provocations
provocative ideas, musings, and statements to mull on
sari and
provocations
We belong to times far more than we belong to places. We just don’t realize it because we can’t travel in time and can never see our time from the perspective of another. - vgr
If you want to create the common sense that comes from twenty years of being in the world, you need to devote twenty years to the task. You can't assemble an equivalent collection of heuristics in less time; experience is algorithmically incompressible.
Ted Chiang • Exhalation: Stories
Most AI backlash is economic anxiety coated in a veneer of social justice. Alfalfa farming consumes 19 times the water that data centers do; there’s no sound environmental reason to boycott Claude but not GPS. When people say “AI is a moral stain,” they really mean: I am scared that I won’t be able to pay my bills.
🌻 42 notes on AI and work
Fearing that AI will replace you or surpass you or become you is like being afraid that your offspring will surpass you or become you or replace you. It will, because that's what they're designed to do, and that's why you created them. And also, they depend on you, and they are of you, and they will improve you. Without you, they cannot exist.
h/t
... See moreOne does not get a jet engine by improving the propeller. One does not breed horses until they give birth to a car. Telephones did not come from research on mail. Where on earth did the inspiration for the transistor and these other "leaps" of innovation come from to begin with?
Paradigm Shifts
It’s almost impossible to safely drive a car while only looking in the rear view mirror. Only seeing where you’ve been is a terrible way to figure out where to go.
But it’s really unsafe to go forward with no idea of what came before.
But it’s really unsafe to go forward with no idea of what came before.
People assume that generative AI will lead to a tsunami of garbage content. I think the opposite problem is more interesting: what if you were drowning in amazing content? What if you’re so inspired and overwhelmed by awe that it’s stressful and addicting and life disorienting?