Alternative intelligences
There is not only one concept of AI - Media Ecology Newsletter #36
Why Musk helped Trump?
But why does Elon Musk support Donald Trump in the US presidential campaign? Many plausible explanations. His companies. His ego. His mania for freedom of expression in an aggressive key. But that's not enough. I don't think it's enough. I have a feeling. I saw that Musk changed Trump's mind about early voting and more. My guess is that Musk is voting for Trump because he thinks he will be able to control and guide him in the choices that matter most to him. Musk can never be American president. But to have an American president hanging on his every word would be a great achievement.
Artificial intelligences are many
Goldman Sachs has been setting a new tone. They suggested the possibility that the large language models investment race could be a bubble.
Since ChatGPT was introduced, generative AI is taking a lot or our attention. But this is not the end of history. It seems to me quite useful to think about a set of alternative concepts for AI.
1. AI as simulation of human cognitive processes. This was the idea at Dartmouth in 1956: «We propose that a 2-month, 10-man study of artificial intelligence be carried out during the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. The study is to proceed on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it. An attempt will be made to find how to make machines use language, form abstractions and concepts, solve kinds of problems now reserved for humans, and improve themselves. We think that a significant advance can be made in one or more of these problems if a carefully selected group of scientists work on it together for a summer». Movies have seen more of this than reality.
2. AI as a tool that does very complex kind of maths. A concept of cognitive automation focused on everything humans are not good at. Very complex calculations. Identification of patterns and correlations in large sets of numbers. The result is not a competition between humans and machines, but a fruitful use of machines by humans. Which is especially smart if artificial intelligence models are trained on reliable, accurate, and focused on knowledge of the very organisation that then uses the models. And it is especially fair if the models are such that they can explain how they arrive at their conclusions. Most applications of AI seem to be of this type.
3. Embedded AI. Artificial intelligence embedded in objects, robots, cars, and powered in real time by sensors, cameras, radar, and other detectors of contextual changes, which react to the environment and learn to make decisions in order to then act. Technology that could learn cognitive pathways capable of reading space and developing innovative skills: such as autonomous cabs that have learned to slowly displace humans who eventually stop in front of them to prevent them from continuing their journey as a form of protest.
Reading
In the meantime, I’m reading quite a lot. What are the best new books, in my opinion, about the transformation we are living through? Four are quite outstanding, although quite different:
Dennis Yi Tenen, Literary Theory for Robots. How Computers Learned to Write, Norton 2024
Cristina Alaimo and Jannis Kallinikos, Data Rules. Reinventing the Market Economy, MIT Press 2024
Asma Mhalla, Technopolitique. Comment la technologie fait de nous des soldats, Seuil 2024
Laure de Roucy-Rochegonde, La guerre a l’ère de l’intelligence artificielle. Quand les machines prennent les armes, PUF 2024
For Italian posts, please read my personal blog. At present, on that blog, I’m commenti the great book by Martin Daumont on the economic government of the world.
My Nòva blog is now having an article about Dennis Yi Tenen, and a piece about Asma Mhalla.
In previous Media Ecology:
May 17th - The future. Instructions for use
November 23rd - Much AI do about nothing
May 30th - The aliens are coming
May 11th - I’m a prompt man
April 21th – The truth about fake
April 7th – CheatGPT
March 31th – Artificial intelligencija
March 16th – The method is the message
February 9th – Epistemology of AI
Podcasts in Italian, by me
Automaticamente. Rai Radio 3
Lezioni di futuro. Il Sole 24 Ore
L’altra metà del verso. Rai Radio 3
Media Ecology. Intesa Sanpaolo on air
Eppur s’innova. Luiss University Press
Ecology of screens
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