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https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-its-the-intelligence-age-say-tech-titans-but-information-will-not-save-us-243158>
"“We have entered the Intelligence Age,” proclaimed Sam Altman, the chief
executive of OpenAI, in September. “Deep learning worked,” he explained, and
this breakthrough in learning from data will unleash a smart era in which the
more data becomes available, “the better it gets at helping people solve hard
problems”.
Altman joins other thought leaders, corporations like Google and Amazon, and
organisations such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, in
pinning humanity’s hopes on better information.
The logic is enticing. By harvesting all the world’s knowledge, AI models can
locate patterns, make correlations, and offer data-driven “insights”. The
optimal solutions to our biggest problems are needles in a data haystack, so
finding them exceeds the limited human mind. It is up to technology like deep
learning to “capture it all”, analyse or train on it – and then offer up the
brilliant game-changing idea or most rational response.
Climate change, according to a Google report, can be simulated and alleviated
using forecasting and modelling. Global conflicts, suggest AI engineers
Tshilidzi Marwala and Monica Lagazio, can be modelled and mitigated.
But the recent US election showed the limits of this rational framing of
reality. Viral rumours and conspiracy theories (JD Vance and the couch, or
“they’re eating the pets”) were gleefully shared. It seems some voters were
motivated less by abstract policy and more by visceral disgust at those deemed
different.
Humans are not perfectly rational and ethical. They are deeply emotional,
factional and frictional – driven by feelings and friendships, fear and anger.
Donald Trump’s win was aided by tapping deeply into this darker and more
“irrational” core of human nature, defying the polls. It was never about
perfect information.
In the past five years, my research has explored how technologies construct
knowledge – but also exploit emotion and amplify radicalisation. To understand
the current political moment, we need to understand both the limits of reason
and the power of unreason."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
