God and the Big Bang
I was tasked with selecting a new stain color for my house shingles, which was relatively traumatic because I have a history of spending an inordinate amount of time making decisions; a process that tends to be followed by a lifetime of regret. I recently spent about 30 hours researching a power adapter and dongle system to simultaneously charge my MacBook and Kindle. How was I going to choose a color for the entire exterior of my house before El Niño hits? I did what most modern internet users would have done. I used AI. I took photos of my house and then had AI show me how it would look stained in the various sample colors my painter suggested. Like many AI experiences, this one was pretty fulfilling and even delightful. But when I think about the AI industry, like millions of other Americans, I have almost exclusively negative vibes. Why does this technology cause such a disconnect between our experiences and our feelings? As I’ve mentioned, I think this is partly due to a broad and growing disconnect between what people want and what AI CEOs think people want. But even more than that, there’s a disconnect between how consumers think of AI (as a new form of super-powered search that finally brings the promise of AskJeeves to fruition) and how AI leaders think of it: As a god. Jaron Lanier explains the disconnect. “This disapproval is unfortunate and unnecessary. It does not arise from the technology itself. It is a reaction to the insular culture surrounding A.I., a culture that is dictating how this innovation is packaged, how it is sold and how it is understood. Words have a way of filtering into actions, as when some of us in Silicon Valley callously treat places where we want to build data centers as sacrifice zones. We technologists are sabotaging ourselves, but it is hard to find a sane focus from inside the intensity and elite isolation of this bubble. Americans are not rejecting A.I. They are rejecting the way Silicon Valley is defining it for them.” NYT (Gift Article): I Am a Silicon Valley Pioneer. We Are Sabotaging Ourselves. (The irony here is that the thing consumers really dislike the most about this new technology is the people. And you can’t really blame them.) “There is an explanation for why some tech leaders, so seemingly worried about an extinction-level event, are plunging ahead with A.I. development: Mankind’s survival, while important to many of them, is less critical than building something they believe to be not only conscious but godlike. A substantial portion of the A.I. community, in celebrating this belief, is quick to support any action or statement that reinforces the idea that the technology is like a deity. They might call for regulation, but only in specific ways — perhaps by deploying more A.I. to control A.I. — that adore the technology’s powers. It is that adoration that is nonnegotiable.” I don’t know about you, but I’m not about to bow down at the altar of a new technological overlord. At least not until I see how my shingles turn out.
+ Which brings us to AI’s big bang… The Verge (Gift Article): The future of AI hinges on… Jensen Huang’s sex life? The stock is way down, the FBI and the newly empowered Dems are looking into the issue, and the Information reported that “CEO Jensen Huang’s relationship with alleged spy Alice Huang dates back to 2023 and enabled Chinese companies to acquire $7.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips.” Here’s the latest. God only knows how this shakes out.
+ As I wrote yesterday: The enduring stamina of the notion that the carnal is greater than the kernel, that ramming overides the ram, and that the dong is greater than the dongle, provides yet another reminder that the key risk factors presented by the AI boom are the humans behind it. And, in this case, it’s a human in the center of a circular economy. Circular Jerk.
+ If the tech industry wants more support for its futuristic dreams, we need a little less deity talk and a little more focus on features like this. I watched a humanoid robot clean my apartment. It felt like a taste of the future.
