[HN Gopher] Margaret Mead, technocracy, and the origins of AI's ... ___________________________________________________________________ Margaret Mead, technocracy, and the origins of AI's ideological divide Author : benbreen Score : 42 points Date : 2023-11-21 14:37 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (resobscura.substack.com) (TXT) w3m dump (resobscura.substack.com) | tgv wrote: | Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long | debate. Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had | already lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in | the 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. While | both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's techno-bros is | a bit of a stretch. | sctb wrote: | > Mead was famous, but only one of the many voices in very long | debate. | | Yes, this is how voices work. | | > Whatever people were thinking 90 years ago, it had already | lost its influence by the time of AI's societal debut in the | 1980s and is totally irrelevant to AI's impact today. | | Are you making this argument simply based on the passage of | time? I can think of a lot of ideas whose longevity makes 90 | years seem a sneeze. | | > While both may share a mindset, linking Mead to today's | techno-bros is a bit of a stretch. | | If they share a mindset, would that not be an obvious link? | Additionally, this article is drawing a connection not just | between Mead and techno-optimists (not the same as tech-bros), | but between Mead and both techno-optimism and existential risk. | That's sort of what the article's preamble describes as the | interesting thing. | booleandilemma wrote: | Why are you so intent on linking this woman to modern tech | workers? | dmead wrote: | I'm a tech bro. | AndrewKemendo wrote: | We failed when we killed Cybernetics and AI became part of | Computer Science instead of the multidisciplinary field it | actually is | | Weiner was an outspoken socialist and was persecuted for it, to | such an extent that Cybernetics got needled to death and AI | became "simply a matter of computing." | | Hopefully we all see now how wrong that was | reducesuffering wrote: | Yep. If we don't get paperclipped then we're getting | collectively BORG'ed. Free will? More like a tool by the system | that controls the information reality around you. | benbreen wrote: | Author here. Thank you, I thought this was an interesting | point. Researching the book this post is based on, I was really | struck by who was actually attending the Macy cybernetic | conferences -- it was incredibly eclectic. Anthropologists, | physiologists, psychiatrists... and, of course, also Claude | Shannon and von Neumann. | | Carving off computer science as a separate realm with less | interdisciplinary input was definitely a fork in the road for | the history of science. | | By the way, if anyone is interested, you can find the list of | cybernetics conference attendees here: https://www.asc- | cybernetics.org/foundations/history/MacyPeop... | | And if anyone is _really_ interested, here 's my book, which is | coming out in January: | https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/benjamin-breen/trip... | AndrewKemendo wrote: | Awesome. Glad to see there's other people out there that care | and understand that "AI" fully understood, is marginally | about the computer, and primarily about society. | photochemsyn wrote: | The article references Hugo Gernsback - and one of the best | literary criticisms of the techno-optimist utopia ideal can be | found in William Gibson's short story, "The Gernsback Continuum". | | As far as the 'ideological divide' at OpenAI, the fact that | they're all silent about the military contracting arm of their | partner Microsoft as well as potential applications of LLMs to | the military arena should be proof enough that their 'do-gooder' | PR operation is nothing more than a branding and marketing game. | | I suppose you could argue that military dominance of the planet | in the name of do-gooder agendas is just what we need, but that's | always been little more than a justification for robbery of | others, ever since the dawn of recorded history. | c54 wrote: | What're some of the military applications of LLMs? | KineticLensman wrote: | Influence ops, propaganda, etc | onemoresoop wrote: | Propaganda - now any language on earth. Coming soon - | personalized with the voice of your loved ones, voice | application are currently happily harvesting. | Merrill wrote: | Technology that may cause existential risk or risk of systemic | collapse are one category including nuclear weapons, engineered | pathogens, global warming, etc. | | Robotics disrupting the workforce and devaluing labor are another | category continuing the process of mechanization and automation | that started with small electrical motors and the electrification | of factories. | | Artificial intelligence is in a third category because it | threatens the disruption and impending devaluation of broad | categories of intellectual work. | lhoff wrote: | I think the best summary of the whole devise that I came across | is this one from today | | > ,,The OpenAI tussle is between the faction who think Skynet | will kill them if they build it, and the faction who think Roko's | Basilisk(,s Monster)will torture them if they don't build it hard | enough." | | Source: https://mastodon.social/@jef/111443214445962022 ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-21 23:00 UTC)