Jaron Lanier: "There's No Such Thing as Artificial 'Intelligence'"
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- In Silicon Valley, it's hard to overstate the significance of Jaron Lanier. He coined the term "virtual reality" and founded the first virtual reality company in the '80s. You may recognise him as the dreadlocked polymath in the The Social Dilemma, Netflix's documentary about the harms of social media.
Today, he is a leader of a dissident group of tech geniuses who believe the hype of A.I. is overblown, in both its capabilities and its risks. While many of his colleagues speak of artificial intelligence as a mythological turning point for civilisation, he argues -- in books and in a series of groundbreaking essays in The New Yorker magazine -- that A.I. is just a tool. It's a mindless auto-complete bot.
Lanier's humanism is laudable and infectious. But Josh can't quite grok his dismissiveness of artificial intelligence. In this chat, Jaron is as frustrated by this impasse as Josh is. Enjoy the resulting to-and-fro.
For more amazing conversations like this one, and for so much more, pop over to the Substack page at uncomfortablec...
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Kudos to Josh for maintaining his affable demeanor in the face of dealing with a frustrated genius who was most likely having a bad day, as we all do from time to time.
Jaron is indeed on a whole other level and does his best to not let his monumental intelligence and insight spoil his interactions with people. I believe that’s because he truly has a heart of gold and loves humanity, as Josh also noted.
Having said that, I am reminded of another genius, Isaac Newton, who had a much harder time reconciling his runaway brilliance with the need to stay somewhat grounded and connected with others. His last years were spent in religious and esoteric research and speculation. He ultimately predicted that the world “as we know it” would end in the year 2060.
If you don't know how to deal with people, you lack a good part of what makes a human intelligent.
Is it just me, or are most tech bros on the spectrum?
I have seen Jaron Lanier in many other podcasts and he wasn't this hostile. Too bad. At least he mellowed out in the latter half of the interview.
Some key takeaways: AI is a tool. It combines things that human already created. It doesn't expand to do new things. It can be considered the next gen collab tool, provided the devs improve data provenance. The devs are working hard to censor dangerous information.
This is why, when in a virtual meeting, it's better to use a headset and microphone. Sometimes, if someone is talking, then you overlap by saying something on top, the output speaker will mute what is coming from the other person, therefore, you think it's only YOU talking, but in fact, the other person hadn't finished talking but you just can't hear them - creating much confusion and frustration.
Josh, first time viewing your stuff, you're a class and intelligent gentleman in this. Well done. Much like others, I usually find Jaron an interesting listen/read. He let himself down here, coming across more like the comic book guy or condescending caricature of an egotistical tech entrepreneur.
Jaron is essentially correct about the importance of Attribution of an AI's results, or "Provenance" as he calls it. Without it, humans and their unique insights are reduced to mere statistics. That's the real danger of immature systems (which AI is currently). So many problems could be solved practically, if only the path from input to output were traceable (including the sources of all the training data).
Also, as some artists I know have put it: "I'd rather that AI help solve the boring and tedious problems for creative people, than have it solve creative problems for boring and tedious people." 🤔
The questions were, in some ways, better than the answers. When Jaron Lanier stopped “resisting” the questions, the interview became more enjoyable and far more interesting to listen to. Josh Szeps deserves a _lot_ of kudos for remaining affable and good-natured throughout and for intelligently reframing his questions on-the-fly in response to Lanier’s somewhat prickly objections.
He seemed to have calmed down in the latter half of the podcast. Looked like it was lingering frustration from the tech issues.
I liked his comparison to capitalism. At this point, I feel it's all inevitable. I don't anthropomorphise it. I don't think it is, or will ever be, conscious. But I think the changes that it will bring will ultimately be disastrous.
I was going to say that AI should be the main thing that everyone is talking about, but I guess it doesn't really matter.
I mean they are on 2 DIFFERENT CONTINENTS
Jaron is “just” a randomly assembled collection of cells.
Honestly. I really appreciate Jaron I’ve met very few guys who are insiders who have a somewhat humanist approach. When I use Copilot to fix my car or make food it helps for me the way Jaron explains it. Also these hard discussions are HOW we get somewhere usually. I could care less that he is grumpy AT THE BEGINNING.
Some of his responses to the wording of your questions reminded me of a fake martial arts master saying that you were “attacking me wrong.”
That said, this was a fascinating conversation.
Yeesh. I found this exchange between Jaron and Josh exceptionally hostile on the part of the former party. I can only surmise that Jaron Lanier was having a really bad day. Kudos to Josh for demonstrating exceptional forbearance in the face of unwarranted hostility.
I saw a doco that claimed AI would surpass human intelligence in 2 years time in 1982. Still waiting.
I watched something about cold fusion back then too..
Thats called marketing, Jaron has talked about this.
Im only half way through this and the image im getting is that AI is closer to a highly advanced calculator than an intelligence Instead of calculating numbers its trying to calculate a type of rationalisation equation based on the data that has been fed into it and spitting out the most logical equation from that data.
If thats what he is getting at, i can kind understand why he might get frustrated with the type of questioning your using Josh
If its more like a calculator, it seems silly to look at it as an intelligence, but no less frightening as to what kind of equations it could solve or place in front of us.
Mind you, up until listening to this i would have been using that same line of questioning
Great interview so far ✌
This was a terrible mismatch between Josh and Jaron - Josh is a nice Ausie dude; Jaron is a near autistic savant. It was doomed to start with.
Responsibility seems like the best approach just because it would have the most intrinsic value.
Wow this is a great interview I am going to watch in its entirety. Would love to paint art to help represent jarons visualizing
I'm a big fan of both Josh and Jaron, so I expected an affable, rigorous conversation. To my surprise, Jaron was gratuitously hostile and belittled Josh. Lanier's motives remain inexplicable. I'm disappointed with him.
Agreed!
Yeah super rude. Josh was professional throughout and took the high road every time.
Hostile is too strong of a word. Lanier was simply rude and condescending---like a ton of chess/computer club nerd types on this planet.
He seemed to be in a bad mood. It happens. I’ve talked to him personally before and he was very affable and generous,
I think AI is as intelligent as Josh Szeps.
Josh your forbearance was laudable...Laniers' humanity is only eclipsed by his arrogance...still worthwhile insights as only he can...thanks for uploading...
I've delt with primitive AI that has better interpersonal and communication skills than this guy. Im not entirely sure if that observation supports Joshs' case or his more, but I'm quite certain I'll be skipping any future interviews I see with him in it either way.
Intelligence like common sense is clearly not common
I really like Jaron so this whole thing was kind of weird to listen to. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just having a bad day.
Love Jaron!
Hey Josh, sorry Jaron was confrontational. I'm a big fan of his, and as you know, he's usually really nice. I bet he'll apologize to you. Great job staying calm. Hopefully, he didn't hurt your feelings too much. I'm not sure why he was policing the phrasing of the questions so much. You're looking even better than usual. What's your secret? Is it the hair?
Josh, why did it take him 17 minutes to log in? That's crazy
He looks like a freak rude guy. Comments say no different. Ill get a pass on this. 🙋🏽
Internet is a militarized space
What a terrible interviewer. A debate is one thing. If you want a debate you need a moderator. How rude. And also when Jaron said, "I'm sorry to keep interrupting you," and Josh said, "No, I'm not interrupting you, I was talking," clearly he was not even listening to what Jaron said. What a joke. 30:01
Yeah, I agree entirely. That moment really showed why this interview was so difficult. The guy wasn't there TO talk to Jaron, he was there to talk AT Jaron.
It all calmed down in the second half though.
Ban social impact bonds crypto and ESG
I hate indeed.
🍿
Like dilbert an synths yuck
You did help birth Cthulhu
I was relieved by the knowledge that I appear to have adopted the right mindset about this rising phenomena. I was worried that I wasn't being impressed enough or that I was missing the point but, in fact, no. I have been thinking about AI/Chat-GTP 4o, etc the way Jaron encourages us to; They're just tools. There is on "there" there for these machines. There is no "something to be like" there and, as I firmly believe, there never will be.
But I'll say this; If we start growing biological computers, then all bets are off.
بی تو به سر نمیشود ❤
I'd rather live under robber barons than moral busybodies.....
I can tell Lanier believes in the myth of progress. I'm curious his thoughts though, on how a centrist keynsian approach, and not a radical bottoms up movement, can lead to any significant change for poor people in the U.S? How is centrist kenysianism doing, since that is the model we've lived under forever. Not very well right. Again, Lanier believes in the myth of progress, one can tell.
Nice posting your video got my Twitter blocked.