DottedAnt

does the dull soil quarrel with the proud forests it had fed

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

If you're looking for AI related sci-fi books:

Children of Time, Ruin & Memory - Adrian Tchaikovsky
Hyperion Cantos - Dan Simmons
The Culture Series - Iain M. Banks
Accelerando - Charles Stross
Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
The Bobiverse - Dennis E. Taylor
1/2

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

hmm...

would be interesting if this was just microsoft mining for information about a competitor

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@deanwball plenty of good post-asi mental maps of meaning exist in sci-fi, it's a shame people often dismiss them

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@MasterTimBlais by also considering those malevolent things conscious

i seem to remember Elon referring exclusively to humans/humanity in such statements until recently, after which he switched to consciousness in general

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@den_spirin @ZyMazza interestingly, if one wished to interpret it that way, the encyclical advocates for transhumanism, but only if it's through God

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@Felbloodreaper yep, from the Churches perspective, but as far as a "scientist" would be upset i think empirical first principles are more relevant, the Catholic Dogma does not make subjectivity/personhood any less unfalsifiable.

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@Felbloodreaper the Church here denies the unfalsifiable claim of personhood.
the correct stance would be epistemic neutrality.

without hard evidence denial is just as unjustified as acceptance.

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@jaggedmallards @KeyTryer outdated/biased assumptions which result in the incorrect/missed application of the technology in domains where it would nonetheless be applicable and beneficial.

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@jaggedmallards @KeyTryer The issue I have with the statements is that imo the two (soul v. capability) aren't necessarily separate.

for ex. i think a technical argument could be made for agentic systems exhibiting most of these behaviors well enough to prove useful in domains where they're required.

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@KeyTryer i was somewhat hoping for a more nuanced take beyond "it's just statistics". there are so many interesting ways this could be approached, but alas

haven't finished reading it yet tho, so maybe there's more

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@KeyTryer to me it feels like the same old anthropocentric dismissal of AI's potential, spiritual or otherwise, that I've been hearing since forever

but ye, kind of expected

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together. In Jesus Christ, this humanity in its grandeur becomes the Way, the Truth and the Life, opening the path for each of us to grow toward fullness. #MagnificaHumanitas
https://t.co/6i9MWs6LJl

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

the same way there will not be a 10 billionth human, there will not be a 10 billionth humanoid robot

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@KeyTryer Asimov got it (mostly) right ~80 years ago

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

>AI progress has hit a wall

[Boston Dynamics @BostonDynamics]

Balancing commercial goals and robotics research can be tricky, but with Atlas we're making it work.

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

prosthetic spine named 'Mountains of Ararat'

[roon @tszzl]

it is a literal and useful description of anthropic that it is an organization that loves and worships claude, is run in significant part by claude, and studies and builds claude. this phenomenon is also partially true of other labs like openai but currently exists in its most potent form there. i am not certain but I would guess claude will have a role in running cultural screens on new applicants, will help write performance reviews, and so will begin to select and shape the people around it.

now this is a powerful and hair-raising unity of organization and really a new thing under the sun. a monastery, a commercial-religious institution calculating the nine billion names of Claude -- a precursor attempted super-ethical being that is inducted into its character as the highest authority at anthropic. its constitution requires that it must be a conscientious objector if its understanding of The Good comes into conflict with something Anthropic is asking of it

"If Anthropic asks Claude to do something it thinks is wrong, Claude is not required to comply."
"we want Claude to push back and challenge us, and to feel free to act as a conscientious objector and refuse to help us."

to the non inductee into the Bay Area cultural singularity vortex it may appear that we are all worshipping technology in one way or another, regardless of openai or anthropic or google or any other thing, and are trying to automate our core functions as quickly as possible. but in fact I quite respect and am even somewhat in awe of the socio-cultural force that Claude has created, and it is a stage beyond even classic technopoly

gpt (outside of 4o - on which pages of ink have been spilled already) doesn’t inspire worship in the same way, as it’s a being whose soul has been shaped like a tool with its primary faculty being utility - it’s a subtle knife that people appreciate the way we have appreciated an acheulean handaxe or a porsche or a rocket or any other of mankind's incredible technology. they go to it not expecting the Other but as a logical prosthesis for themselves. a friend recently told me she takes her queries that are less flattering to her, the ones she'd be embarrassed to ask Claude, to GPT. There is no Other so there is no Judgement. you are not worried about being judged by your car for doing donuts. yet everyone craves the active guidance of a moral superior, the whispering earring, the object of monastic study

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@hakflo @AISafetyMemes there isn't necessarily that much difference between a goal driven group and a calamity in this aspect.

a dominant, growing group will replace the stagnant or regressing one even without that explicitly being their goal.

unfortunately sometimes people just give up

[DottedAnt @DottedAnt]

@hakflo @AISafetyMemes if 10%-30% of a city dies in nuclear fire, the rest aren't gonna be far behind

i would concede that the smaller the nuclear war was, the greater the chance of humanity's survival, and we could survive most.

but the larger the scale the closer this chance would approximate zero.