Alas, Turing’s Nazi fascism and “death denial” doesn’t seem to appeal much to people around here. I figured that the residents would enjoy watching this sort of material.
I can’t speak for anyone else but it’s Jaron Lanier that doesn’t appeal much to me. I barely read to the end of the sentence after seeing his name, I certainly wasn’t going to click the link and subject myself to his inane punditry so I have no opinion on the specific content.
Can’t watch video from here, and in any case given the much greater investment of time required I’d want to know more about it to start watching. Anyone who’s seen it care to say if there are any new or good arguments in there?
Er, this is pretty relevant and on-topic material, IMHO!
Jaron Lanier is a fruitcake—but I figure most participants here already knew that.
You may not personally be interested in what famous geek critics have to say about “the Tech World’s New Religion”—but it seems bad to assume that everyone here is like that.
Hmm, I didn’t see it that way. Removed downvote. But videos are a pain; you could do us a favour next time by saying a few more words about whether you’re recommending it or just posting FYI. Otherwise there’s a Gricean implication that you judge it worth our time, I think.
There should be a policy, or strong norm, of “No summary, no link” when starting a thread with a suggested link. That summary should tell the key insights gained, and what about it you found unique.
I hate having to read a long article—or worse, listen to a long recording—and find out it’s not much different from what I’ve heard a thousand times before. (That happens more than I would expect here.) Of course, you shouldn’t withhold a link just because Silas (or anyone else) already read something similar … but it tremendously helps to know in advance that it is something similar.
Yes, I don’t like “teaser” links much either. I did give the author, title and a three word synopsis—but more would probably have helped. On the other hand, I didn’t want to prejudice watchers too much by giving my own opinion up front.
Jaron Lanier is a fruitcake—but I figure most participants here already knew that.
They may not; it takes a while for one to figure out that he really is a fruitcake—individual columns or essays tend to sound like perfectly respectable contrarianism. I first began reading his articles in Discover and it wasn’t until his ‘Digital Maoism’ essay that “he really is a nut!” occurred to me.
Listening to the longer version isn’t so bad. The snippet was definitely the most objectionable.
It appears that Lanier thinks AI is suffering from the puppet problem bought on by taking the Turing test too seriously. The puppet problem is that computers can be used to implement puppets. Things that fake being intelligence. Imagine Omega makes a program for the Turing Test that looks intelligent by predicting you and having the program output intelligent sounding responses at different times, so that you (and only you!) think it is intelligent but you are really talking to the advanced equivalent of an answer phone*. So he thinks that AIs are going to be puppets. Which is a semi-reasonable opinion to come to if you just look at chatbots.
However Lanier doesn’t, but should, argue that computers can only be puppets.
Edited: For clarity.
*I think Eliezer said something like if you see intelligent behaviour you should guess that there is an intelligence somewhere, it may just not be in the system that appears intelligent. I’m not organised enough to keep a quote file. Anyone?
If someday you come to understand consciousness, and look back, and see that there’s a program you can write which will output confused philosophical discourse that sounds an awful lot like humans without itself being conscious—then when I ask “How did this program come to sound similar to humans?” the answer is that you wrote it to sound similar to conscious humans, rather than choosing on the criterion of similarity to something else.
In the short version, mainly saying the singularity is a nutty concept and making strange comments about Turing. It does not encourage me to watch the longer version.
I’ve found the audio for the longer version. Which I may listen to at some point.
Geek rapture naysaying:
“Jaron Lanier: Alan Turing and the Tech World’s New Religion”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr3t9qxZv6c
Pointing people to Lanier as a naysayer isn’t playing fair; it just makes the opposition look crazy.
Alas, Turing’s Nazi fascism and “death denial” doesn’t seem to appeal much to people around here. I figured that the residents would enjoy watching this sort of material.
I can’t speak for anyone else but it’s Jaron Lanier that doesn’t appeal much to me. I barely read to the end of the sentence after seeing his name, I certainly wasn’t going to click the link and subject myself to his inane punditry so I have no opinion on the specific content.
Can’t watch video from here, and in any case given the much greater investment of time required I’d want to know more about it to start watching. Anyone who’s seen it care to say if there are any new or good arguments in there?
It’s the usual ‘Rapture of the Nerds’ spiel.
Thanks to you and whpearson for taking the time to find out so the rest of us don’t have to. Voted timtyler down for wasting your and our time.
Edit: removed downvote, see below.
Er, this is pretty relevant and on-topic material, IMHO!
Jaron Lanier is a fruitcake—but I figure most participants here already knew that.
You may not personally be interested in what famous geek critics have to say about “the Tech World’s New Religion”—but it seems bad to assume that everyone here is like that.
Hmm, I didn’t see it that way. Removed downvote. But videos are a pain; you could do us a favour next time by saying a few more words about whether you’re recommending it or just posting FYI. Otherwise there’s a Gricean implication that you judge it worth our time, I think.
There should be a policy, or strong norm, of “No summary, no link” when starting a thread with a suggested link. That summary should tell the key insights gained, and what about it you found unique.
I hate having to read a long article—or worse, listen to a long recording—and find out it’s not much different from what I’ve heard a thousand times before. (That happens more than I would expect here.) Of course, you shouldn’t withhold a link just because Silas (or anyone else) already read something similar … but it tremendously helps to know in advance that it is something similar.
Yes, I don’t like “teaser” links much either. I did give the author, title and a three word synopsis—but more would probably have helped. On the other hand, I didn’t want to prejudice watchers too much by giving my own opinion up front.
I get that. Can we encourage a norm of writing FYI when we want to avoid the implication that it’s a recommendation?
They may not; it takes a while for one to figure out that he really is a fruitcake—individual columns or essays tend to sound like perfectly respectable contrarianism. I first began reading his articles in Discover and it wasn’t until his ‘Digital Maoism’ essay that “he really is a nut!” occurred to me.
Listening to the longer version isn’t so bad. The snippet was definitely the most objectionable.
It appears that Lanier thinks AI is suffering from the puppet problem bought on by taking the Turing test too seriously. The puppet problem is that computers can be used to implement puppets. Things that fake being intelligence. Imagine Omega makes a program for the Turing Test that looks intelligent by predicting you and having the program output intelligent sounding responses at different times, so that you (and only you!) think it is intelligent but you are really talking to the advanced equivalent of an answer phone*. So he thinks that AIs are going to be puppets. Which is a semi-reasonable opinion to come to if you just look at chatbots.
However Lanier doesn’t, but should, argue that computers can only be puppets.
Edited: For clarity.
*I think Eliezer said something like if you see intelligent behaviour you should guess that there is an intelligence somewhere, it may just not be in the system that appears intelligent. I’m not organised enough to keep a quote file. Anyone?
“GAZP vs. GLUT”:
In the short version, mainly saying the singularity is a nutty concept and making strange comments about Turing. It does not encourage me to watch the longer version.
I’ve found the audio for the longer version. Which I may listen to at some point.
It’s the usual ‘Rapture of the Nerds’ spiel.