"Management Cybernetics" may be the name of the only thing that can save us from our own systems for anthology-intelligence societal-scale coöperation among us East African Plains Apes. But does...
The premise that "government bureaucracies" are "behemoths" is shaky. The US federal government is a case in point. Non-postal federal government employment has been roughly 2 to 2.4 million since circa 1970. Meanwhile, it has served an economy that has grown about fivefold over that time. That federal employment, the so-called "behemoth" is now about 1.5% of total non-farm employment. If you do not understand what the government does and how it does it, presumably because it is too large for you to understand, why not discuss it department by department. What is this overarching discussion about, especially when its premise is probably wrong?
My go-to example of AI at the present moment is The Algorithm, the thing that chooses what you are going to see in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and I'm sure other social media.
This AI is presented, and probably also originally conceived to serve customers better, to help them find what they are looking for. Given I worked at Google very early on, I know that's what many people there were thinking that they were looking for - something to improve search further.
But something changed. The Algorithm serves those who make it and pay for it. It is evaluated not on how satisfied the customers are, but on how engaged they are. How much time do they spend on the channel.
This is serving the interests of the master, which is a normal and expected development at one level. But it makes these intelligent systems into systems that are not the servants of the people they engage with, but methods of seduction and control over those people, in the service of those who paid for them to be made.
(To be slightly fair, satisfaction is much harder to measure than engagement. But it could be measured.)
These AIs are not "out of control" They are not an example of "machines taking over". They are an example of "doing what the oligarchs want" and "oligarchs taking over". I'm afraid that also applies to my beloved Google at this point. Though I think they are a lot less toxic than FB or X.
When these devices have self knowledge of their limited life. When they suffer birth, growth, decay and death. When they suffer the outrageous slings and arrrows of failure in life, love and raising of children. Then they might come close to human intentionality. Good luck with that.
East African Planes ape evolution vs. monkey evolution, and characteristics. As you say, according to many researchers, we are more closely related to apes than to monkeys. However, Rhesus monkeys were used for a long time for medical research because of their similarity to humans.
"Large AI models should be viewed as cultural and social technologies—definitely not intelligent agents…"
These are not mutually exclusive concepts. Large AI models can be both.
Having read Farrell et al's Science perspective piece, I am not impressed that it has much to say, and ignoring the "intelligence" of AIs is a problematic as ignoring the idea that humans and their various levels of organization are an "anthology intelligence". Why? It has been decades since Hofstadter echoed the biological POV that hives are minds, just that the organisms playing the role of mindless neurons in a brain create a mind at the hive level. This has been extended to organisms like slime molds that can "solve problems". Insisting that silicon (or non-carbon) substrates cannot be intelligent is a refutation of the concept of a Turing machine which, in theory, can emulate a human brain and hence be intelligent. LLMs have already breezed past the old Imitation Game that Turing proposed and so we humans continue to move the goalposts, yet fail to explain why wetware intelligence is different. Note the failure to understand how consciousness works while at the same time suggesting that humans and some animals possess consciousness, that machines do not and cannot, and hence are different, and therefore inferior. The echoes of racism in this are so very evident...
That AIs may take the role of ET arriving on Earth and influencing humanity should be almost self-evident, and are we really going to say ETs are not intelligent?
As a member of Homo Sapiens, I don't want our species to be superseded, even eliminated as we did to H. Neanderthalensis and probably other once contemporary Homo species. But as with Neanderthals interbreeding with Sapiens, I expect AIs to become part of the human makeup, and quite possibly the Sapiens part may become the lesser part in time.
Just as Neanderthals were unable to escape extinction, and the European expansion reduced and even exterminated indigenous populations, we seem at present unable to prevent to intrusion of these intelligences. Our existing cultural; technologies seem to be enabling them, not controlling them. Will we need our version of a Butlerian Jihad while we still can to keep these intelligences on a leash, or will we become the minor players in the world (and beyond)? As Klaatu would have said, "The decision rests with you".
If intelligent AI, as you describe it, is inevitable (which seems to be your point), then how is it that we have any decisions to make at all? Are you just crab-walking to techno-futurism and singularity?
If all humans are regarded to be intelligent and in the US constitutionally equal, slavery should have immediately ended in the late 18th century in teh US. But it didn't. Women, intelligent and equal as they were were denied suffrage until the early 20th century, and Jim Crow laws denied the same to non-whites in Southern states in the US.
If animals are increasingly regarded as intelligent (and conscious) does that mean we must be inevitably drawn to becoming vegetarians? Obviously not.
Stating that machines can have intelligence does not imply some inevitable techno takeover of humanity. We can acknowledge their intelligence and make laws to constrain their use and even size. [After WWII we used to constrain wealth inequality, but that failed.]
Given how we have failed to curb GHG emissions, increasing wealth inequality, the rise of fascism that we fought against, and the rise of oligarchy, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that the same people will ensure that AI will be used to a techno-futurist dystopia unless we make a concerted effort to resist it.
Even if machines cannot be intelligent, that doesn't stop the powerful interests of using technology to control our lives. The fear of intelligent machines is that they can escape our control and dominate us. This is just a modern verson of the "slave revolt". The solution to such a revolt was to end slavery...
There are solutions to constrain AI and its power. But like slavery, it will not be solved because those who benefit will fight it.
IOW, any inevitability of AI disrupting humanity will be due to those who benefit and refuse to be constrained.
The premise that "government bureaucracies" are "behemoths" is shaky. The US federal government is a case in point. Non-postal federal government employment has been roughly 2 to 2.4 million since circa 1970. Meanwhile, it has served an economy that has grown about fivefold over that time. That federal employment, the so-called "behemoth" is now about 1.5% of total non-farm employment. If you do not understand what the government does and how it does it, presumably because it is too large for you to understand, why not discuss it department by department. What is this overarching discussion about, especially when its premise is probably wrong?
My go-to example of AI at the present moment is The Algorithm, the thing that chooses what you are going to see in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and I'm sure other social media.
This AI is presented, and probably also originally conceived to serve customers better, to help them find what they are looking for. Given I worked at Google very early on, I know that's what many people there were thinking that they were looking for - something to improve search further.
But something changed. The Algorithm serves those who make it and pay for it. It is evaluated not on how satisfied the customers are, but on how engaged they are. How much time do they spend on the channel.
This is serving the interests of the master, which is a normal and expected development at one level. But it makes these intelligent systems into systems that are not the servants of the people they engage with, but methods of seduction and control over those people, in the service of those who paid for them to be made.
(To be slightly fair, satisfaction is much harder to measure than engagement. But it could be measured.)
These AIs are not "out of control" They are not an example of "machines taking over". They are an example of "doing what the oligarchs want" and "oligarchs taking over". I'm afraid that also applies to my beloved Google at this point. Though I think they are a lot less toxic than FB or X.
Re: human intentionality
When these devices have self knowledge of their limited life. When they suffer birth, growth, decay and death. When they suffer the outrageous slings and arrrows of failure in life, love and raising of children. Then they might come close to human intentionality. Good luck with that.
East African Planes ape evolution vs. monkey evolution, and characteristics. As you say, according to many researchers, we are more closely related to apes than to monkeys. However, Rhesus monkeys were used for a long time for medical research because of their similarity to humans.
"Large AI models should be viewed as cultural and social technologies—definitely not intelligent agents…"
These are not mutually exclusive concepts. Large AI models can be both.
Having read Farrell et al's Science perspective piece, I am not impressed that it has much to say, and ignoring the "intelligence" of AIs is a problematic as ignoring the idea that humans and their various levels of organization are an "anthology intelligence". Why? It has been decades since Hofstadter echoed the biological POV that hives are minds, just that the organisms playing the role of mindless neurons in a brain create a mind at the hive level. This has been extended to organisms like slime molds that can "solve problems". Insisting that silicon (or non-carbon) substrates cannot be intelligent is a refutation of the concept of a Turing machine which, in theory, can emulate a human brain and hence be intelligent. LLMs have already breezed past the old Imitation Game that Turing proposed and so we humans continue to move the goalposts, yet fail to explain why wetware intelligence is different. Note the failure to understand how consciousness works while at the same time suggesting that humans and some animals possess consciousness, that machines do not and cannot, and hence are different, and therefore inferior. The echoes of racism in this are so very evident...
That AIs may take the role of ET arriving on Earth and influencing humanity should be almost self-evident, and are we really going to say ETs are not intelligent?
As a member of Homo Sapiens, I don't want our species to be superseded, even eliminated as we did to H. Neanderthalensis and probably other once contemporary Homo species. But as with Neanderthals interbreeding with Sapiens, I expect AIs to become part of the human makeup, and quite possibly the Sapiens part may become the lesser part in time.
Just as Neanderthals were unable to escape extinction, and the European expansion reduced and even exterminated indigenous populations, we seem at present unable to prevent to intrusion of these intelligences. Our existing cultural; technologies seem to be enabling them, not controlling them. Will we need our version of a Butlerian Jihad while we still can to keep these intelligences on a leash, or will we become the minor players in the world (and beyond)? As Klaatu would have said, "The decision rests with you".
If intelligent AI, as you describe it, is inevitable (which seems to be your point), then how is it that we have any decisions to make at all? Are you just crab-walking to techno-futurism and singularity?
If all humans are regarded to be intelligent and in the US constitutionally equal, slavery should have immediately ended in the late 18th century in teh US. But it didn't. Women, intelligent and equal as they were were denied suffrage until the early 20th century, and Jim Crow laws denied the same to non-whites in Southern states in the US.
If animals are increasingly regarded as intelligent (and conscious) does that mean we must be inevitably drawn to becoming vegetarians? Obviously not.
Stating that machines can have intelligence does not imply some inevitable techno takeover of humanity. We can acknowledge their intelligence and make laws to constrain their use and even size. [After WWII we used to constrain wealth inequality, but that failed.]
Given how we have failed to curb GHG emissions, increasing wealth inequality, the rise of fascism that we fought against, and the rise of oligarchy, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that the same people will ensure that AI will be used to a techno-futurist dystopia unless we make a concerted effort to resist it.
Even if machines cannot be intelligent, that doesn't stop the powerful interests of using technology to control our lives. The fear of intelligent machines is that they can escape our control and dominate us. This is just a modern verson of the "slave revolt". The solution to such a revolt was to end slavery...
There are solutions to constrain AI and its power. But like slavery, it will not be solved because those who benefit will fight it.
IOW, any inevitability of AI disrupting humanity will be due to those who benefit and refuse to be constrained.
I thought that societies fell because the Blight destroyed computers. This is worse.
Re: movable-type print in the Enlightenment…
Weird! I used those words in conversation yesterday.