We humans with our brains are the most complex thing in the known universe. That in itself is awe inspiring. And I am with you on post-ideological, but agnostic on transhumanism and probably less skeptical than you on AI. But there are impressive individuals who claim that we are at a time similar to 1440, when the printing press was invented, because of AI. Do you disagree?
Glad it resonated John! Our brains are indeed quite impressive and I find there's an impulse in contemporary to downplay them for some reason.
I do think AI is going to change society, but comparing it to the printing press seems exaggerated. I'd be more inclined to go with McLuhan's argument and compare electronic media in general to the printing press.
I like your writing, Arielle, but you neglect to mention the superiority of human juggling abilities - dont want to be a dick here, but these robots got a ways to go...
That's actually an excellent point. Our skill at moving around and do things in the real world is essential, and still eludes even the best AI. Intelligence is arguably impossible without it.
One thing I think ChatGPT is really good at is depth. There's this concept called the illusion of explanatory depth that basically says we think we know more than we actually do. For example, trying to explain how toilet works or what houses are - we can explain it on the surface level, but very few people actually know all of the stuff that makes up the things we use everyday. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-illusion-of-explanatory-depth
Part of the reason for this is the human memory is about 1gb (I read this somewhere a long time ago and can't find a link). Though we might process a lot more information every second, human recall is very blurry. This where I think GPT-4 wins in a big way. It always has access to the "memory" of all the things it references and conversations it's had with all the millions of users using it.
I could believe we have little bandwidth for episodic memory, but we carry a full lifetime implicit memories. I might not recall the 20,000 times I've brushed my teeth, but the memories are alive in my ability to carry out the action with a high degree of automaticity. ChatGPT might have more books in in memory banks than any human, but in our slower processing and poorer recall we're integrating the books we do read into a massively more complex and powerful system.
We humans with our brains are the most complex thing in the known universe. That in itself is awe inspiring. And I am with you on post-ideological, but agnostic on transhumanism and probably less skeptical than you on AI. But there are impressive individuals who claim that we are at a time similar to 1440, when the printing press was invented, because of AI. Do you disagree?
Glad it resonated John! Our brains are indeed quite impressive and I find there's an impulse in contemporary to downplay them for some reason.
I do think AI is going to change society, but comparing it to the printing press seems exaggerated. I'd be more inclined to go with McLuhan's argument and compare electronic media in general to the printing press.
I like your writing, Arielle, but you neglect to mention the superiority of human juggling abilities - dont want to be a dick here, but these robots got a ways to go...
Robot ¨juggling¨: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLrz_R_T6kg
Human juggling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP30u5kQznw
Alex Barron can juggle 14 balls. Fuck the Turing Test. It´s the Barron test now. Anyone that feels threatened by Chat GPT needs to get out more.
That's actually an excellent point. Our skill at moving around and do things in the real world is essential, and still eludes even the best AI. Intelligence is arguably impossible without it.
Interesting analysis. Go humans!
One thing I think ChatGPT is really good at is depth. There's this concept called the illusion of explanatory depth that basically says we think we know more than we actually do. For example, trying to explain how toilet works or what houses are - we can explain it on the surface level, but very few people actually know all of the stuff that makes up the things we use everyday. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-illusion-of-explanatory-depth
Part of the reason for this is the human memory is about 1gb (I read this somewhere a long time ago and can't find a link). Though we might process a lot more information every second, human recall is very blurry. This where I think GPT-4 wins in a big way. It always has access to the "memory" of all the things it references and conversations it's had with all the millions of users using it.
That's a really good point about the illusion of depth - ChatGPT is definitely better at relaying specifics than a human.
The 1gb estimate for memory seems a little low, this dude seems to think it's a lot higher: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-the-memory-capacity/
I could believe we have little bandwidth for episodic memory, but we carry a full lifetime implicit memories. I might not recall the 20,000 times I've brushed my teeth, but the memories are alive in my ability to carry out the action with a high degree of automaticity. ChatGPT might have more books in in memory banks than any human, but in our slower processing and poorer recall we're integrating the books we do read into a massively more complex and powerful system.
I do remember all of the 40,000 times I have brushed my teeth. Kill me now!
Somehow I believe you!
brilliant and clear I have been waiting for this
Thank You!
Glad you enjoyed it Ana!