Conversation

“The Enlightenment started with essentially philosophical insights spread by a new technology. Our period is moving in the opposite direction. It has generated a potentially dominating technology in search of a guiding philosophy.” theatlantic.com/magazine/archi

Peter Sweeney

@petersweeney

May 15, 2018

The idea that we turn data into knowledge was wrong at the start of the Enlightenment, and it's wrong now. Dataism is empiricism dressed up in new clothes. So other than the premise, what a great article!

Shivon Zilis

@shivon

May 15, 2018

The latter part of your argument presumes that we retain control of the formation of aims and ends goals. That is far from a certainty. You could very well be correct on the former point though!

Peter Sweeney

@petersweeney

May 15, 2018

I'm more worried about empiricism as a block to AGI. We need more problem-solving, not dataist story telling. Knowledge comprises our aims and goals and values, like everything else. Why should we remain flat footed here as our knowledge grows?

Shivon Zilis

@shivon

Replying to

@petersweeney

Rushing to AGI without figuring out how to make it unfold in a way that is (as much as possible) linked to human will is the most dangerous thing we can do. AGI is a logical inevitability, but it’s on us to figure out the best possible birth and adolescence of it.

5:06 PM · May 15, 2018Twitter for iPhone

Replying to

It's a physical possibility; it's an open question how it's achieved. Do you think today's AI puts us on an inevitable path to AGI? Do you see a contradiction in the premise of superintelligence and human control?