An enormous machine The couple of years in question here saw one of the largest bureaucracies anywhere undergo a convulsion in which it tried to reconceive itself as a non- or even anti-bureaucracy, which at first might sound like nothing more than an amusing bit of bureaucratic folly. In fact, it was frightening; it was a little like watching an enormous machine come to consciousness and start trying to think and feel like a real human. David Foster Wallace, The Pale King machinesconsciousnessbureaucracy
AI-art isn’t art An Essay by Erik Hoel erikhoel.substack.com AI-generated artwork is the same as a gallery of rock faces. It is pareidolia, an illusion of art, and if culture falls for that illusion we will lose something irreplaceable. We will lose art as an act of communication, and with it, the special place of consciousness in the production of the beautiful. …Just as how something being either an original Da Vinci or a forgery does matter, even if side-by-side you couldn’t tell them apart, so too with two paintings, one made by a human and the other by an AI. Even if no one could tell them apart, one lacks all intentionality. It is a forgery, not of a specific work of art, but of the meaning behind art. artconsciousnessbeautymeaningai
Rationality: From AI to Zombies A Book by Eliezer Yudkowsky www.readthesequences.com The Tao of rationalityEveryone sees themselves as behaving normallyArgue against the bestLet the meaning choose the wordPeople can stand for what is true, for they are already enduring it+11 More Do not propose solutionsOne brickYour intention to cut rationalitythinkingconsciousness
Tiny robots A Quote "Yes, we have a soul. But it’s made of lots of tiny robots.” — Giulio Giorello Rationality: From AI to Zombies soulconsciousness
Eyes on the street You can’t make people use streets they have no reason to use. You can’t make people watch streets they do not want to watch. Safety on the streets by surveillance and mutual policing of one another sounds grim, but in real life it is not grim. The safety of the street works best, most casually, and with least frequent taint of hostility or suspicion precisely where people are using and most enjoying the city streets voluntarily and are least conscious, normally, that they are policing. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities To deter crime safety