Ā· thanks for what y'all do and the efforts you make toward a more humane future for us all
Great talk. Hereās my āyes, andā¦ā about a functional moral framework. Things like Holistic Decision Making can also empower us to achieve the ānarrow pathā https://holisticdecisionmaking.org/resources/articles/
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Thoughts from within the current structure.
The first few minutes of Tristanās talk are incredibly telling about the context from which he is speaking. The premise that human intelligence is about cognition - the height of which is embodied in Nobel laureates - is a deeply engrained way of understanding our species that comes from within the colonialist, capitalist structure. in this structure, we have stripped away all other aspects and practises of intelligence that are alive in all of life and reduce them to human cognition - ācomputational brain powerā. Empire separated us from nature and our humble place as the newbieās on the block, and from the full spectrum of our inner resources: from spirit, from our ancestors, from our heart intelligence, intuition, etc. This is the thinking and perspective on which AI has been built and trained. An anemic, reductionist and fundamentally isolated perspective of Intelligence. it lacks any data sets related to the intelligence of plants, trees, water other beings who have been on the Earth, millions and millions of years longer than we have and any information it has about these comes from within the colonialist capitalist structure and our limited, audacious and depleted views. Through AI we are magnifying this depletion. The irony of comparing it to Noble laureates is that they very likely were tapping into this larger intelligence in order to do what they did. to say that AI can do this for a fraction of the cost is to completely and utterly disregard the cost to our home, the Earth and all her beings in creating and running massive data warehouses. Whatever pontification we undertake about how to use AGI for good from within this current perspective is doomed before itās articulated. An AGI talk where a man gets up to the stage and tries to speak but instead wails and keens uncontrollably for 15 minutes- now that would be something worthy of these times.
Now this is what I am saying and You said it so eloquently. We have fallen so far away from the source that we disregard/refuse the vast knowledge and intelligence held in our whole being when we are in communion with our world (environment.) The way intelligence is being construed during this frenzied and reductive times disregards our many ways of knowingāthe vary ways that we share with the other animals and world around us. The hubris of materialism and scientism! Have we completely disregarded Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, the so-called Copernican Revolution in Science Philosophy? Our perception or cognition has limitations and we must consider this limitation as an invitation to wonder. We must account that there is knowledge outside of cognition. Have we forgotten the beautiful insight that Godel introduced to us at the same time that Alan Turing was revolutionizing computer science? These parallels are long standing. What of Yeats? What of Henri Bergson? Maurice Merleau-Ponty? Plato?
Long-time CHT appreciator here. So I was disappointed to see this sentence
> As you know, Silicon Valley is racing toward AI systems that could soon match or surpass human intelligence.
presented as fact. Silicon Valley would like you to think that it is racing toward such systems. That idea creates higher stock valuations for some lucky folks but it has no basis in reality. Repeating it credulously perpetuates a massive grift with real environmental and societal implications. I look to CHT to do better.
The harm in these myths is real and is actively harming people and the earth. Apps are jumping to incorporate "AI" into their products to stay relevant but it is just adding all of this clunky noise to the interface. Clunky and costly! Consumers have very little control in what we engage with as these software updates and terms and conditions got us by the short and curlies.
You know what? I just realized that my initial reply is in the wrong place. It was supposed to be to the link for the "Beyond the Buzz" interview. Oh well.
Agree. it is definitely time to "cut bait" as we stay in the south. It's like they've been digging this hole for 80 years based on false premises and now there are hundreds of trillions invested (ska "owed") so what does a lake capitalist do? Keep digging and drill down harder! They are desperately trying to monetize any thing they can in any way possible and anyone connected to the industry is subject to that process unfortunately.
As a humanities professor who grew up in the B.D time, I've been watching this show for quite a while, I have unpacked a lot of the cultural and archetypal forces going on that have created the world that we are in now and the conundrum that you speak of, unfortunately, without all of the tools that you need to speak of it; because you lack the educational foundation to be able to explore the topics effectively. This has put you in a constant loop and like your creation you tend to make things up as you go. This is unfortunate for all of us because of the amount of power and influence that you wield and the hole that has been dug of hundreds of trillions of dollars and let's add 80 years of human energy and labor. but let me add that you are getting closer: late capitalism is the ultimate IRL game. Who cares about climate change? It's just a changing game board, right? Aren't all of the games essentially based in feudalism and dystopia and war? What about the fantastic imaginary worlds of science fiction and especially dystopic cyberpunk, a virtual wild west or West World where hoodie clad gun slingers rule and slave labor like the Mechanical Turk still eists i the digital "paradise". There is so much more to unpack here. There are archetypal, spiritual, and mythological narratives at play, too; but again, those are not things that you would have learned about in stem classes. Another angle with which to understand the situation which you touch on, as you touch on all of these in your innocent way, is existentialism and other philosophical concepts not the least of which is Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which you may actually know about because it is so commonly known . interestingly, Plato never brought up that we ourselves are the projector, or maybe a better way to say it is that we create the projector. You seem to understand that you are part of something bigger than you understand and that you do not have the knowledge and foundation to be able to understand the whole that has been dug and are still digging.
Yes! Exactly I agree and have been studying this history of mathematics, science, and philosophy (alongside pure mathematics) since I was a child, out of curiosity. The philosophical/ anthropological perspective is precisely the thing that the scientism/materialism of the day undermines with "objectivity." Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is studied but not integrated. It is purposeful. It is the game and money is winning. Have we forgotten the beautiful insight that Godel introduced to us at the same time that Alan Turing was revolutionizing computer science? But no, we choose escapism into the ether and re-echoing of our minds. Humdog tried to warn us with Pandora's Vox. These parallels are long standing. It is the story of the holy grail and the divorcing of our values/morals from the earth and to a make believe daddy in the sky that we relinquish our destiny. It is the game you speak of.
The prevailing myth that drives this frenzy for the all knowing-fastest-smartest machine is costing us the planet and human dignity.
I look to Henri Bergson, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Graeber, James Baldwin, bell hooks ...
Knowledge is not just what can be held digitally ; to think otherwise is perverse reductionism.
Cyberpunk was supposed to be a warning!
Totally! I feel like I could have written much of what you say here! I gave a presentation in Athens, the first of the year on the topic to a bunch of humanities PhD's, who seem to have never thought about the subject, which confused me; so you're post is a breath of fresh air for me. I did speak about the holy Grail and the creation of the machine "god" drives in fact! It was nice to know that someone out there understands the string board that is going on in my brain right now. Thank you!
That is how I felt about your post as well. I try to talk about this with others IRL but it quickly devolves into parroting headines and re-affirming these myths of our time. Have you ever heard of Margaret Wertheim or Sadie Sink? I really enjoyed a project by Ingrid Burrington and Meredith Whittaker in early 2016 called "The Realm of Rough Telepathy." There are/have been minds on this "Search for the Holy Grail" or the search disembodiment of knowledge and prioritization of residing in an ethereal state but they have not been promoted (most are women in philosophy.) I hear current philosophers/ intellectuals writing on this but they are not hitting on the same anthropological nodes or myths that you are, which I find most important for discussion as well. They are more situated in the cross hairs of tech policy and Cory Doctorow and Brian Merchant
While I'm tired of AI news and opinion pieces, I'm a huge fan of Tristan's and CHT's work, so I watched this.
It's a critically urgent message in a masterful presentation that should be widely shared and heeded. The logical middle-path approach to AI (between highly-regulated and absolutely free and open) is the only reasonable one.
Major thank you to the team here. Please share this video.
TED Talk video loads like a 3.5" floppy on a bad day - good luck to us all Ā· thanks for what y'all do and the efforts you make toward a more humane future for us all
https://open.substack.com/pub/ayoungethan/p/a-functional-framework-for-good-and
Great talk. Hereās my āyes, andā¦ā about a functional moral framework. Things like Holistic Decision Making can also empower us to achieve the ānarrow pathā https://holisticdecisionmaking.org/resources/articles/
Love this short-read format!
THANK YOU....Tristan always the most ethical best...and much needed today...