Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ We Are All Going to Die, Thanks to AI

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

There's a lot of good thinking in this article, especially once you get past the 'hallucinating' part of the discussion (tl;dr - hallucinating isn't a bad thing, it's how we think) and into the part where Tim Leberecht ponders AI's place in the world. There are two really good thoughts here: first, whether there's a place 'for the world' at all; and second, replacing 'machines vs. humans' with 'symbiosis'. Because, of course. In the end, though, the article devolves into just another instance of the 'machines cannot to this thing humans do' genre. In this case, it's this: "AI would never write to it itself or for itself. AI writes to serve, to convey information, for the benefit of the reader; it is never aimless, it cannot reflect, it cannot reveal, there are no windows because there is no interior." There's no good reason to believe this, of course, but it's the sort of ending that reassures people.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: May 03, 2024 9:57 p.m.

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