I’m not afraid of AI (Artificial Intelligence). I am afraid of human greed and exploitation and violence and lies and xenophobia, but I have trouble understanding how I could be afraid of intelligence. I had always hoped to have a chat with a self-aware non-human intelligence, which could be a so-called artificial intelligence or it could be an alien. The reason would be to get a different perspective on my own intelligence, as a kind of reality check. At any rate, intelligence, whether artificial or otherwise, is pretty far down on the list of things that I think contribute to global catastrophe. But all of those things in the list that I am afraid of, they are way up at the top of that list. And to look at it the other way, on the list of things that might help provide a way forward out of the Anthropocene Extinction, I would say intelligence would be at the top of the list. Love would be up there too, but I personally have difficulty distinguishing between the two, love and intelligence. That’s one of the things I would want to talk to a AI or an alien about, to see if they reach that same conclusion. So intelligence is not the problem. The misuse of some of the fruits of intelligence, that definitely could be a problem. That’s why I get so vehement about clickbait.

Clickbait is a text or a thumbnail link that is designed to attract attention and to entice users to follow that link and read, view, or listen to the linked piece of online content, being typically deceptive, sensationalized, or otherwise misleading.^[2][3][4]

—–https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickbait

AI is trained on clickbait, so no wonder it writes good social media posts and advertising copy. Clickbait is just the filler between the advertisements. Its sole purpose is to keep you clicking so you’ll see more advertisements. It has no other purpose than to waste your time in order to get money for showing you advertisements.  You are better off staring at the wall or at your big toe then reading clickbait. Well I could explain that I guess, staring at the wall, at least the possibility could arise that you could make a thought of your own. Clickbait is worse than porn, which at least stimulates your reptile brain. Unfortunately, clickbait is not only just empty drivel. It has a more nefarious purpose, which is not only to keep you around for the advertising, but to prepare you to receive it in a susceptible way. So, in my humble opinion a world with less clickbait would be a better world. I could explain some of my vehemence pretty easily I think. The reason AI won’t do anything of real interest to me anytime soon is that ChatGPT and other Large Language Models are trained by predicting the next expected word, billions and billions of times.  I do love it that nobody seems to know exactly what a large language model like ChatGPT is actually doing, that is, how it produces what it produces. I won’t be a bit surprised though if it turns out that it is like a cat’s cradle or, let’s say, like a rope tied in slip knots. So then, AI is trained to predict the expected next words, but I am a philosopher and poet and what philosophers and poets are interested in is the unexpected next word. Continue reading →