ghdprentice, John Galt appears (so to speak as no one knows where he is) in Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'. An interesting book and person with a point of view. Google's AI has a paragraph on this.
I miss scarcity
This is not a complaint. Or, if it is a complaint, it's half-aimed at me. Mostly this is a reflection.
In the old days, I got to know music really well -- in great detail, sonically, musically, reading all the credits, the liner notes, etc. A friend would have an album I didn't, so I'd go to his house to listen. We'd talk about the music. We'd talk about how album sides hung together or didn't. We were thrilled by double albums.
Now, a torrent of information is everywhere. I listen alone, often to a single song, often not listening to anything over and over again.
You will tell me, "That's your choice." I'd half agree. It's like agreeing that "It's my choice not to live off the electrical grid."
As I read and teach about AI, I am learning that our tools often prioritize speed and information glut. It seems, initially, like a cornucopia but it becomes a wash of "content." I must admit, I'm losing my talent for managing all this content, and I'm losing my love for it. And it's making me into a different person, somewhat, and I am not so sure I want to be that person. End of reflection.
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@stuartk missing the AI train is not among my 10 top worries. |
@hilde45 YES, I've been wanting to post something to this effect myself. Umberto Eco says somewhere (in _This is Not the End of the Book_, maybe?) that, notwithstanding the Borgesian Universal Library that the internet has already largely brought into being (by digitizing the Bodleian, etc.), he will miss the excitement of discovery, the special thrill of hunting through monastic libraries for ancient texts, the many rewards of travel that compensate for its many trials. Whenever I visited a new city in the past, seeking out used bookstores for items on a list of lusted-after rarities was one of my principal pleasures. Same for used record and CD stores. Now I don't bother; whatever I might want I can order from the comfort of home. Is that a good thing? Well, yes; how could it not be. And yet.... Your last paragraph nails my concern exactly. But @ghdprentice also is on the mark: "The decisive variable is whether humans continue to own the interpretive act. Meaning is not produced by symbols. Meaning is produced by embodied beings who care. A prompt does not make one an artist. Neither does a paintbrush." This could be a succinct summary statement of a paper I published recently on AI and mind: https://www.cckp.space/single-post/bp-7-2024-paul-miklowitz-our-minds-our-selves-mind-meaning-and-machines-109-131
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