CRISPY
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CRISPY has not written any posts yet.
You are correct insofar as art goes, but that’s why the distinction of workmanship is important. The justification for art is its own thing, however the justification for workmanship is needs driven.
The method of meeting the need is the core of the LLM writing discussion.
You might be interested in “The Nature and Art of Workmanship” by David Pye.
It deals with the differences between work of the hand and work of the machine, and the philosophical differences between them. He calls it the workmanship of risk versus the workmanship of certainty.
The concept applies very well to LLM writing.
The valuelessness of a treaty seems to be based on a binary interpretation of success. Treaties banning chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons development may not have been absolutely successful; they have been violated. But I don’t think many people would argue those restrictions haven’t been beneficial.
I’m not clear why a ban on developing AGI would not have similar value.
I like the idea of cocktail party investment advice as an economic bellwether. That’s a good observation.
There’s no hard delimiter on financially induced sector collapse, and it’s often not directly attributable to the sector that collapses. The dot com crash was tied to federal reserve interest rate increases that resulted in a sell off as investors moved towards less speculative investments.
AI is in a fairly safe position right now through sheer variety of vested interests. Government, construction, infrastructure, computing hardware, software, and early corporate adopters of AI are all doing everything they can to keep the ball rolling. They’ve crossed a line where sunk costs have an outsized role in future decisions. There’s also the wildcard of AI being deemed a strategic defense asset.
The present state of spending... (read more)
You were right. I was interested and genuinely enjoyed the article. I hope there is a Part III. I am interested to know about your personal approach.
Omelas can also be seen as plausibility through imperfection. People have trouble accepting perfection. Imperfection adds a layer of realism that anchors people to a story. Without imperfection, there’s nothing to talk about.
Reza Aslan cleverly applies the concept to deities, but it works with pretty much everything. Looking gift horses in the mouth is human nature. There’s a direct relationship between an ideal, and the level of effort put into the inquisition the ideal is subjected to in search of the imperfection. There’s also an expectation that the closer something is to utopia, the worse the imperfection will be.
Mark Twain said “What do they say about a man with no vices?” Churchill... (read more)
The eldritch horror analogy is interesting. I like it overall. If we extend the analysis to include not just the gods, but the people involved, I believe it adds another dimension to the discussion.
In eldritch horror there are rarely any good guys. Arguably there are none. There are typically two groups of actors, and the rest of humanity is an ignorant mass concerned with mundane matters. Innocent of the knowledge of the supermundane.
The two groups of actors are the priests, and the individuals who seek to thwart the priests using some other eldritch power. The priests are universally bad. They worship their god at the expense of everything, and everyone, else. The oppositional... (read 380 more words →)
I’m pleased this got some traction. One of my largest concerns with AI policy development is that state level decision makers will not recognize the threat until catastrophic damage has been done.
Identifying the need for chemical, biological, and nuclear warfare treaties was fairly universal, as there were real examples of their risks available for all to see. Without that tangible evidence, there’s a risk of incremental disaster like we’re seeing with climate change policies.
A policy accelerationist is probably my biggest concern. A group that creates a problem in order to highlight the need to protect against even larger disasters. Like the Gruinard Island soil incidents.
Any movement towards redlines and international safeguards is a good thing.
As extremist religious sects, Mennonites and other Anabaptists have proven particularly susceptible to the Evangelical extremism currently blazing through Christianism in North America.
It’s true to say that Mennonites love their children and don’t want them to die of measles, but the reality is more complicated. The Pre-tribulation Rapture theology associated with vaccine hesitancy has become increasingly common among Anabaptists. So much so that Anabaptist Conference and leaders in the US and Canada have issued multiple statements denying the validity of the theology, but also saying they do not prohibit it.
The theology puts great value on bodily purity, leading adherents to believe not vaccinating their children is an expression of love for them.... (read more)