RadixJournal - December 09, 2022


The AI Illusion


Episode Stats

Length

7 minutes

Words per Minute

130.26315

Word Count

924

Sentence Count

84


Summary

In this episode, I talk about how language has been around for a very long time, and how it has changed over that time period, and why we should be worried about artificial intelligence (AI) transcending our understanding of language.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 We have actually used language for a shorter amount of time than we would imagine.
00:00:08.700 And, you know, dogs can understand words.
00:00:13.780 I'm not sure a dog quite has a grammar, but they understand a sound wave as indicating something.
00:00:23.840 A dog knows its name.
00:00:25.600 If he hears the word walk or dinner and he perks up and is going to look at you and be like, oh, walk.
00:00:34.520 Yeah, that sounds great.
00:00:35.260 Yeah, let's do it.
00:00:36.220 So he understands language to some extent, but there's no actual grammar or logic exactly.
00:00:43.460 Now, you know, we're homo sapiens.
00:00:45.480 So, you know, wise man, the rational animal or something like that.
00:00:49.760 That is actually extremely incorrect.
00:00:53.380 I actually just saw something about this today.
00:00:55.600 There was an experiment in Germany in which fish have a sense of numbers.
00:01:01.260 They have a sense of a larger and a smaller number.
00:01:04.020 And they can actually engage in a sort of addition to some extent.
00:01:09.080 And they don't have a frontal brain anywhere close to the extent that we have one.
00:01:15.520 We might even overestimate like the head as the seat of reason or something.
00:01:20.640 We have reason in our spinal cord.
00:01:23.860 And I've used this metaphor quite a bit.
00:01:27.700 And so I apologize if people are getting bored of it.
00:01:30.340 But there is literally no time to think if you are standing at a baseball plate and someone is throwing 70, 80, 90, 100 miles per hour.
00:01:42.980 You cannot think in that split second when you determine what pitch.
00:01:49.280 Is it a curve?
00:01:49.980 Is it a fastball?
00:01:50.700 Is it a changeup?
00:01:51.480 Is it inside?
00:01:53.540 Is it outside?
00:01:54.400 Is this the pitch I want to hit?
00:01:56.380 You have absolutely no time to think that.
00:02:01.840 And yet you do.
00:02:02.800 The idea that some of these baseball players could explain to you how a curveball curves.
00:02:11.160 They can't.
00:02:12.360 But they just do it.
00:02:13.860 And they know it in their bones.
00:02:15.760 Maybe kind of literally in their bones.
00:02:19.020 A outfielder, he hears a crack off the bat.
00:02:23.320 The audible level of the crack gives him information.
00:02:27.260 He sees the ball maybe even kind of peripherally to some degree.
00:02:31.560 And he sees it travel like 50 feet.
00:02:35.420 And he estimates exactly where he should run to.
00:02:39.080 And he hops to the exact spot, opens up his glove, and in a lackadaisical manner catches it.
00:02:45.480 There is reason, mathematics, rationality in our spinal cord.
00:02:52.200 And we kind of don't grasp this.
00:02:56.240 And you're thinking consciousness when you're using language.
00:02:59.940 It is kind of almost like a late stage of this.
00:03:04.560 And there also have been experiments.
00:03:06.720 I think I've mentioned these to other people.
00:03:08.540 And I'll mention two.
00:03:10.740 One of which is that your muscles will engage before you think to pick up your coffee.
00:03:18.700 Now, does that mean that we're all predetermined?
00:03:22.020 No, it does not mean that at all.
00:03:23.800 And what it means is that you are telling yourself in your mind using language, I want coffee, as a kind of post-facto rationalization of what you are instinctively doing.
00:03:38.280 Another thing.
00:03:40.280 Another thing.
00:03:41.520 So there's an experiment that's done where they're blinded.
00:03:45.340 And they tell people to pick up objects.
00:03:47.880 And they say, we want you to judge the texture of these objects.
00:03:53.440 And so you'll pick one up that will be like furry.
00:03:56.760 And you'll pick up another one that will be slick.
00:03:58.640 And then they'll say, which object was heavier?
00:04:02.460 And people will get it.
00:04:04.340 What that indicates, that might sound like dumb or obvious.
00:04:08.240 No, it's not dumb or obvious.
00:04:10.020 What that means is that not only are they engaged, they can engage in reason.
00:04:14.200 They're engaging in judgment unconsciously.
00:04:18.280 You are thinking, your language comes kind of, it's like an after effect in a way.
00:04:24.520 And we developed language, and it's obviously immensely powerful, but we kind of shouldn't overestimate it.
00:04:34.000 We act in certain ways that are amazing and miraculous long before our language mind even gets its pants on in the morning.
00:04:44.980 And why I say all of this is that AI is nothing if not language.
00:04:51.820 I mean, it is computer code.
00:04:55.180 And ultimately, if you want to just reduce it to like the most basic thing, it is still language.
00:05:01.100 It is a binary, a one or a zero.
00:05:03.400 Machine code, the most basic kind of thing.
00:05:06.700 It is pure language.
00:05:09.640 What I am saying is that there's a kind of overestimation of language in these people who worry about like AI transcending itself or taking over the world or something like that.
00:05:22.320 It kind of can't think on some level.
00:05:25.280 Now, language matters.
00:05:26.440 Language affects us.
00:05:28.060 Language, our internal monologue is our way of rationalizing behavior.
00:05:32.640 It's also our way of kind of like super, it's a kind of superego, you could say.
00:05:36.960 It kind of like, you know, directs us and so on.
00:05:40.760 But it also shouldn't be overestimated.
00:05:45.180 We're biology.
00:05:46.080 We have instincts.
00:05:47.000 Long before, there were men around before language.
00:05:49.820 We got on.
00:05:50.620 You know, we built campfires and hunted shit and had sex and reproduced and raised children and did a lot of stuff.
00:06:01.620 You know, none of that is possibly available in the computer.
00:06:06.420 The computer is pure code.
00:06:08.520 So this notion that like it's anything other than some like logical thing and that it's going to like be able to think for itself or overcome itself, I just find ridiculous.
00:06:25.320 And it's just based on a fundamental misunderstanding by a bunch of nerds.
00:06:35.620 Thank you.