What is Truth in this new AI world and how to make sense of it

Once I read somewhere that people overestimate the impact of new technologies in the short term and underestimate it in the long term.

My interpretation is that right now we're on the top of AI euphoria wave. It was the same thing some time ago with crypto. We would hear a lot of theories about how a system based in objective microcontracts would make the subjective and inefficient governments of today obsolete.

We still don't know the true impact that the new LLM models will have over the economy, but what we know is that a lot of people is making a lot of money by being excessively optimistic with the prospects. Honestly I think that the practical impacts of LLMs won't be nowhere near to what the enthusiasts are preaching. In more 3-4 years the novelty will fade and then we will be ready to go to the next hype.

Humans do this every now and then. We seem to suffer through it somehow. Most of history consists of a large-scale epistemological battle.

We used to think the Roman Emperor (or equivalent) was the sole source of truth and understanding. Then we thought it was the church. The Enlightenment changed that to individual science and reason. We're currently (for the last 70 years or so) on a kick about how everything reduces to bits and bytes.

I was thinking this morning about how in the 80s AI researchers would argue whether or not a computer that played chess was "actually" playing chess, ie, was it conscious and having the experience people did when they played chess? Our answer from that period was something like "Who cares? If to me the computer looks like it is playing chess, it's playing chess. How can I tell differently?"

The rule here is that everything reduces to my generalized conception of how this transaction/game plays out. That's the Turing Test.

But this just shows how stupid people are. It doesn't say anything about intelligence. Intelligence is transformative and pre-language. You reduce it to words and images and you've destroyed the thing you're trying to create. The human that plays chess with me is the human one day that, while moving a pawn, comments on how life seems dull to them, striking a conversation about existentialism which, in turn, changes me slightly. Or they move slower than normal, making me worry about their health, which prompts me to think about my parents. That's chess, it's not moving pieces around.

Once you spot this, you can see it over and over again. Project Management must consist of reports, graphs, video meetings, and so forth, right? Those TPS reports need their covers. Movies must be spectacle and pre-canned drama. The piece of graphic I need for my book can easily be created by AI, right? Nobody thinks that by creating my own graphic I come to a new realization about the problem I'm exploring. That's not considered "graphic arts" If it can't be digitized, it must not be important, right?

Like everything else, this will keep going until it doesn't. And like all other examples, the change will be painful. But we always seem to muddle through. And if this turns out to be an extinction-level event? I find it tremendously and oddly-pleasing that man made it through all these trials only to be destroyed by the turbo-electric bullshitting machine we finally created. Somehow that seems to suit us.

It does not lead to nothing, it leads to emptiness, which is everything, like space.

Why write this? because deconstructing everything also leads me to read your comment see that I am getting irritated and angry. I can see I am angry because my knowledge or intellect feels insulted, I can then see how foolish that is, I can then read your comment again and see that you are triggered by what I said, but I don't know why. So I decide that your reaction to my opinion, is your problem.

This helps me calm down and harbor no, or far less ill will towards you than not.

That's why I write and suggest this. Also investigation may also be used if deconstruction doesn't work.

I do ask you, consider it if you can get over the anger and be open to it.

> This sort of postmodern deconstruction of everything leads to an endless pit of nothing.

You missed the point. Even this is just a personal belief/opinion. Not truth.

Excellent points!

How I like to think about the post truth thing: The time period in which we had reliable evidence that was impossible (or at least very difficult) to tamper with was quite short. Can't have been more than 200 years. Societies managed before, so I think we'll manage again.