Live data from Hacker News

Philosophy Eats AI

sloanreview.mit.edu

61–62 of 62 posts

Re: Philosophy Eats AI

#61
post #2

> what counts as knowledge (epistemology), and how AI represents reality (ontology) also shape value creation. As a skeptic with only a few drums to beat, my quasi-philosophical complaint about LLMs: we have a rampant problem where humans confuse a character they perceive out of a text-document with a real-world author. In all these hyped-products, you are actually being given the "and then Mr. Robot said" lines from…

That's one of the things. Even in human-written fiction, the depths of any character you read about is pure smoke and mirrors. People regularly perceive fictional characters as if they are real people (and it's fun to do so), but it would be impossible for an author to simulate a complete human being in their head. It seems that LLMs operate a lot like I would in improv. In a scene, I might add, "This is the fifth ti…

> It seems that LLMs operate a lot like I would in improv. In a scene, I might add, "This is the fifth time you've driven your car into a ditch this year.

Right, and you also possess the ability to quickly search and plagiarize from a compressed cliff-notes version of all the documents other humans made, including other plays and stories where one person is talking about another person in a car crash.

So you don't even need to imagine concepts and then describe them in words, you can just *yoink* the exact joke another comedian said about a car crash without even fully reading it.

Re: Philosophy Eats AI

#62
post #42
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to be very excited that my bachelors in Philosophy might become relevant on its face for once in my life! But, I’m not sure that flexing that professionally is going to get me at the top of any neat AI projects. But wouldn’t that be great?

Philosophy will help you in ways that don't directly get you paid. Ultimately philosophy is the study of how to think. The number of arguments I've had about "AI" with friends has me facepalming regularly. Understanding why LLMs don't equate to "intelligence" is a direct result of that training. Still admitting that AGI might actually be an algorithm we haven't figured out yet is also a direct result of that training…

> Ultimately philosophy is the study of how to think.

That would be (philosophical) logic, which is a branch of philosophy, both as an art (the practice of correct reasoning) and a science (the study of what constitutes correct reasoning). Of course, one's mind is sharped during the proper practice of philosophy, but per se, that is not the ultimate aim. The ultimate aim are the most general first principles. For example, metaphysics is concerned with the first principles of being qua being; epistemology with knowledge qua knowledge, and so one.

Post reply on HN