Alexa in the Garden of Epicurus

Quote from Kalosyni

Reflecting on that chart, and the implication that everything will soon go to "hell in a hand-basket"... I was thinking that as long as everyone maintains their employment and has money, and the money maintains its value, and there is enough food in the grocery stores, then everything goes okay. But if there ever comes a time with widespread unemployment, worthless money, and no food...then that is a big problem.

At this point, I’d say AI taking our jobs is one of the smaller concerns. As Don and Cassius mentioned, the massive amount of realistic AI-generated content (articles, images, deepfake videos) flooding the internet is making it more and more difficult to discern what is real and what isn’t. In the past month or two alone I’ve noticed more and more people accusing others of using AI to write their online posts. Not only is the deceptive AI content a problem, but also the growing radical skepticism that results. When people don’t know what they can trust, and can no longer have faith in one another, justice and social ties collapse.

I have com across several things I want to post about just in the last 24 hours, and I am thinking of taking this thread and perhaps several others on the topic and moving it into a special section. i'm debating whether to keep that special section as "Level 3" (where the general public won't see it) or move into a more public area given the importance of the concerns. Many of the posts made already are excellent and of general interest and importance. If anyone has posted anything in this thread that they would prefer to remain in Level 3, please let me know. Otherwise I think this is such a hot topic that we ought to make these posts, and the development of an "Epicurean based strategy for dealing with AI" easier to find.

Here is an in-depth article I just came across (because I daily peruse El Pais – to get out of the U.S. news bubble a bit). It addresses the extreme resource needs and impact on local environments and communities of AI data centers (not global warming stuff, but immediate and potential near-term impacts).

I don’t see anything of partisan politics, but social and economic issues are addressed. For example: “... several of these complexes are currently extracting water from underground aquifers that are in a critical state. These natural reserves also provide water to the populations living in nearby rural communities.”

I think it’s worth a considered, close read.

AI’s backyard: A map of the 21st-century gold rush

Internet giants are extracting basic resources and grabbing land to build their new data centers in Mexico, Chile, and Spain. This is a look at the impacts of…

english.elpais.com

GPT Jesus!   

Conversations with Christ: Religion and spirituality according to an AI

GPT Jesus is one example of a recent series of chatbots that draw on the New Testament and respond in different languages. The Church views the tool with…

english.elpais.com

Who wants a GPT Epicurus?

Quote from Pacatus

Who wants a GPT Epicurus?

If there's not already one, there almost certainly will be. And that's going to put the ball in the court of those who think that the available Epicurus-bots aren't the place to get info about Epicurus.

I have a hard time dealing with the words “skeptic, skepticism, etc.” Sometimes people use them carelessly, and other times, perhaps after thoughtfulness, they use them in a narrow sense. His use seems to be that of the ancient Greek Skeptics. We’ve all looked at the chart that came from the article that I read. I’m skeptical about the author’s credibility (he’s a music critic). But, okay.

The chart is alleged to show possible results from his diagnosis of societal problems caused by AI, but these are possibilities that have no relationship to the probability of anything he wrote about occurring. Sadly, mental illness is a curse for those trying to survive in our modern world, but come on! Blaming AI? Already? For sure, we need guardrails on any new application of advanced technology, but his chart could be a list of fearsome results from the discovery of mRNA vaccines.

As far as his chart goes, yes, those are bad things, bad, bad, bad things for any society’s common welfare. (I’m getting out of breath here.) I could blame those ills on many things affecting individuals yesterday, today, or tomorrow. So, meh.

I reject his scare tactics, and more specifically, I reject his definition of skepticism as a negative behavior. Skepticism is healthy when properly used. My definition varies depending on the topic. A general usage to me is that I’m skeptical of any proposition that seems to lack proofs, and I’m willing to suspend my belief or disbelief until I see enough proof to satisfy me.

Quote from DaveT

A general usage to me is that I’m skeptical of any proposition that seems to lack proofs, and I’m willing to suspend my belief or disbelief until I see enough proof to satisfy me

I would say that is exactly the right attitude, but unfortunately in philosophy skepticism has a very specific logical extreme which is a well established school of its own and which goes far beyond the common sense version you're describing.

I generally agree with your last post Dave, but I think it’s important to note that there’s a difference between conscious skepticism (which I agree is healthy), and not being able to trust anything. The latter is the issue being discussed here.