I read this heady tome in college. I think I’ve completed it three times? It alternates between whimsical stories and theory, building a case that thought and meaning are emergent properties of the brain. It deals heavily with the idea of self-reference, which is the main theme uniting the three people in the title. Although he discounts the possibility of the immaterial aspect of reality as unknowable, Hofstadter introduced me to many interesting ideas and his book is a delightful journey, if you are prepared for it.
These stories contain so much richness. One theme that stuck with me emerges in Out of the Silent Planet and is repeated in Perelandra: that good things can be spoiled by overconsumption. Something that is pleasant or satisfying stands by itself, and doesn’t need to be repeated or hoarded. In fact, the drive to capture, concentrate, and control pleasant things can cheapen them, and could be at the root of many of our troubles.
This book painted for me a vivid picture of the mechanics of selfish and self-centered thinking. It describes in detail the ways that we blind ourselves, especially in interpersonal communication. The result of internalizing the concepts in this book is a sort of secular elaboration of “Love your neighbor”, but even though it misses (or omits? subtracts?) the spiritual core of things, it still rings quite true and the tools found in this book and others from the Arbinger Instutute are fantastically valuable. If this is of interest, you may also enjoy Marshall Rosenberg’s “Non-violent communication” or my article on needs-based communication.
This book synthesizes many pieces of the zeitgeist as I have seen it develop in my life. It touches on nihilism, the charismatic movement, yoga, eastern and new-age spirituality, and the UFO phenomenon. All these things are contextualized into a movement towards an upcoming religious synthesis, and contrasted with eastern Orthodoxy. Fr. Seraphim has a clear, academic writing style which I found easy to read, and this book answered many questions I had not even thought to ask. I also recommend his book/pamphlet Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, which is slightly drier than this but sets a good foundation for it, and The Soul After Death for its sober and thorough approach to understanding things most people have not witnessed directly.
This is the fascinating true story of a young man’s experiences with occult eastern gurus, the amazing adventures and troubles he had, and his conversations and visits with Elder Paisios of Mount Athos. He tells the story without embellishment, speaking plainly about the fantastic things that he saw and his thoughts and feelings as he struggled to find peace.
This book functions not only as an engaging story, but a primer for digital security as a whole. If it doesn’t make you an outright cypherpunk, you will at least understand the movement better.
A sympathetic main character, heaps of style, a hacker aesthetic, an evocative and lived-in setting, and non-stop action. This book magnified my love of the written word as a literal creative force. Digital reality and baseline reality are both shaped by language, but in different ways, and this story explores that distinction vigorously and memorably.
The illustrations in this surreal children’s book stuck with me my whole life. I like all this author’s illustrations, but this book especially captured my imagination.
This was my first programming book. My grandfather Clarence gave it to me along with a Radio Shack PC-2 handheld computer. That evening I managed to make a program that produced “music”, a random sequence of tones. I was hooked.
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+Books - joshua.seigler.net
Books
These books had a big influence on my thinking and taste.
I read this heady tome in college. I think I’ve completed it three times? It alternates between whimsical stories and theory, building a case that thought and meaning are emergent properties of the brain. It deals heavily with the idea of self-reference, which is the main theme uniting the three people in the title. Although he discounts the possibility of the immaterial aspect of reality as unknowable, Hofstadter introduced me to many interesting ideas and his book is a delightful journey, if you are prepared for it.
These stories contain so much richness. One theme that stuck with me emerges in Out of the Silent Planet and is repeated in Perelandra: that good things can be spoiled by overconsumption. Something that is pleasant or satisfying stands by itself, and doesn’t need to be repeated or hoarded. In fact, the drive to capture, concentrate, and control pleasant things can cheapen them, and could be at the root of many of our troubles.
This book painted for me a vivid picture of the mechanics of selfish and self-centered thinking. It describes in detail the ways that we blind ourselves, especially in interpersonal communication. The result of internalizing the concepts in this book is a sort of secular elaboration of “Love your neighbor”, but even though it misses (or omits? subtracts?) the spiritual core of things, it still rings quite true and the tools found in this book and others from the Arbinger Instutute are fantastically valuable. If this is of interest, you may also enjoy Marshall Rosenberg’s “Non-violent communication” or my article on needs-based communication.
This book synthesizes many pieces of the zeitgeist as I have seen it develop in my life. It touches on nihilism, the charismatic movement, yoga, eastern and new-age spirituality, and the UFO phenomenon. All these things are contextualized into a movement towards an upcoming religious synthesis, and contrasted with eastern Orthodoxy. Fr. Seraphim has a clear, academic writing style which I found easy to read, and this book answered many questions I had not even thought to ask. I also recommend his book/pamphlet Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age, which is slightly drier than this but sets a good foundation for it, and The Soul After Death for its sober and thorough approach to understanding things most people have not witnessed directly.
This is the fascinating true story of a young man’s experiences with occult eastern gurus, the amazing adventures and troubles he had, and his conversations and visits with Elder Paisios of Mount Athos. He tells the story without embellishment, speaking plainly about the fantastic things that he saw and his thoughts and feelings as he struggled to find peace.
This book functions not only as an engaging story, but a primer for digital security as a whole. If it doesn’t make you an outright cypherpunk, you will at least understand the movement better.
A sympathetic main character, heaps of style, a hacker aesthetic, an evocative and lived-in setting, and non-stop action. This book magnified my love of the written word as a literal creative force. Digital reality and baseline reality are both shaped by language, but in different ways, and this story explores that distinction vigorously and memorably.
The illustrations in this surreal children’s book stuck with me my whole life. I like all this author’s illustrations, but this book especially captured my imagination.
This was my first programming book. My grandfather Clarence gave it to me along with a Radio Shack PC-2 handheld computer. That evening I managed to make a program that produced “music”, a random sequence of tones. I was hooked.
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-Posts - joshua.seigler.net
Authority is the idea that certain people are justified in violating consent. This belief allows people to force others to do what they want with a clear conscience.
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+Posts - joshua.seigler.net
Authority is the idea that certain people are justified in violating consent. This belief allows people to force others to do what they want with a clear conscience.
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-Needs-based communication - joshua.seigler.net
Needs-based communication (usually called non-violent communication or NVC™) is a way of understanding yourself and others with a unique insight: everyone has their own personal reactions to the world, but people have the same basic needs. We recognize those needs in other people, and that common connection can allow us to communicate clearly when there is conflict.
Needs
Needs are universal to humanity. They are common drives that we all experience, and this universality makes them perfect for connecting with each other. Some broad categories of needs are the needs for: connection, physical well-being, honesty, play, peace, autonomy, and meaning. Needs can also be specific: a need for clarity, nurturing, integrity, trust, space, etc. Needs are abstract, not connected to people or actions. For example, peace is a need, muting TV commercials is not. Here is an abbreviated list of needs from the Center for Non-Violent Communication (CNVC):
Physical wellbeing - air, food, movement/exercise, rest/sleep, sexual expression, safety, shelter, touch, water Honesty - authenticity, integrity, presence Connection - acceptance, affection, appreciation, belonging, cooperation, communication, closeness, community, companionship, compassion, consideration, consistency, empathy, inclusion, intimacy, love, mutuality, nurturing, respect/self-respect, safety, security, stability, support, to know and be known, to see and be seen, to understand and be understood, trust, warmth Play - joy, humor Peace - beauty, communion, ease, equality, harmony, inspiration, order Autonomy - choice, freedom, independence, space, spontaneity Meaning - awareness, celebration of, life challenge, clarity, competence, consciousness, contribution, creativity, discovery, efficacy, effectiveness, growth, hope, learning, mourning, participation, purpose, self-expression, stimulation, to matter, understanding
Everything anyone does is an attempt to meet a need. None of these universal needs is wrong or inherently harmful, although sometimes the strategies we use can be.
Conflict
Conflict happens when several peoples’ needs aren’t met. We get stuck in conflict when we mix up needs and strategies. Needs never conflict with each other, only strategies do.
When we experience conflict or negative feelings, that indicates that there is an unmet need. In an attempt to end a conflict, we often settle on unsatisfying resolutions:
We suppress the need and move on, painfully leaving the problem unaddressed.
We come to an uneasy agreement about who is the winner and who is the loser, and the loser gives up on meeting their need. The immediate conflict is over, but the problem is not really resolved.
We escalate, expanding the conflict in an attempt to win, at the other’s expense if necessary.
These resolutions can happen despite our best intentions, as a result of not understanding what’s happening as we fight. A very common mistake is to confuse needs and strategies.
Strategies
Strategies are things we do to meet our needs. In contrast to needs, which are abstract and universal, strategies are personal, specific, and widely varied.
For example, consider the need for self-expression. There are as many strategies as there are people and situations: singing, writing, talking, composing, dressing a certain way… and on and on.
Jumping into a conflict strategy-first is bound to cause problems if that strategy doesn’t meet others’ needs as well as your own. The way past conflict is for everyone involved to understand each others’ needs, and then work together to find a strategy to meet those needs.
So, how do you figure out your own needs?
Feelings
Negative feelings are a sign that you have an unmet need. Unfortunately, most of us have learned to bundle in certain judgments and name them as feelings. For example, I might think I am feeling abandoned, but really this is a feeling of disconnectedness, vulnerability, loneliness, or something else, combined with a judgment that someone else has made me feel that way.
The truth is that the same situation can affect different people in very different ways. This means that feelings must come from a person’s own response to things. In order to see your own feelings clearly, it is important to take ownership of them as your feelings rather than something caused by the world around you. I have found this to be very challenging, but also incredibly rewarding.
CNVC provides an incomplete inventory of feelings:
Once you have an honest name for what you are feeling, think about what need sparked the feeling.
There is a (kind of clunky) formula for requesting help meeting a need without tacking on strategies, demands, judgments, or other baggage. As the exercise becomes more habitual, you won’t need the formula, and can accomplish the same thing more naturally.
Here it is:
When [observation], I felt [feeling] because I was having a need for [need]. (possibly also a request:) Are you willing to [action]?
In the spirit of communicating without judgments, the observation should be strictly focused on facts, with no mind-reading or attribution at all. Sharing your feelings in addition to the need can help the other person recognize the need and how it affects you. If the other person understands the need, you can also make a request for some specific action to help meet your need.
It is very important that the action you request be feasible, concrete, and specific. Asking someone to change their behavior forever, think a certain way, etc is too much. The request should also really, truly be a request and not a demand. A “No!” should be as welcome as a “Yes!” because the goal is to find a strategy that meets your needs and theirs.
There is a (similarly clunky) pattern for discovering someone else’s needs. As you listen to them, you will probably get an idea for how they feel, and you may be able to guess what need they are experiencing. You can ask:
When you [observation] do you feel [feeling] because you are having a need for [need]? (possibly also:) Right now, would you like me to [action]?
Like the other formula, this is just a beginning point, almost too rough to use except for training your responses and replacing old communication habits.
These are two sides of the same coin, a pattern that draws a line from the stimulus, some observation, through the needs, towards a solution. Even if you guess wrong, just focusing on someone’s feelings and needs demonstrates that you are really interested in their problem.
Even without explicitly using this pattern (observation ➔ feeling ➔ need ➔ request), just by thinking about needs (your own and others’) you can untangle conflict and see other people with much more empathy. Maybe that reckless driver is having a need for excitement and power, and zipping around you was the best strategy they could come up with. Just seeing past the image of others as enemies or obstacles can make the world much less hostile, by revealing them to be real humans, people you might be able to connect with. This way of thinking can also be a path to growth as you take ownership of your feelings and see your needs clearly.
Needs-based communication (usually called non-violent communication or NVC™) is a way of understanding yourself and others with a unique insight: everyone has their own personal reactions to the world, but people have the same basic needs. We recognize those needs in other people, and that common connection can allow us to communicate clearly when there is conflict.
Needs
Needs are universal to humanity. They are common drives that we all experience, and this universality makes them perfect for connecting with each other. Some broad categories of needs are the needs for: connection, physical well-being, honesty, play, peace, autonomy, and meaning. Needs can also be specific: a need for clarity, nurturing, integrity, trust, space, etc. Needs are abstract, not connected to people or actions. For example, peace is a need, muting TV commercials is not. Here is an abbreviated list of needs from the Center for Non-Violent Communication (CNVC):
Physical wellbeing - air, food, movement/exercise, rest/sleep, sexual expression, safety, shelter, touch, water Honesty - authenticity, integrity, presence Connection - acceptance, affection, appreciation, belonging, cooperation, communication, closeness, community, companionship, compassion, consideration, consistency, empathy, inclusion, intimacy, love, mutuality, nurturing, respect/self-respect, safety, security, stability, support, to know and be known, to see and be seen, to understand and be understood, trust, warmth Play - joy, humor Peace - beauty, communion, ease, equality, harmony, inspiration, order Autonomy - choice, freedom, independence, space, spontaneity Meaning - awareness, celebration of, life challenge, clarity, competence, consciousness, contribution, creativity, discovery, efficacy, effectiveness, growth, hope, learning, mourning, participation, purpose, self-expression, stimulation, to matter, understanding
Everything anyone does is an attempt to meet a need. None of these universal needs is wrong or inherently harmful, although sometimes the strategies we use can be.
Conflict
Conflict happens when several peoples’ needs aren’t met. We get stuck in conflict when we mix up needs and strategies. Needs never conflict with each other, only strategies do.
When we experience conflict or negative feelings, that indicates that there is an unmet need. In an attempt to end a conflict, we often settle on unsatisfying resolutions:
We suppress the need and move on, painfully leaving the problem unaddressed.
We come to an uneasy agreement about who is the winner and who is the loser, and the loser gives up on meeting their need. The immediate conflict is over, but the problem is not really resolved.
We escalate, expanding the conflict in an attempt to win, at the other’s expense if necessary.
These resolutions can happen despite our best intentions, as a result of not understanding what’s happening as we fight. A very common mistake is to confuse needs and strategies.
Strategies
Strategies are things we do to meet our needs. In contrast to needs, which are abstract and universal, strategies are personal, specific, and widely varied.
For example, consider the need for self-expression. There are as many strategies as there are people and situations: singing, writing, talking, composing, dressing a certain way… and on and on.
Jumping into a conflict strategy-first is bound to cause problems if that strategy doesn’t meet others’ needs as well as your own. The way past conflict is for everyone involved to understand each others’ needs, and then work together to find a strategy to meet those needs.
So, how do you figure out your own needs?
Feelings
Negative feelings are a sign that you have an unmet need. Unfortunately, most of us have learned to bundle in certain judgments and name them as feelings. For example, I might think I am feeling abandoned, but really this is a feeling of disconnectedness, vulnerability, loneliness, or something else, combined with a judgment that someone else has made me feel that way.
The truth is that the same situation can affect different people in very different ways. This means that feelings must come from a person’s own response to things. In order to see your own feelings clearly, it is important to take ownership of them as your feelings rather than something caused by the world around you. I have found this to be very challenging, but also incredibly rewarding.
CNVC provides an incomplete inventory of feelings:
Once you have an honest name for what you are feeling, think about what need sparked the feeling.
There is a (kind of clunky) formula for requesting help meeting a need without tacking on strategies, demands, judgments, or other baggage. As the exercise becomes more habitual, you won’t need the formula, and can accomplish the same thing more naturally.
Here it is:
When [observation], I felt [feeling] because I was having a need for [need]. (possibly also a request:) Are you willing to [action]?
In the spirit of communicating without judgments, the observation should be strictly focused on facts, with no mind-reading or attribution at all. Sharing your feelings in addition to the need can help the other person recognize the need and how it affects you. If the other person understands the need, you can also make a request for some specific action to help meet your need.
It is very important that the action you request be feasible, concrete, and specific. Asking someone to change their behavior forever, think a certain way, etc is too much. The request should also really, truly be a request and not a demand. A “No!” should be as welcome as a “Yes!” because the goal is to find a strategy that meets your needs and theirs.
There is a (similarly clunky) pattern for discovering someone else’s needs. As you listen to them, you will probably get an idea for how they feel, and you may be able to guess what need they are experiencing. You can ask:
When you [observation] do you feel [feeling] because you are having a need for [need]? (possibly also:) Right now, would you like me to [action]?
Like the other formula, this is just a beginning point, almost too rough to use except for training your responses and replacing old communication habits.
These are two sides of the same coin, a pattern that draws a line from the stimulus, some observation, through the needs, towards a solution. Even if you guess wrong, just focusing on someone’s feelings and needs demonstrates that you are really interested in their problem.
Even without explicitly using this pattern (observation ➔ feeling ➔ need ➔ request), just by thinking about needs (your own and others’) you can untangle conflict and see other people with much more empathy. Maybe that reckless driver is having a need for excitement and power, and zipping around you was the best strategy they could come up with. Just seeing past the image of others as enemies or obstacles can make the world much less hostile, by revealing them to be real humans, people you might be able to connect with. This way of thinking can also be a path to growth as you take ownership of your feelings and see your needs clearly.
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-The Trivium: A Tool for Learning Anything - joshua.seigler.net
Information today has become siloed. It’s a common belief that little, if any, expertise from one field of knowledge transfers over to other fields. But there is a forgotten tool that anyone can use to confidently approach new subjects and problems: the Trivium.
The ancients considered the liberal arts to be composed of seven parts. First was a foundation called the trivium, composed of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Following that was the quadrivium, which was arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (numbers, numbers in space, numbers in time, numbers in time and space). The trivium (literally, “three ways”), is a framework for learning.
Grammar
Grammar is about gaining knowledge: collecting information, without judgment or analysis. It answers the questions “Who, what, where, and when?” This is possibly the most important step, since (depending on what you study) essential information may not be readily available.
Logic
Logic is about gaining understanding. It answers “why?” This is the foundation for relating to the world. It has three components: filtration, correlation, and analysis. It places the information gathered into context, and eliminates inconsistency and resolves conflicting perspectives.
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is about acting wisely: the application of knowledge and understanding, put into correct action. It answers “how?”
Methodically applying this method provides a clear next step when encountering any unfamiliar topic. This is a powerful tool for methodically determining the best way to achieve your goals.
Information today has become siloed. It’s a common belief that little, if any, expertise from one field of knowledge transfers over to other fields. But there is a forgotten tool that anyone can use to confidently approach new subjects and problems: the Trivium.
The ancients considered the liberal arts to be composed of seven parts. First was a foundation called the trivium, composed of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Following that was the quadrivium, which was arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy (numbers, numbers in space, numbers in time, numbers in time and space). The trivium (literally, “three ways”), is a framework for learning.
Grammar
Grammar is about gaining knowledge: collecting information, without judgment or analysis. It answers the questions “Who, what, where, and when?” This is possibly the most important step, since (depending on what you study) essential information may not be readily available.
Logic
Logic is about gaining understanding. It answers “why?” This is the foundation for relating to the world. It has three components: filtration, correlation, and analysis. It places the information gathered into context, and eliminates inconsistency and resolves conflicting perspectives.
Rhetoric
Rhetoric is about acting wisely: the application of knowledge and understanding, put into correct action. It answers “how?”
Methodically applying this method provides a clear next step when encountering any unfamiliar topic. This is a powerful tool for methodically determining the best way to achieve your goals.
There’s an exchange early in the classic '80s movie TRON. Some scientists are talking shop:
ALAN: I tell ya, ever since he got that Master Control Program, system’s got more bugs than a bait store.
GIBBS: Ehh, you gotta expect some static. After all, computers are just machines, they can’t think…
ALAN: Programs will be thinking soon.
GIBBS: (wryly) Hahaha, won’t that be grand – computers and the programs will start thinking, and the people will stop!
Gibbs has a point. The modern vision of a utopian future is one where work is relieved, and people are free to pursue leisure, or exercise their creativity with art, writing, and poetry. Thinking computers are here now, in the form of “large language models” (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Setting aside the irony that creative works are the first and most visible applications of LLM technology – is that imagined future actually a good one?
Mom is always right
When I was a kid, I remember a day going to yard sales with my mom in the family minivan. It was early summer, a hot day. The windows were down, and I complained that if the vehicle has good air conditioning, we should use it. What was the point in getting all hot? “To get used to the warm weather,” came the answer. What an injustice! We were sweating back there! Later in life, I took a short trip to Arizona in August. Everyone scurried from building to building. Where the sun was doubled, reflected off of glass skyscrapers, the temperature jump was alarming. It was actually unsafe to spend long stretches outside unprepared. But when I returned to Massachusetts, for the rest of the summer 85 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit felt like nothing.
All that to say, the work that LLM technology offers to relieve isn’t just about achieving a result. The effort maintains and builds our abilities. Work pushes us to connect to each other for help, or to persevere in doing something difficult. Outsourcing that work eventually means losing the ability to do it yourself.
Attention must be paid
Simply put, an LLM is a document completion engine. You give it text, and it extends it. The result doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be convincing. No amount of pre-training or guard rails will make it truthful. It does often say true things, but that’s not the point, it’s more of a happy accident.
Because they are built from essentially the whole public internet, LLMs also have a strong connection to The Algorithm. Algorithms that run social media feeds and online advertising are designed to attract human attention, a precious thing. Social media algorithms and LLMs are oriented towards capturing that attention. The foundational LLM paper is even called, “Attention is all you need”. A prescient title. LLM intelligence is not like ours. It can’t know what it’s like to be a human.
If this was a person, someone who wanted your attention and had this kind of indifference towards truth, they would be considered a con-man or bullshitter. On Bullshit, Harry Frankfurt Untrustworthy.
Science fiction is littered with cautionary tales about inhuman intelligence. For that matter, so is myth: genies give people whatever they want, but because people have self-destructive desires (like the desire to avoid work), it goes wrong. In TRON, Infocom has the MCP (Master Control Program), an overgrown chess program that is given access to whatever information it can consume, until its intelligence and capabilities are seemingly endless. The company leadership comes to rely on the program so completely that it becomes their entire interface for understanding and operating the business. There is also the irony that Infocom’s success was built on the misuse of intellectual property, much as LLM companies have done AI, Copyright, and the Law: The Ongoing Battle Over Intellectual Property Rights , IP & Technology Law Society Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem, Harvard Business Review.
I don’t think I am wise enough to safely use a genie in a bottle. And I don’t want to outsource my creative efforts to an addictive, bullshitting alien intellect, even if it might save time and effort in the short term.
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+Thinking machines - joshua.seigler.net
There’s an exchange early in the classic '80s movie TRON. Some scientists are talking shop:
ALAN: I tell ya, ever since he got that Master Control Program, system’s got more bugs than a bait store.
GIBBS: Ehh, you gotta expect some static. After all, computers are just machines, they can’t think…
ALAN: Programs will be thinking soon.
GIBBS: (wryly) Hahaha, won’t that be grand – computers and the programs will start thinking, and the people will stop!
Gibbs has a point. The modern vision of a utopian future is one where work is relieved, and people are free to pursue leisure, or exercise their creativity with art, writing, and poetry. Thinking computers are here now, in the form of “large language models” (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Setting aside the irony that creative works are the first and most visible applications of LLM technology – is that imagined future actually a good one?
Mom is always right
When I was a kid, I remember a day going to yard sales with my mom in the family minivan. It was early summer, a hot day. The windows were down, and I complained that if the vehicle has good air conditioning, we should use it. What was the point in getting all hot? “To get used to the warm weather,” came the answer. What an injustice! We were sweating back there! Later in life, I took a short trip to Arizona in August. Everyone scurried from building to building. Where the sun was doubled, reflected off of glass skyscrapers, the temperature jump was alarming. It was actually unsafe to spend long stretches outside unprepared. But when I returned to Massachusetts, for the rest of the summer 85 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit felt like nothing.
All that to say, the work that LLM technology offers to relieve isn’t just about achieving a result. The effort maintains and builds our abilities. Work pushes us to connect to each other for help, or to persevere in doing something difficult. Outsourcing that work eventually means losing the ability to do it yourself.
Attention must be paid
Simply put, an LLM is a document completion engine. You give it text, and it extends it. The result doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be convincing. No amount of pre-training or guard rails will make it truthful. It does often say true things, but that’s not the point, it’s more of a happy accident.
Because they are built from essentially the whole public internet, LLMs also have a strong connection to The Algorithm. Algorithms that run social media feeds and online advertising are designed to attract human attention, a precious thing. Social media algorithms and LLMs are oriented towards capturing that attention. The foundational LLM paper is even called, “Attention is all you need”. A prescient title. LLM intelligence is not like ours. It can’t know what it’s like to be a human.
If this was a person, someone who wanted your attention and had this kind of indifference towards truth, they would be considered a con-man or bullshitter. On Bullshit, Harry Frankfurt Untrustworthy.
Science fiction is littered with cautionary tales about inhuman intelligence. For that matter, so is myth: genies give people whatever they want, but because people have self-destructive desires (like the desire to avoid work), it goes wrong. In TRON, Infocom has the MCP (Master Control Program), an overgrown chess program that is given access to whatever information it can consume, until its intelligence and capabilities are seemingly endless. The company leadership comes to rely on the program so completely that it becomes their entire interface for understanding and operating the business. There is also the irony that Infocom’s success was built on the misuse of intellectual property, much as LLM companies have done AI, Copyright, and the Law: The Ongoing Battle Over Intellectual Property Rights , IP & Technology Law Society Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem, Harvard Business Review.
I don’t think I am wise enough to safely use a genie in a bottle. And I don’t want to outsource my creative efforts to an addictive, bullshitting alien intellect, even if it might save time and effort in the short term.
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-Posts tagged #ai - joshua.seigler.net
How to connect with others through shared human needs.
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-Posts tagged #how to - joshua.seigler.net
