Timothy Wilcox

Digital literature, British Romanticism, and the imagination; PhD in English. Currently teaching aesthetics to computers.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

"Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things forever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come
But we must still be seeking?

"Then ask not wherefore, here, alone,
Conversing as I may,
I sit upon this old gray stone,
And dream my time away."
– William Wordsworth

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

"We talk of the immense number of Books, the Volumes ranged thousands by thousands—but perhaps more goes through the human intelligence in 12 days than ever was written."
— John Keats, in a letter the day after sitting down to read King Lear once again

[Christopher @molochofficial]

What’s funny is that we were like this before cameras too. After all, what does it mean to call a landscape “picturesque”?

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@mpmcsweeney Concerts still are $35, though. The quantity of seats and popularity of the artists just means people see an outsized amount about arena mega-shows online.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@mmmmmmnmnmmmmmm Epic,,

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@signulll No present LLM is close to writing both like Shakespeare and coherently.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@Elegba99 The jolly green giant is an exception that proves the rule that substantial mass is required.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@LegoKingo My impression on second viewing is that was part of how the Async cameras and tape players were wired up.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

On second watch, Backrooms was much more clear.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@MelkiteMessiah @jp54362 If it’s not clear enough in the post, note that it’s a trimmed down version of a paragraph from the encyclical so you can read the full version or even the full section or even the full letter to get more and more context.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@enoughformethx We did.
https://t.co/wtMES3OWgR

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

"human beings ... are called to self-transcendence ... Herein lies the radical departure from Promethean dreams: what saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency, but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms."
- Pope Leo XIV, MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@goblinodds Grok told me I was Abed. It’s never been more over.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@kelly_erin_ @CSandbatch Some people are so out of touch with international cinema.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@KhonWillia3446 @g_shullenberger To approach things less hierarchically: it would just be radically different. The full encyclical, though, addresses considerations such as the possibility of transcendence through forms of love and relationship.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@KhonWillia3446 @g_shullenberger It would add an interesting dimension to how we view Christianity to discover intelligent alien life, but this is working from a baseline belief that humans are made in God’s image. The aliens maybe too (Pope Francis said he would baptize them), but not a human-made tech.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

Context: Specifically the Pope says AI systems do not undergo experiences (such as joy and pain) and do not possess a body, and some tech people mistakenly think it’s a counter to say we can just link the systems to various 3D shells.

Which among other things misses that it’s insane to imagine purposefully introducing pain, mortality, and genuine awareness of evil to a thinking computer system.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

The biggest thing I don't get about the "YET!" contrarianism about the Pope's "So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences" comment is, do you want to put an AI system in a body that can feel pain and judge good and evil? The thing that got Eve killed?

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@annagrad78 I’m referring to people QTing the Pope (who doesn’t mention consciousness) and saying it’s wrong-headed to make such claims when AI soon will match those goals.

Human experience is embodied in a way LLMs can’t understand. (LLMs are also already embodied in a very different way.)

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@KhonWillia3446 @g_shullenberger This gets to a couple of the misunderstandings. The Pope never mentions consciousness in the encyclical. To his point on undergoing experiences, experiencing electricity is clearly different from human emotion. And it is human-centric, because humans are made in the image of God.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@MS23840062 @sonyatweetybird @davidchalmers42 He's right, though. If you think AI is important, it's worth understanding its limitations. Nothing is gained from pretending tech is doing things it is not.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

What I learned from Backrooms is that inside you are two wolves, a pirate and a sultan, and that it is crucial you remain sultan-maxxing.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@hyperdiscogirl If it didn't, it wouldn't be slop.

[Timothy Wilcox @PreCursorPoets]

@lydialaurenson @g_shullenberger Surely after folding clothes millions of times, the robot's experience must foster a deep, intuitive understanding of the function of clothing and of fashion and come to recognize that it itself is naked. It's exhibiting all the outward signs of interacting with clothing.