Published in 1960, “The Singularity“ by Dino Buzzati is a thought provoking, prescient, and creepy story that makes the reader wonder what our future holds. We often like to discuss the implications of A.I. on society and books and Dino Buzzati's story is a great exploration of what it means to be human, how far A.I. can go to replicate/replace human behavior, and where do we draw the line?
https://open.spotify.com/episode/4j9KJg2YYTFMUazcmPi6cS
“…we encounter text [produced by an LLM] that looks just like something a person might have said and reflexively interpret it, through our usual process of imagining a mind behind the text. But there is no mind there, and we need to be conscientious to let go of that imaginary mind we have constructed.”
pickHilarious and informative. 6years old so probably outdated but a good overview of the difference technologies known collectively as AI. Surprisingly funny.
pickA lot of the criticisms of current “AI” technology in this book wasn‘t anything I hadn‘t heard before, but the book does bring it all together and show the destructiveness of the hype. The chapter on fighting the hype is very helpful, though I‘m skeptical that satire will do more than make AI believers double down defensively. I definitely recommend this book to fellow AI skeptics.
The importance of paying attention to what is happening behind our platforms ?
"A fish doesn't know what water is; same goes for humans and the matrix"
So well put!
There's actually a term for this category: LOVEINT, when intelligence officers use their access to surveillance tools to spy on the human objects of their affection. It's happened at all levels of the government, from NSA employees who accessed email and phone data of romantic partners to local police officers who have snooped in DMV databases to get women's home addresses.
In 2008, a couple of academics decided to study how long it would actually take to read all the privacy policies the average American agrees to in a year. Their estimate? More than 200 hours. That's 25 workdays, or a month of nine to five reading. To prove how ridiculous it was to expect consumers to read these agreements, one gaming company added to its online terms of service a claim to “the immortal soul“ of anyone who placed an...
