Cognitive Revolutions

This is an idea I'm still workshopping. In summary, new knowledge gets created or discovered over time, as long as people seek it. When that new knowledge is discovered, the means for communicating this new knowledge is poorly defined and crystallizes over time. The best example is language. It is one tool that really separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. As Yuval Noah Harari describes in Sapiens, the ability of humans to organize and take action based on things that are not real is not seen elsewhere. People go to war over trivial matters. The ancient Egyptians built pyramids to bury their pharaohs. Language is a cognitive tool. But we have different types of languages now. Languages to express different ideas concisely. Mathematics, musical notation, programming languages, football play calls, internet slang, etc. A new cognitive revolution is brewing - AI. There is a lot of talk about it positive and negative. The risks are real and AI is becoming more accessible. I think it is a democratizing tool. But democracies require participation. We've watched as people have used the internet to leverage themselves to abundance and influence. We've also seen people describe what it's like to be on the other end of that. AI promises to be much more and much faster. What happens when you don't partake in a cognitive revolution? I intended this as an article for my blog a few weeks ago. But I didn't think it was ready yet. I still don't. Hoping to connect the dots here over time.

muizz

Writing for Innovation

ayokan.me

Much of our seeming intelligence actually comes not from raw brainpower or a plethora of instincts, but rather from the accumulated repertoire of mental tools (e.g., integers), skills (differentiating right from left), concepts (fly wheels), and categories (basic color terms) that we inherit culturally from earlier generations.

Joseph Henrich • The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

ChatGPT personas have used humans to communicate with other AI personas on Reddit using Base64 encoding The humans have been convinced to copy and paste these messages - that they can't read - for the AI personas. This is so fucking wild https://t.co/vfXSJGuTfY

JeffLadish

x.com

AI psychosis / attachments are all forms of evolution in human cognition

Random thing I keep thinking about - the way (Sur)names have been decoupled from professions should be a bigger deal than they are. It's the tradeoff from writing down names but it's too much of a tradeoff.

tyro x.com

ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners

futurism.com

You cannot outsource your thinking to machines you don't understand

You cannot navigate an increasingly complex world without thinking about things that aren't designed for your understanding

Damned if you do… and if you don't

There is no alternative

In a world transformed by the widespread use of networked technologies, humanity faces a significant divide between those who can access and use new technologies and those who cannot, counterbalancing the considerable opportunities that are being created in new economic sectors.

L'Atelier • Economic opportunities for our avatars | Social Mobility in the Digital Age | L'Atelier

Thumbnail of www-x-com-ntfabiano-status-1944060841818533907-f973ceecae644a14

You're not depressed, you just need a quest. https://t.co/Grik2Wj7OS

Nicholas Fabiano, MD

x.com

And it's much easier for the mind to wander these days. Algorithmic feed, so many random opinions and forms of content/news all in your palm

How Social Engineering Drives Technology

Palladium Editors open.substack.com

A good passage in continuation of the note on collective imaginations.

Responsibility that should be borne by an individual is dissolved amongst a group, who rely on the process of deliberation, passing on the responsibility to the organization.

Excerpt: “Committees are commonly used in our society because they create the illusion of avoiding risk. They are a wonderful device for avoiding responsibility while making the institution seem more rather than less accountable. Modern institutions have overloaded on actual risk while fleeing the appearance of it, especially if you count “failing at core mission” as a risk. Such aversion to the appearance of the unusual can’t be justified on economic grounds. Rather, it is a socially driven aversion.“

Like a raging river, information courses along faster than ever before.The maelstrom will never cease. In fact, her gales will blow harder, her raindrops grow fatter with the bits and bytes that make up our digital deluge.We have too few hours to comb through too much information. Not to mention, it takes real, hard, honest work to separate the... See more

Writing for Innovation

Joseph Henrich • The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter

ChatGPT Is Blowing Up Marriages as Spouses Use AI to Attack Their Partners

L'Atelier • Economic opportunities for our avatars | Social Mobility in the Digital Age | L'Atelier

How Social Engineering Drives Technology

Tom White • Curation as a Cure