The semantic apocalypse - by Erik Hoel

“Seeking to conquer a larger liberty, man but expands the empire of necessity.” — Herman Melville, “The Bell-Tower” This essay was published on a now-defunct blog in 2019, but remains relevant as it predicted many of the now-urgent issues we see in AI today. A funny thing about science fiction is that it never really predicts the future. The details are always off, and it is the details that make all the difference. Now that real AI is actually here driving cars, writing poetry, making music, and filtering your spam, the detail that has made all the difference is that these machines don’t think like us. In fact, these “intelligences” probably don’t think at all. What they definitely do, however, is copy. All serious AI now takes the form of artificial neural networks, which act like individual brain modules lacking self and motivation. They are pattern completers, not pattern inventors. Their cognitive mode is mimetic. Trained on large data sets, often by unknowing humans as they fill

“Seeking to conquer a larger liberty, man but expands the empire of necessity.” — Herman Melville, “The Bell-Tower” This essay was published on a now-defunct blog in 2019, but remains relevant as it predicted many of the now-urgent issues we see in AI today. A funny thing about science fiction is that it never really predicts the future. The details are always off, and it is the details that make all the difference. Now that real AI is actually here driving cars, writing poetry, making music, and filtering your spam, the detail that has made all the difference is that these machines don’t thin