joshua.seigler.net/feeds/zeitgeist.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="/simple-atom.xslt"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xml:lang="en-US">
  <title>joshua.seigler.net - zeitgeist</title>
  <subtitle>Personal homepage of Joshua Seigler</subtitle>
  <link href="https://joshua.seigler.net//feeds/zeitgeist.xml" rel="self" />
  <link href="https://joshua.seigler.net/" />
  <updated>2025-06-28T00:00:00Z</updated>
  <id>https://joshua.seigler.net/</id>
  <author>
    <name></name>
  </author>
    <entry>
      <title>War</title>
      <link href="https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/july-21-2025/" />
      <updated>2025-06-21T00:00:00Z</updated>
      <id>https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/july-21-2025/</id>
      <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;Today the USA announced its bombing of three locations in Iran, including Iran’s main nuclear enrichment site, located under a mountain in Fordow. How far will things go?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Here is the only way I know of to have peace: live every day as if tomorrow you will face death, where it will be too late for repentance, too late for a change of heart. As St. Isaac the Syrian says&lt;sup class=&quot;footnote-ref&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/july-21-2025/#footnote1&quot;&gt;[1]&lt;/a&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;footnote-anchor&quot; id=&quot;footnote-ref1&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/sup&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote class=&quot;feature&quot;&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Take hold of your life before your light grows dark and you seek help and do not find it. This life has been given to you for repentance; do not waste it in vain pursuits.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Woe to us! We neither realize just how valuable our soul is, nor comprehend the type of life we have been called to lead. We place great significance on this present life, on illnesses, on the state of society, and on the sorrows, evils, and comforts of this world.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, blessed is the person, O Lord Jesus Christ, who receives help from You. You, O Lord, are the only powerful One. Turn our faces away from the desire for this world so that we may covet You alone. Grant us, O Lord, understanding, so that we may comprehend just how deceitful this present world is, and so that we do not believe in this shadow as if it were the truth.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Seek the Lord, and be strengthened through hope. Seek His face through repentance, and you will be sanctified and cleansed from your sins, on account of the sanctity of His face. Hasten to the Lord, all of you who are guilty of sins, for He is able to forgive sins and overlook mistakes. For He made an oath and declared thus: &lt;em&gt;“I live, says the Lord. I do not desire the death of the sinner until he repents from his evil way and lives” (Ez. 13:23)&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;May we not be tested beyond what we can bear, and may we have indestructible peace that is not of this world.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;hr class=&quot;footnotes-sep&quot;&gt;
&lt;section class=&quot;footnotes&quot;&gt;
&lt;ol class=&quot;footnotes-list&quot;&gt;
&lt;li id=&quot;footnote1&quot; class=&quot;footnote-item&quot;&gt;&lt;p&gt;Quote copied from &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stnektariosmonastery.org/repentance-and-confession/This%20Life%20Has%20Been%20Given%20to%20Us%20for%20Repentance%20-%20St.%20Isaac%20the%20Syrian.pdf&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;St. Nectarios Monastery&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;https://orthodoxwiki.org/Isaac_of_Syria&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;OrthodoxWiki&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/july-21-2025/#footnote-ref1&quot; class=&quot;footnote-backref&quot;&gt;↩︎&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;
&lt;/section&gt;
</content>
    </entry>
    <entry>
      <title>Thinking machines</title>
      <link href="https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/thinking-machines/" />
      <updated>2025-04-24T00:00:00Z</updated>
      <id>https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/thinking-machines/</id>
      <content type="html">&lt;p&gt;There’s an exchange early in the classic &#39;80s movie &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/97-tron&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;TRON&lt;/a&gt;. Some scientists are talking shop:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/2025-04-24--computers-will-start-thinking.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;Still from TRON, left to right Linda, Alan, and Gibbs, in conversation.&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ALAN:&lt;/strong&gt; I tell ya, ever since he got that Master Control Program, system’s got more bugs than a bait store.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;GIBBS:&lt;/strong&gt; Ehh, you gotta expect some static. After all, computers are just machines, they can’t think…&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ALAN:&lt;/strong&gt; Programs will be thinking &lt;em&gt;soon&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;GIBBS:&lt;/strong&gt; (wryly) Hahaha, won’t that be grand – &lt;em&gt;computers and the programs will start thinking, and the people will stop!&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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?&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id=&quot;mom-is-always-right&quot; tabindex=&quot;-1&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;header-anchor&quot; href=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/thinking-machines/#mom-is-always-right&quot; aria-hidden=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Mom is always right&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id=&quot;attention-must-be-paid&quot; tabindex=&quot;-1&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;header-anchor&quot; href=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/thinking-machines/#attention-must-be-paid&quot; aria-hidden=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Attention must be paid&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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. &lt;span class=&quot;aside&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://archive.org/details/on-bullshit-by-harry-frankfurt&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;On Bullshit&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Harry Frankfurt&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Untrustworthy.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2 id=&quot;don%E2%80%99t-create-the-torment-nexus&quot; tabindex=&quot;-1&quot;&gt;&lt;a class=&quot;header-anchor&quot; href=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/posts/thinking-machines/#don%E2%80%99t-create-the-torment-nexus&quot; aria-hidden=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt; Don’t create the torment nexus&lt;/h2&gt;
&lt;p&gt;LLMs clearly manifest a type of intelligence. Sure, it’s “just” some linear algebra and a ton of data. But it does exhibit a type of intelligence. One without empathy. &lt;span class=&quot;aside&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://apnews.com/article/chatbot-ai-lawsuit-suicide-teen-artificial-intelligence-9d48adc572100822fdbc3c90d1456bd0&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;AI chatbot pushed teen to kill himself, lawsuit alleges&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;AP News&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.brusselstimes.com/430098/belgian-man-commits-suicide-following-exchanges-with-chatgpt&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;Belgian man dies by suicide following exchanges with chatbot&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Brussels Times&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;AI-Fueled Spiritual Delusions Are Destroying Human Relationships&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Rolling Stone&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Not being human, it &lt;em&gt;can’t&lt;/em&gt; have empathy—and intelligence without empathy can be dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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 &lt;span class=&quot;aside&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://sites.usc.edu/iptls/2025/02/04/ai-copyright-and-the-law-the-ongoing-battle-over-intellectual-property-rights/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;AI, Copyright, and the Law: The Ongoing Battle Over Intellectual Property Rights &lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;IP &amp;amp; Technology Law Society&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href=&quot;https://hbr.org/2023/04/generative-ai-has-an-intellectual-property-problem&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;Generative AI Has an Intellectual Property Problem&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Harvard Business Review&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;https://joshua.seigler.net/2025-04-24--end-of-line.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;End of line&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
</content>
    </entry>
</feed>