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
Japanese Death Poems A Book by Yoel Hoffman www.goodreads.com The haikuSpring snowAn entrance, an exitPoppiesCoolness will rise+4 More Graceful Exits: How Great Beings DiePoems of an Indian summerHe only who has lived with the beautiful deathpoetrynaturemelancholyzen
The haiku The haiku describes a single state or event. The time of the haiku is the present. The haiku refers to images connected to one of the four seasons, poetry
An entrance, an exit Empty-handed I entered the world Barefoot I leave it My coming, my going Two simple happenings That got entangled death
Coolness will rise When you have vanquished your selfhood, coolness will rise even from the fire. identity
The way of things It is when one forces principles on the world that one interferes with its natural workings. How things ought to be wisdomnature
Autumn breezes blow One day you are born you die the next – today, at twilight, autumn breezes blow. zen