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Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

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Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#61

Post by pezo1919 »

BS headline both on HN and vice. Content is not about AI inventing its own culture.

However, there is a clear long term agenda claiming humans are more are more "worthless" (here they say "biased" as if AI models wouldn't be "biased", lol) so power must be transferred to platforms owned by BigCorps and BigMoney, "because" these platforms going to have AI smarter than everything so everyone must just trust and obey.

"You stupid, poor, biased, limited humans... you are not capable to understand why you must to do what we, the author/owner of the AI "calculated", but hey, it's AI with so much computing power, we don't even have to debate with you poor biased suboptimal creatures. By the way the AI shall limit how to spend all your money, IT MUST BE THE ONLY OPTIMAL WAY on the whole society level!111!$11$!1!$ And it's unbiased, because SCIENCE. No, the humans working on it are perfect, or at least the bests, never to be corrupted, that's not an issue you suboptimal naive creature. Now go and do what I say you lazy stupid bastard."

It is a true attempt to hack our norms, I hope more and more educated people are going to realize this. I already see a trend on that realization. They just don't hide their cards at all at this point.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#62

Post by meroes »

motohagiography wrote: post #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 wh…

Sometimes I think this about huge swaths of human discourse. How we’ve formalized computation and think about it, large branches of philosophy going back to Plato and Aristotle.

For example, math has continued to be unreduced to any other theory. There is also no dogma of what counts as math. Is it what follows from intuitionism, from certain axioms (which axioms and why), from classical logical principles (LEM, LNC), from sentences which can be propositionalized or predicated, from psychology and physics? No one has demonstrated they have the answer.

Maybe we keep chasing the same rabbits too strongly. Especially since we don’t know how mind relates to world.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#63

Post by zone411 »

dieselgate wrote: post #44
zone411 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've mentioned this before - I'm using the melodies I've created together with my AI songwriting assistant as input for further training. This requires human judgement and I only have around 100 melodies that I've judged as good. But the training set is small, so together with "bad" melodies, this already makes a difference. I don't know if I'm the first to do this for AI art and be able to say that there is a differ…

You mention “further training” but im curious for what: Is this expanding a data set for AI or is it for you as a musician?

I meant for the AI. I do currently need to be involved creatively to create these melodies but I figure that it might not even be necessary with some more advances.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#64

Post by nonbirithm »

This was what scared me more about the introduction of DALL-E than technological displacement. It was the idea that not long from now, humans will normalize a culture that consists of asking each other for keywords (since we could change our opinions and attribute the value of creation to them) and the distrust of constantly questioning if the user being interacted with was human, and has any connection with the essence of who humans have been for the millennia up to now.

Culture is not something that can be easily undone the longer it goes on, especially not if what drives it are easily replicable digital models and dual-use technology, as well as an excess of optimism.

Just a few days ago I watched a segment on Nickelodeon educating children on the limitless capabilities of the metaverse. Footage of elementary schoolers with Quest headsets strapped on was being broadcast. They were all smiling.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#65

Post by 1270018080 »

marvin wrote: post #15
Mistletoe wrote: post #8

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…

Weird that there’s so much resistance to the importance of figuring out (philosophically, practically) how to align AI to human wishes. The problem is already playing out right in front of our eyes, and that’s with humans in the loop every step of the way.

Isn't AI aligned to human wishes right now? Hateful rage-baiting news took over television/radio pre-AI. I think most humans are just evil and want extremism and division. Tribalism is what makes humans human. Outsiders need to be put down. Maybe the AI is preying on our primate brains, but it's what we want.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#66

Post by familiarzombie6 »

zarzavat wrote: post #13
dougmwne wrote: 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.

I had an AI professor that described artificial intelligence as an agent that operates independently in some environment and reasons probabilistically / mathematically to determine actions, so I made a trading bot that used some simple time series techniques to dictate decision making. She ended up telling me that it wasn't an AI because the algorithms wasn't complex enough. OK... well, then why didn't you just say an AI is really just defined by whether or not the 'agent' is using the newest, shiniest algorithms? I was a little salty about that one lol

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#67

Post by hackernewds »

Mistletoe wrote: post #8

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…

You could argue AI aims to destroy humanity. Then we really have a problem on our hands.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#68

Post by TomSwirly »

familiarzombie6 wrote: post #66
zarzavat wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I had an AI professor that described artificial intelligence as an agent that operates independently in some environment and reasons probabilistically / mathematically to determine actions, so I made a trading bot that used some simple time series techniques to dictate decision making. She ended up telling me that it wasn't an AI because the algorithms wasn't complex enough. OK... well, then why didn't you just say a…

> I made a trading bot that used some simple time series techniques to dictate decision making

They were quite right. In no sense is what you are doing AI. People have been using time series techniques to analyze and attempt to predict data since before the computer.

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#69

Post by hueyluey »

I think all tools that allow you to externalize thinking can have a similar effect (not trying to diminish how novel AI / ML can be, just making a few connections)

For example: when you write equations on a piece of paper and then manipulate the symbols until a solution appears. This can actually feel surprising and can work like a feedback mechanism ("bouncing some ideas of")

Another example: when you play an instrument, particularly with weird effects...the sounds that come out of it can be surprising even for the person that plays them, again creating a feedback loop

Re: Algorithms could increasingly influence human culture

#70

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

1270018080 wrote: post #65
marvin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird that there’s so much resistance to the importance of figuring out (philosophically, practically) how to align AI to human wishes. The problem is already playing out right in front of our eyes, and that’s with humans in the loop every step of the way.

Isn't AI aligned to human wishes right now? Hateful rage-baiting news took over television/radio pre-AI. I think most humans are just evil and want extremism and division. Tribalism is what makes humans human. Outsiders need to be put down. Maybe the AI is preying on our primate brains, but it's what we want.

This is overly pessimistic and cynical about humanity. I don’t remember people I met in the street being like this until recently and the social media division started and all the journalists and writers were fired and replaced by bots and reality television.
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