Untainted
Throughout history, there have been times when some human minds shone brilliant lighting the way forward for us all. For much of time, their light could be said to be enough. Never omniscient, but enough. At these times, these big minds saw far enough ahead to lead us forward.
Along the way, our world has become more and more complicated. So complicated that even our best and brightest minds may not be capable of dealing with all the variables involved in matters such as economics, governance, psychology, …, and education.
For the past few decades, computers have assisted us more and more in studying the hard sciences and, to some extent, the soft. Artificial Intelligence (AI), the intelligence of machines or software, has been developing since the advent of computers and in broad use for the past two decades. Since 2012, deep learning* AI has pretty much taken over the field.
For the past two decades, much of AI’s capacity has been applied in Surveillance Capitalism (collecting consumers’ data and using it to target them more precisely). AI is used to surveil social media users for personal information; this information is used within social media companies and/or sold to others for all sorts of purposes. Experts now say that Google, Facebook, other social media companies, and maybe the Chinese government know more about us than we know about ourselves.
Recently, significant advances have occurred in AI. We stand on the threshold of an AI Age within the current Digital Age. An age during which AI will take us to places we have never been, we could not have reached with our mere mortal minds.
We have always been somewhat limited by our capacity to think, perhaps even more so by our preconceptions and prejudices. AI, with its greater capacity, opens new horizons for humans. Especially, if it is free of prejudices and preconceptions.
We can look forward to asking AI for new ideas about how should it be. How it should be for such things as economic and governance policy. To help us better understand psychology and psychiatry. And, to find ways to improve education (isn’t education applied psychology?). AI may indeed lead us into a brave new world.
*Deep learning is the subset of machine learning methods that are based on artificial neural networks with representation learning. The adjective “deep” in deep learning refers to the use of multiple layers in the network. Methods used can be either supervised, semi-supervised, or unsupervised.
Ancient problem: garbage in; garbage out. Getting what results from that faster is not progress.
Yet another chapter in the Industrial Revolution opens, after a longish prelude that went on for at least 50 years.
Computers were going to make our lives simpler, cut down on paper waste
In meatspace MS:IS, the “M” is for Mad Scientist …
Good one Ken, you’ve opened the door on this fascinating subject. . .
AI can actually sort garbage; fact check garbage; and spit out the best the best answer based on known information. Might be something we want to look into. It would be nice if we, as humans, had the ability to get the good out of AI and somehow control the bad. I have no confidence in that.
A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go
NY Times – yesterday
The eccentric pro-tech movement known as “Effective Accelerationism” wants to unshackle powerful A.I., and party along the way.
What do you call 700 want to be $billionaires?
Ken:
Am I gonna have to throw you out of here for bad jokes??? 🙂
Bill
President Biden’s Billionaire Minimum Income Tax
… President Biden is calling on Congress to pass legislation requiring the wealthiest American households to pay a minimum of 20 percent on all of their income, including unrealized investment income that currently is untaxed. …
Using A.I. to Talk to the Dead
NY Times – today
Here After – Your stories and voice. Forever.
Preserve memories with an app that interviews you about your life. Then, let loved ones hear meaningful stories by chatting with the virtual you. …
See also
Neal Stephenson’s ‘Fall,’ there is life after death
when the avatars all move to a virtual world in computers.