Sometimes he made this argument in opposition to a prevailing theory that views the obvious benefits of large-scale modeling as a form of fantasy. Nuh-uh, he says. We’re receiving this significant AI benefit because “deep teaching works,” he claimed in an interview later in the week, making fun of those who claimed programs like OpenAI’s GPT4o were merely stupid engines delivering the following gift in a lane. ” Again it can begin to prove unproven scientific theorems, do we really still want to debate: ‘ Oh, but it’s just predicting the future token?'” he said.
No matter what you think of Sam Altman, it is unquestionable that this is his truth: Artificial general intelligence ( A I that matches and then surpasses human capabilities ) will solve the problems that humanity is facing and usher in a new era. In honor of the name for OpenAI’s most recent breakthrough in artificial logic, I suggest we refer to this deus ex machina idea as The Strawberry Shortcut. Like the cake, the idea looks appetizing but is less significant in the consuming.
Altman is correct in pointing out that some things were again luxuries that pharaohs and lords could not afford. Charlemagne always enjoyed air-conditioning! Working-class individuals and even some on public assistance have washers, TVs with large windows, smartphones, and distribution services that bring squash lattes and pet foods to their doors. However, Altman does not acknowledge the entire narrative. Despite massive wealth, not everyone is thriving, and many are homeless or severely impoverished. To paraphrase William Gibson, paradise is here, it’s just not evenly distributed. That’s not because technology has failed—we have. Given that so many jobs will be automated, I think the same will apply to AGI.
When many of our current jobs are carried out by 18th-century lamplighters, Altman is n’t particularly specific about what life will be like. In a podcast this week that asked tech luminaries and celebrities to share their Spotify playlists, we did learn a little bit about his vision. When explaining why he chose the tune” Underwater” by Rüfüs du Sol, Altman said it was a tribute to Burning Man, which he has attended several times. The festival, he says, “is part of what the post-AG I can look like, where people are just focused on doing stuff for each other, caring for each other and making incredible gifts to get each other”.
Universal Basic Income, which he seems to support, seems to be a big help for Altman’s campaign. There is no evidence that the people who amass fortunes or even those who still earn a modest living will be inclined to embrace the idea, though artificial intelligence might indeed generate the wealth to make such a plan feasible. Altman might have had a fantastic Burning Man experience, but some kind souls from the Playa may be up in arms about a proposal to tax some of their unrealized capital gains, which only affects those worth over$ 100 million. It’s a speculative premise that these people, or others who work for AI companies and become extremely wealthy, will squander their wealth to provide for the masses with leisure time. One of the main political parties in the US wo n’t support Medicaid, so one can only speculate as to how populist demagogues will view UBI.
I’m also concerned about the alleged glitz that will result from all of our major problems being resolved. Let’s concede that AI might actually crack humanity’s biggest conundrums. We humans would have to actually implement those solutions, and that’s where we’ve failed time and again. We do n’t need a complicated model to explain that war is hell and that we should n’t kill one another. Yet wars keep happening.
It’s exciting to envision AI tackling diseases. But if a model from OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic came up with an injectable cure for Covid tomorrow, you know exactly what would happen. Large sections of the population will warn that there is a plot to annihilate everyone. Likewise, we already know how to mitigate the climate crisis, but we’re consuming more energy than ever. Altman envisions the devoted to clean fusion plants in trillions of dollars. Exxon and OPEC might still come up with a plan to stop it, even if AI offers a blueprint for how to accomplish it.
Altman only needs to examine his own business to understand how carefully laid plans can fail. Several important employees of his company abruptly quit this week. Of the company’s 11 founders, Altman is now one of two remaining. One defector was CTO Mira Murati, who left” to create the time and space to do my own exploration”. Murati did critical work: If you talk to people at Microsoft, OpenAI’s most important partner, they will gush at everything she has done to coordinate the collaboration. Additionally, we learned this week that OpenAI is rumored to switch to a traditional for-profit organization status. On one hand, this makes sense. OpenAI started out as a nonprofit, but it later designated almost all of its assets as commercial to raise money to build and operate its businesses. It was an awkward compromise, and that tension will now be eased. Remember, though, that OpenAI began specifically to counter the prospect that a profit-seeking corporation might end up developing—and controlling—AGI. Altman and his cofounders feared a situation similar to that of fossil fuel companies, which knew the right thing to do but chose not to because they were only concerned with breathing for shareholders.
I do n’t fight AI, and I think it’s ridiculous to dismiss this incredible technological advancement by calling it a parlor trick. Like Altman, I expect that it will improve many, many aspects of our lives. That’s where our views diverge. Altman foresees some bumps along the way, and he thinks that the goodness in people will prevail. However, the story of humanity, and much of its beauty, is a battle between the good and the powerful forces that cause misery. The negative aspect is how frequently the positive side fails. The Strawberry Shortcut is so inconsistent with one another, as Altman does when he says,” No one can do it justice by trying to write about it now. The future is going to be so bright. Altman should read Voltaire, or at least ask GPT-4o whether the author’s hyper optimistic Pangloss character was wise. This is what he would discover:” His refusal to critically examine the world and his blind adherence to his philosophy make him a figure of ridicule rather than respect.”
Danny Hillis, an AI scientist, once said that his goal was to create a computer that would be proud of him. If we indeed develop AGI in a few thousand days, as Altman predicts, would it be proud of us? It is more likely than likely to perform the silicon equivalent of vomiting after one glance at the day’s news. Humanity itself, in all its glory and shame, is the human problem that AI will never resolve. Unless AGI decides that the end of the intelligence era will only occur once it has been eradicated.
Time Travel
Danny Hillis mentioned designing a computer for which I could n’t remember the first time. However, I cited the statement in my introduction to the panel discussion I moderated between Hillis and the legendary computer visionary Alan Kay. ( Actually, I just sat back and let those big brains work together. ) The dialog appeared in WIRED 30 years ago, and in light of what we know now about AI, it’s fascinating and prophetic.
Hillis: When I first started working for the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, it seemed like if you just kept going in the same direction, you could just engineer something that thought. However, as things got more complex and fragile, things started to become more difficult and fragile to change, and we never really got past that point. Today, the level of natural language understanding is not much improved compared to what it was at the time. You could conclude that artificial intelligence is simply impossible to achieve. Marvin]Minsky], who still imagines engineering AI, certainly has come to the conclusion that the brain is a very complex kludge. You might thus come to the conclusion that we can never construct one. However, you can also draw the conclusion that it’s simply the methods we’re employing to combat AI that are n’t powerful enough.
Kay: Well, the problem is that nobody knows how to do it the other way. But that does n’t mean you should n’t try it.
Hillis: If we’re ever going to make a thinking machine, we’re going to have to face the problem of being able to build things that are more complex than we can understand. That requires using a different method of engineering when building things. And biological evolution is the only candidate I’m aware of for that.
Ask Me One Thing
Elijah asks,” We are approaching the 18th anniversary of” The Perfect Thing, “your book all about the cultural impact of iPods. Given today’s prominence of smartphones, and the direction the music industry went with streaming services, how do you view the book today—outdated or prophetic”?
Thanks for the question, Elijah, especially for shouting out that not-exactly-milestone anniversary. Perhaps I should mention that this is the 40th anniversary of my book Hackers and the 30th anniversary of Insanely Great, which explored how the Macintosh and its interface altered everything? All of these are accessible at online bookstores close to you! The iPod book stands alone in comparison to my other long essays that deal with topics like personal music ( with a mini-history of Sony’s Walkman ), what coolness means, the birth of podcasting, and of course the creation story of a gadget that delights and satisfies users to the point where it becomes a cultural phenomenon.
Although the iPod as a singular device is dated, you wo n’t be surprised to learn that the book does look forward, not just to the iPhone but also to how our love of innovative technology shapes us. In terms of prophecy, The Perfect Thing covers a lot of the “celestial jukebox” issues of today’s streaming experience.
One of those problems is the result of having to shuffle a sizable corpus of songs. When I shuffled through my thousands of songs on my iPod, I discovered that Steely Dan tunes had far more to offer than the collection’s overall representation. When I first wrote about this in Newsweek, and then in the book, a lot of people reported similar experiences. There was even an academic study on the phenomenon. An engineer was once hired by Steve Jobs to make sure I knew the iPod shuffling was random. However, the company eventually created a setting called Smart Shuffle that let users space out artists because of a frightened public’s outcry. Jobs said,” We can give them the outcome they want” rather than debate whether it’s random or not. Journalism that made a difference!
End Times Chronicle
Hello, Hurricane Helene, this month’s version of a storm we rarely see the likes of.
Last but Not Least
Trae Stephens, a cofounder of Anduril and founder of Founders Fund, explains why Jesus loves VCs and why he might be in the upcoming Trump administration.
Mark Zuckerberg, whose clothes and grooming give off a Spicoli vibe, shows off Meta’s amazing VR glasses. No, you ca n’t buy them yet.
The spooky online behavior of a former Trump aide.
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