Sunday, October 23, 2016

All Tools Involve Trade-offs --- Exactly!

Recent post by R. Scott Bakker found at the excellent blog: http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2016/09/competitive-cognitive-artifacts-and.html

"What Plato could not foresee, of course, was the way writing would fundamentally transform human cognitive ecology. He was a relic of the preliterate age, just as Krakauer (like us) is a relic of the pre-AI age. The problem for Krakauer, then, is that the distinction between complementary and competitive cognitive artifacts—the difference between things like mnemonics and things like writing—possesses no reliable evaluative force. All tools involve trade-offs. Since Krakauer has no way of knowing how AI will transform our cognitive ecology he has no way of evaluating the kinds of trade-offs they will force upon us."

I think the answer is simply that A.I. knows how to enjoy itself or fails, much as humans become gods or fail. It's part of the entropic view of the universe, in which disposability arrives at the same time as optioning. (my comment is almost a direct quote from Baudrillard).

A.I. is actually a product of designer concepts, concepts of idealization built into computer circuit boards, television, and syntax. The concept of consumption and expansion, and infrastructure that underlies A.I. economics is actually a product of consuming aesthetics. Much as though Greek philosophers were consuming the unknown. Perhaps there have been few steps between those two ages---- just a consequentialism about art, and cancellation of some unknowns.

We now consume aesthetics rather than the unknown.

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