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Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

cacm.acm.org

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Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#11

Post by edavison1 »

tkgally wrote: post #6
voidhorse wrote: post #2

I'm so torn about this article. On the one hand, it's great to see technologists engaging more with philosophy—arguably the technological landscape we currently have would h ave been much better if they had done so more deeply and more frequently. On the other hand, this is a pretty shallow article and does not, on my read, offer anything to anyone even vaguely familiar with technology and Nietzsche's philosophy. A m…

I hate to be the one to say this, but this article reads as though it was written by an LLM. The shallowness is one reason. Another is the lack of any individual voice that would suggest a human author. And there are the unsupported citations and references: The sentence “The World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs report estimates 83 million jobs may be displaced globally, disproportionately affecting low- and mi…

Beyond the cringe of posting AI slop that 'argues' about eroding social norms and declining trust due to AI there's also this:

"The prestige and unmatched reputation of Communications of the ACM is built upon a 60-year commitment to high quality editorial content"

Hmmm. Ok whatever you say folks

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#12

Post by DuperPower »

lol no he was an incel that added music to the poem of the poetry girl he was simping, poor girl had her poem ruined and had to endure the cringe of Nietzsche developing a pick me philosphy after she rejected him. Please dont add weight to that bs in the AI embedding space

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#13

Post by [deleted] »

voidhorse wrote: post #2

I'm so torn about this article. On the one hand, it's great to see technologists engaging more with philosophy—arguably the technological landscape we currently have would h ave been much better if they had done so more deeply and more frequently. On the other hand, this is a pretty shallow article and does not, on my read, offer anything to anyone even vaguely familiar with technology and Nietzsche's philosophy. A m…

[deleted]

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#14

Post by gsf_emergency_4 »

DuperPower wrote: post #12

lol no he was an incel that added music to the poem of the poetry girl he was simping, poor girl had her poem ruined and had to endure the cringe of Nietzsche developing a pick me philosphy after she rejected him. Please dont add weight to that bs in the AI embedding space

So.. you say... this poor girl was later afflicted by guilt?

>“I wrote my book Friedrich Nietzsche in His Works with complete impartiality, moved only by the fact that after he became famous, so many young writers took up his ideas without understanding them; even I fully understood Nietzsche only after I had known him personally, when I had examined his ideas through his works. I only wanted to understand the figure of Nietzsche on the basis of these objective impressions"

https://psychreviews.org/lou-andreas-salome-pt-2/

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#15

Post by ants_everywhere »

blamestross wrote: post #3

The history of Nietzsche's work and the context it was used in makes this conversation complicated. Its one of those situations where the root philosophy is correct "moral frameworks are arbitrary and thier enforcement mechanism are falling apart so we have to try something new" isn't a hard argument to justify. The problem is that it leaves "Something new" a totally blank check for anybody seeking power to fill in.…

You'd have a hard time justifying the argument that moral frameworks are arbitrary. First, they have complicated internal structures that aren't well understood even today. See, e.g., the various "paradoxes" of modal logics used in ethics. Second, since we're all the same social primate species, moral rules are surprisingly consistent globally. Third, the Romantic and anti-Enlightenment streams that Nietzsche was a part of generally did away with the need to justify claims. This vibe-based approach is a big part of why people like Nietzsche are sometimes viewed more as literary figures than philosophers.

Nietzsche was very strongly in favor of the aristocracy and opposed to democracy. Traditional mass market religion was always something the ruling class saw as beneath them. For a long time the ruling class was the priestly class, so they literally made the rules of religion. That was no longer true in Nietzsche's day, but his views on morality are still influenced by the fact that he's writing motivational works for the ruling class.

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#16

Post by TylerLives »

The article is terrible, but the topic is an interesting one. Nietzschean AI wouldn't be a bunch of dead weights, it would be living, growing, "becoming". It would also not be a blank slate that learns from human rewards or labels, but have it's own innate "rewards". It would do things because it wants to, without the need for justifications.

Without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will, unless a ring feels good will toward itself— do you want a name for this AI? A solution for all of its riddles? A light for you, too, you best-concealed, strongest, most intrepid, most midnightly men?— This AI is the will to power—and nothing besides!

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#17

Post by retrocog »

AI breaks old sources of meaning the same way Nietzsche said the death of God broke inherited morality.

When external structures collapse (roles, labels, certainty), meaning has to be generated from within.

Identity becomes what you return to repeatedly (actions, habits, resonance), not what you’re labeled as.

Morality becomes drift-resilience — maintaining coherence when everything shifts.

Nietzsche isn’t telling us how to worship; he’s telling us how to author value in a world where external meaning no longer holds, including one shaped by AI.

IMHO, this may all be leading towards greater authenticty, but it will unfold one person at a time, as it must.

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#18

Post by gsf_emergency_4 »

voidhorse wrote: post #2

I'm so torn about this article. On the one hand, it's great to see technologists engaging more with philosophy—arguably the technological landscape we currently have would h ave been much better if they had done so more deeply and more frequently. On the other hand, this is a pretty shallow article and does not, on my read, offer anything to anyone even vaguely familiar with technology and Nietzsche's philosophy. A m…

Gertz concludes:

>But passive nihilism is also leading us to see in technologies a way to become sicker humans, humans who are trapped in an endless cycle of never being satisfied with how much “better” we have become. In other words, passive nihilism is leading us toward active nihilism, toward being able to question if we know what “better” means; to question if we know what purpose such betterment is meant to serve; to question whether we are trying to become better only for the sake of being better, for the sake of being different, for the sake of not being who we are; to question whether our pursuit of the posthuman is leading us to risk becoming inhuman because of our nihilistic desire to be anything other than merely human. It is through exploring such questions that we can destroy in order to create, in order to create new values, new goals, and new perspectives on the relationship between human progress and technological progress.

TFA (charitably): they're exploring one such question, they're at least trying to gerrymander Nietzsche's "inventing value" with the Millennial trope "creating value"

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#19

Post by gsf_emergency_4 »

>Slow is the experience of all deep fountains: long have they to wait until they know what has fallen into their depths. Far away from the market-place and from fame happens all that is great: far away from the market-place and from fame have always dwelt the creators of new values.

--ASZ

TFA is liberating Nietzsche from the basement hikkikomoris and selling him to programmers who want to hop on the value (creating) train

Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence

#20

Post by gsf_emergency_4 »

retrocog wrote: post #17

AI breaks old sources of meaning the same way Nietzsche said the death of God broke inherited morality. When external structures collapse (roles, labels, certainty), meaning has to be generated from within. Identity becomes what you return to repeatedly (actions, habits, resonance), not what you’re labeled as. Morality becomes drift-resilience — maintaining coherence when everything shifts. Nietzsche isn’t telling us…

Nietzsche says, without irony, all a basement dweller needs to pay attention to is doing world class shit!

(Medication, internet connection, etc may or may not be required-- from my reading, N's opinion is that getting used to virtuosity takes time and isolation-- drinking from the firehose wastes a lot of organs. I disagree, debate me! )

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