Excellent article, will share it on my AI post - I am no expert in this area, and the places of concern to me are mostly invisible and deal with the etheric/energy/creative abilities of humans. I am going to repost an article I wrote a while back in a week or so on the electromagnetic effects of using mobile devices. It does effect those who use our hands for certain types of energy work.
David -- A first-time lurker here. I recently wrote about AI (big deal, it seems everyone is doing it). I wish I had read this first. It was cogent and balanced. I will be back. One bit of perspective I like to share with folks. The autopilot for flying (very early AI) has been with us since 1914. What makes humans so special is our abiilty to adapt. I genuinely believe that all of the AI that has entered our lives over the last century was either set aside as irrelevant or simply accepted and join a comfortable stable in our heads as "not really AI". I believe making tools and understanding our world is one of our destinies.
Thanks David, enjoyed the clarity of your thinking and writing. You may have already heard these but i thought it worth flagging them two recent podcasts that I found enormously helpful in getting to grips with the whole AI thing
1. The Ezra Klein show ' Why AI might not take your job or supercharge the economy'. NYT's Klein in conversation with senior editor Roge Karma mostly around the social and economic implications.
One of the most intriguing arguments Klein makes is that if you were told 20 years ago about the power of the web we have now: Google, smartphones, Zoom etc you might have imagined such a huge increase in access to knowledge and comms would have generated huge increases in scientific advances and productivity etc - whereas productivity has fallen and scientific progress slowed. his point is that the internet has been a massive distraction - reducing our ability to concentrate and get shit done. He suggests that AI like GPT4 etc may turn out to be another huge distraction. There is much more besides this - really worth a listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000607834685
2. Lex Fridman podcost, Lex in conversation with Sam Altman CEO Open AI - Sam talks about the issue of ownership and not allowing profit driven corporations to shape AI (Altman. tells that Open AI's board structure gives non-profit side the final say on what goes on). I won't attempt to summarise the convo but it huge in scope and I found impressive. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lex-fridman-podcast/id1434243584?i=1000605876923
I really appreciated this piece as I've not stopped thinking about how AI will change the world, well, how it already has. My biggest concern is the time period when AI doesn't know empathy to when it does (I think in time that's a great possibility). How much damage will be done? Or will the damage never allow empathy to find its way into this new world?
I am sure, as a poet, that I will never forget the chilling moment when I overheard in the pub that you can "get a poem" from ChatGPT. "We got one for our Dad's 60th! It was amazing and he loved it!" I froze with my beer glass only halfway to my lips.
As commissioned poetry is one of my revenue streams, I went home and wrote about everything I offer that AI cannot. This now needs to be spelled out in my marketing description. I am horrified, but also hopeful that people will start to know that they want "life, heart and soul" over "efficiency" in their gift-giving at least and hopefully in their lives. Thx for this article which anwers a lot more than I had dared to ask.
Really like how you included a section on the importance and lack of mental space with all this technology, that is something that should be more emphasised / strived for on more than an individual scale, so that we can slow down and not overload our mental health.
I think the main issue with this technology, as with everything, has a lot to do with how it will be / is implemented. As I talked about in my recent piece on ChatGPT , Bill Gates (Microsoft owns OpenAI) actually thinks that AI can solve world problems like hunger and poverty, and it does not take a supercomputer to figure out that these issues will be approached from a corporate / profit-oriented standpoint. OpenAI, if it were actually open, could have the same potential as a free and open internet once had, but ultimately it is the society that determined how a technology is used, just like private interests largely determine what is and is not researched by science.
When it comes to redundancy, especially looking at jobs, the same dynamic plays out. It does not have to be a huge problem for job security or peoples' ability to make a living/survive, as long as proper measures are taken to adapt to the changed world. Looking at past technological changes seems to confirm this.
All in all, it is more of a matter of how the technology is used, what the societal circumstances are in which it is developed, and what the main motivations are of those using/developing this technology, none of which currently are to the betterment of humankind, although that could still be a beneficial side-effect.
Excellent article, will share it on my AI post - I am no expert in this area, and the places of concern to me are mostly invisible and deal with the etheric/energy/creative abilities of humans. I am going to repost an article I wrote a while back in a week or so on the electromagnetic effects of using mobile devices. It does effect those who use our hands for certain types of energy work.
David -- A first-time lurker here. I recently wrote about AI (big deal, it seems everyone is doing it). I wish I had read this first. It was cogent and balanced. I will be back. One bit of perspective I like to share with folks. The autopilot for flying (very early AI) has been with us since 1914. What makes humans so special is our abiilty to adapt. I genuinely believe that all of the AI that has entered our lives over the last century was either set aside as irrelevant or simply accepted and join a comfortable stable in our heads as "not really AI". I believe making tools and understanding our world is one of our destinies.
Thanks David, enjoyed the clarity of your thinking and writing. You may have already heard these but i thought it worth flagging them two recent podcasts that I found enormously helpful in getting to grips with the whole AI thing
1. The Ezra Klein show ' Why AI might not take your job or supercharge the economy'. NYT's Klein in conversation with senior editor Roge Karma mostly around the social and economic implications.
One of the most intriguing arguments Klein makes is that if you were told 20 years ago about the power of the web we have now: Google, smartphones, Zoom etc you might have imagined such a huge increase in access to knowledge and comms would have generated huge increases in scientific advances and productivity etc - whereas productivity has fallen and scientific progress slowed. his point is that the internet has been a massive distraction - reducing our ability to concentrate and get shit done. He suggests that AI like GPT4 etc may turn out to be another huge distraction. There is much more besides this - really worth a listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000607834685
2. Lex Fridman podcost, Lex in conversation with Sam Altman CEO Open AI - Sam talks about the issue of ownership and not allowing profit driven corporations to shape AI (Altman. tells that Open AI's board structure gives non-profit side the final say on what goes on). I won't attempt to summarise the convo but it huge in scope and I found impressive. https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/lex-fridman-podcast/id1434243584?i=1000605876923
As AI enters it's angelic and demonic roles in the utopian dystopian ideals of man. What is the Earth doing?
I really appreciated this piece as I've not stopped thinking about how AI will change the world, well, how it already has. My biggest concern is the time period when AI doesn't know empathy to when it does (I think in time that's a great possibility). How much damage will be done? Or will the damage never allow empathy to find its way into this new world?
I am sure, as a poet, that I will never forget the chilling moment when I overheard in the pub that you can "get a poem" from ChatGPT. "We got one for our Dad's 60th! It was amazing and he loved it!" I froze with my beer glass only halfway to my lips.
As commissioned poetry is one of my revenue streams, I went home and wrote about everything I offer that AI cannot. This now needs to be spelled out in my marketing description. I am horrified, but also hopeful that people will start to know that they want "life, heart and soul" over "efficiency" in their gift-giving at least and hopefully in their lives. Thx for this article which anwers a lot more than I had dared to ask.
Really like how you included a section on the importance and lack of mental space with all this technology, that is something that should be more emphasised / strived for on more than an individual scale, so that we can slow down and not overload our mental health.
I think the main issue with this technology, as with everything, has a lot to do with how it will be / is implemented. As I talked about in my recent piece on ChatGPT , Bill Gates (Microsoft owns OpenAI) actually thinks that AI can solve world problems like hunger and poverty, and it does not take a supercomputer to figure out that these issues will be approached from a corporate / profit-oriented standpoint. OpenAI, if it were actually open, could have the same potential as a free and open internet once had, but ultimately it is the society that determined how a technology is used, just like private interests largely determine what is and is not researched by science.
When it comes to redundancy, especially looking at jobs, the same dynamic plays out. It does not have to be a huge problem for job security or peoples' ability to make a living/survive, as long as proper measures are taken to adapt to the changed world. Looking at past technological changes seems to confirm this.
All in all, it is more of a matter of how the technology is used, what the societal circumstances are in which it is developed, and what the main motivations are of those using/developing this technology, none of which currently are to the betterment of humankind, although that could still be a beneficial side-effect.