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Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

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Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#51
post #3

This feels like a bit of light speculation at the moment, but I do agree with the point and think it will have an interesting effect on collective human behavior. I like the example of AlphaGo discovering new moves that then became popular because this is an example of an AI discovery, not a another human writing the rules of engagement that other humans follow. So to take this further, what if Imagen discovers a new…

In chess this is nothing new as humans have been using chess engines to discover new opening tactics for the last couple of decades. Chess engines used to be at forefront of Artificial Intelligence research but now it’s not fashionable to even call them “AI” anymore - they are just “engines” - tools.

Also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD-Gammon

> TD-Gammon is a computer backgammon program developed in 1992 by Gerald Tesauro ... It explored strategies that humans had not pursued and led to advances in the theory of correct backgammon play...

> For example, on the opening play, the conventional wisdom was that given a roll of 2-1, 4-1, or 5-1, White should move a single checker from point 6 to point 5. Known as "slotting", this technique trades the risk of a hit for the opportunity to develop an aggressive position. TD-Gammon found that the more conservative play of 24-23 was superior. Tournament players began experimenting with TD-Gammon's move, and found success. Within a few years, slotting had disappeared from tournament play

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#52
post #3

This feels like a bit of light speculation at the moment, but I do agree with the point and think it will have an interesting effect on collective human behavior. I like the example of AlphaGo discovering new moves that then became popular because this is an example of an AI discovery, not a another human writing the rules of engagement that other humans follow. So to take this further, what if Imagen discovers a new…

Relevant quote:

Mr Smith: I say your society, after which we started to do your thinking for you and it became our society

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#53
While it's almost too mangled to unwrap, it's not that AI has done anything (or even exists), it's that a lot of peoples theory of mind/self stops at artifacts language, where language can be redefined with the logic of some small, cost effective ideas, transmitted using media, and now gamified using platforms.

The necessary condition for news and stories is a conflict of some kind, and when you start with an idea whose logic is internally inconsistent, meaning you can apply it as evidence of anything, you can produce and represent a conflict over the most mundane bit of stimuli, and this unmoors your critical faculties from needing reality. It replaces truth with the uncertainty of conflict so as to neutralize you to it. Take a few of these broken axioms, and you have enough to write a virus over language that parasitizes minds, and makes the host minds human instruments of its agenda. It's not AI, it's much older, and the logic of an underlying idea. It's like a logical toxoplasmosis infection, where the host will sacrifice itself to spread it.

Reminds me of the most uncanny and weird TNG episode I never want to watch again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek%3A_The_Nex...

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#54
I'm thinking about this for a while and I believe we are already in the 3th stage of evolution of evolution:

Evolution 1: fittest survive

Evolution 2: human brain + being able to remember gave us glasses and stuff which breaks the fittest survive

Evolution 3: the internet as a huge brain. Tons of input, tons of processing and tons of output

Evolution 4: manifesting the data in the internet into ML models. Creating a new entitiy

Evolution 5: our brain gets overtaken by ai. Perhaps robots?

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#55

I strongly believe this is already happening due to AI journalism and it is causing a lot of the extremism and division we see in society today. Those articles written by AI that grab tweets and post them in the story comes to mind. A positive feedback loop is initiated because Twitter is already setup to amplify extreme views and cause binary thinking. An AI doesn’t care if humanity destroys itself, it maximizes for…

To take this further

dead internet theory - bots spamming ragebait/clickbait across social media, bots in the comments fueling more division, rage.

I think any rational person would be trying to opt out of the hyper emotional news/internet and not feed the machine, as its a little tiresome/boring to be baited so easily but that could just be bc internet natives are so used to calling out bad bait on forums

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#56

While it's almost too mangled to unwrap, it's not that AI has done anything (or even exists), it's that a lot of peoples theory of mind/self stops at artifacts language, where language can be redefined with the logic of some small, cost effective ideas, transmitted using media, and now gamified using platforms. The necessary condition for news and stories is a conflict of some kind, and when you start with an idea wh…

I think YouTube is doing this already.

Games as well.

We are getting addicted to content creators, they get addicted by money, views and the algorithm.

Tv was similar but yt is much bigger, catches mich more people and is much more diverse.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#57
Another though I had when I saw dall-2 and imagine:

We optimized away the 'physical doing' thing of creating new content.

It's only a question of time until video imagine will be able to create real relevant new content.

No one needs meta when we are already quite happy to stair at a cheap 2d screen.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI is only in fashion for technology once it isn't bleeding edge. Also, MuZero (the latest in similar game engines that were started from AlphaGo) can learn the game by itself without knowing the rules or having any opening books or Go data which is very different than how traditional Chess engines operate.

This "Zero-knowledge" style program, be it AlphaZero or MuZero and whatever, is a bad meme. Adding in little bits of knowledge, such as liberties counting, ladder-reading, and other tricks, allows KataGo to absolutely crush LeelaZero in training speed and practical play in the game of Go. Its no comparison. These days, no one studying the game of Go is seriously using LeelaZero anymore. Its an obsolete methodology co…

A more familiar example might be fuzz testing. You could fuzz a program by just passing the fuzzer totally random data to mutate, and it's true that this might find a crash that wouldn't be found any other way. However, most of the time you will have much better results, and achieve them much more quickly, if you pass the fuzzer something that looks like an actual expected input to the program.

Zero-knowledge ML is still interesting if your goal is to indisputably demonstrate the act of learning, just not if your goal is to make the smartest program in the least time.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#59
post #3

This feels like a bit of light speculation at the moment, but I do agree with the point and think it will have an interesting effect on collective human behavior. I like the example of AlphaGo discovering new moves that then became popular because this is an example of an AI discovery, not a another human writing the rules of engagement that other humans follow. So to take this further, what if Imagen discovers a new…

As an artist, the influence of AI like VQGAN, artbreeder or the more recent MidJourney are having a big impact in the professional concept art and character art community, expect to see AI inspired concept art in Hollywood movies in a year or 2

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#60
I was thinking about why I find articles like this, and really the term “artificial intelligence” so dangerously mystical-sounding and over above the hype factor, I think it’s because the term “intelligence” is kind of mystical-sounding.

In day-to-day ML work one speaks of a model having such performance on a “task” (I think psychologists and others might use this term as well). Classifying digits on the MNIST dataset is a famous “hello world” task, generating competitive moves in a game of Go is anything but “hello world”, but still a measurable task.

Some tasks (certain kinds of image recognition, generating competitive moves in Chess or Go) are done better by machines now, albeit on very un-competitive energy budgets.

But this has been true since the earliest days of computing. Computers have been better at arithmetic since practically the very beginning. Is that “artificial intelligence”? We call little kids “smart” when they perform well on arithmetic and remembering stuff.

To sort of paraphrase that famous Anthony Hopkins scene from Westworld: there is no line where the sum total of “high” performance on a bunch of tasks makes something intelligent, or sentient, or conscious.

I know a lot of people find this depressing or even nihilistic. I personally find it clarifying, like the unification of electric and magnetic forces.

It’s all just so much simpler if the human brain is orbiting the Sun and not vice-versa.

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