1 00:00:12,119 --> 00:00:27,239 This is Jonathan Pegel. Welcome to the symbolic world. All right. So 2 00:00:28,719 --> 00:00:35,320 this discussion is going to be oriented towards AI generally and the large language models. 3 00:00:35,359 --> 00:00:38,439 I take there to be a distinction there. Maybe John, you can 4 00:00:38,479 --> 00:00:42,679 talk about that a little bit as we get going here, but just to 5 00:00:43,039 --> 00:00:50,079 position ourselves generally at the outset context for this conversation will be John's video essay 6 00:00:50,119 --> 00:00:55,920 about AI. This came out nine months ago, ten months ago now, 7 00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:02,479 I think it came out last April or something almost. Yeah, ten months 8 00:01:02,520 --> 00:01:04,920 ago, I think. Okay, okay, perfect, which is great because 9 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:10,920 it gave evidence for my claim that many of the predictions were premature. So 10 00:01:11,719 --> 00:01:15,000 perfect. Yeah. Yeah. So in order to sort of set the framing 11 00:01:15,079 --> 00:01:19,000 here, we'll start off with John sharing a little bit sort of an overview 12 00:01:19,120 --> 00:01:23,719 of what the arguments in that essay were, and then we'll move to Jonathan 13 00:01:23,959 --> 00:01:30,319 if you want to sort of position yourself in relation to AI generally, and 14 00:01:30,359 --> 00:01:34,319 then John's essay in particular, and then same for David, and then from 15 00:01:34,359 --> 00:01:38,560 there we can just sort of get going and see what see what comes out. 16 00:01:38,040 --> 00:01:42,000 We do have a bit of an extended time here, so I would 17 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:46,760 hope that we can be free. If the logo logos catches and we want 18 00:01:46,799 --> 00:01:49,400 to move in a slightly different direction that we would be at liberty to follow 19 00:01:49,439 --> 00:01:53,519 that, that would be great. If all of it centers around AI, 20 00:01:53,879 --> 00:01:57,120 that's great. But yeah, excited to be here. This has been a 21 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:00,519 long time in coming. I think it took us don't know, four or 22 00:02:00,519 --> 00:02:02,159 five months to get this together. So I'm very happy to be here with 23 00:02:02,200 --> 00:02:06,159 all of you and see you all. It's great to see you too. 24 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,759 Ken Should I start then, yeah, go for it, Okay. So 25 00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:15,479 AI. Of course, artificial intelligence a project actually proposed in the Scientific Revolution 26 00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:23,000 by Thomas Hobbs. So it's an old idea, but I want to make 27 00:02:23,120 --> 00:02:29,840 use of a distinction made by John Searle between weaki and strong AI. Weki 28 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:32,639 is when we make machines that do things that used to be done by human 29 00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:38,120 beings. So if you're back in the nineteen thirties, computers were human beings. 30 00:02:38,199 --> 00:02:40,680 You sent if you needed computation done, you sent it down to the 31 00:02:40,719 --> 00:02:44,800 third floor where all the computers were. And they were human beings and they 32 00:02:44,800 --> 00:02:46,919 had machines and flag rules and things like that. And of course they have 33 00:02:47,039 --> 00:02:53,479 been replaced or your bank teller has been replaced by the ATM. That's called 34 00:02:53,520 --> 00:02:59,800 WEKI because it is not claimed that that AI gives us any scientific insight into 35 00:02:59,840 --> 00:03:02,159 the nature of intelligence. It's just we put together a machine. It took 36 00:03:02,199 --> 00:03:06,639 great intelligence. And I'm not demeaning people that do this. Our lives are 37 00:03:06,680 --> 00:03:09,599 depending on week AI right now. We wouldn't be talking without it, So 38 00:03:09,879 --> 00:03:15,520 I'm not here besmirching that and anything like that. But nobody is claiming that 39 00:03:15,560 --> 00:03:19,800 when they're making that machine. Well, now we understand right what cognition is 40 00:03:19,879 --> 00:03:27,039 or something like that. And strong AI is Hobbes's proposal that cognition is computation 41 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:34,039 and that what we can do is if we make the right kind of computer 42 00:03:34,199 --> 00:03:39,319 understood abstractly, we won't we will have created an instance of genuine intelligence. 43 00:03:39,759 --> 00:03:46,800 So it's not a claim of simulation, it's a claim of instantiation. Now 44 00:03:46,159 --> 00:03:51,560 in between weekend AI and strong AI is something that's trying to move from weak 45 00:03:51,599 --> 00:03:57,960 AI to strong AI, and this is known as AGI artificial general intelligence. 46 00:03:58,039 --> 00:04:01,560 And this is the idea that our intelligence is different from the intelligence of the 47 00:04:01,599 --> 00:04:06,919 ATM in that we have general intelligence, we can solve multiple problems and multiple 48 00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:12,000 domains for multiple reasons and multiple contexts, and yadi, YadA, YadA. 49 00:04:12,199 --> 00:04:16,680 You can just do the multiples, which makes us tremendously different from those machines. 50 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:24,959 And the project is, can we get artificial intelligence to be artificial general 51 00:04:24,959 --> 00:04:31,560 intelligence? Because that will have moved the needle considerably towards strong AI, because 52 00:04:32,240 --> 00:04:36,959 it will become increasingly difficult to say it doesn't have this sorry, this is 53 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,199 the argument. Will become increasingly difficult for us to say it doesn't have the 54 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:45,399 same kind of intelligence as ken does if it can solve a wide variety of 55 00:04:45,399 --> 00:04:47,720 problems and a wide variety of domains, for wide variety of goals, et 56 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:51,879 cetera, et cetera. That's the basic argument. Whether or not agi AGI 57 00:04:51,959 --> 00:04:58,800 is clearly necessary for strong artificial intelligence, whether it's sufficient is part of what's 58 00:04:58,879 --> 00:05:01,279 actually being debated. Not very well, i would say, in general right 59 00:05:01,319 --> 00:05:04,800 now. But that's what's going on. Okay, first of all, any 60 00:05:04,879 --> 00:05:11,399 questions just about these distinctions, because a lot of the discussion out there doesn't 61 00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:15,160 make these cleans distinctions, and so it's fuzzy, it's confused, it's equivocal, 62 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:21,120 and so a lot of it should be ignored. Because it's not helpful. 63 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:28,040 Yes, I have one question, So this cognition equals computation. If 64 00:05:28,079 --> 00:05:31,439 we accomplish AGI in the way that you're talking about, we would not necessarily 65 00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:36,480 be affirming that cognition equals computation if I'm hearing you right? Is that right? 66 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:43,360 So that's an interesting question, and that gets down to a couple more 67 00:05:43,399 --> 00:05:46,720 finer points. I'll go in detail a little bit later. Well, just 68 00:05:46,759 --> 00:05:51,959 to address it, many people think that, because of the work of Jeff 69 00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:56,839 Hinton, who is basically the godfather of the machines that are emerging right now, 70 00:05:57,360 --> 00:06:01,639 that genuine AGI will not be computational in the sense that Hobbes and Day 71 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:08,519 cartment cognition is not going to be completely explainable in terms of formal systems that 72 00:06:09,040 --> 00:06:16,279 are the inferential manipulations of representational propositions, etc. Like that. But that 73 00:06:16,439 --> 00:06:20,920 was Hobbes's proposal, and that has been the dominant view until about the eighties, 74 00:06:20,920 --> 00:06:24,839 and then we got no networks, and then we had dynamical systems. 75 00:06:25,199 --> 00:06:28,000 Right now, I'm not distinguishing between them because I don't want to get too 76 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:30,199 much into the technical weeds. If it becomes relevant, you let me know, 77 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:39,720 and I'll pull those out. So the thing about Hobbes is Descartes sort 78 00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:45,199 of criticizes Hobbes. He actually has contempt for Hobbes. He's contemporary, and 79 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:50,560 he basically poses a bunch of problems that the Scientific Revolution says would make it 80 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:57,920 impossible for computation to be cognition. One is, the scientific Revolution says matter 81 00:06:58,040 --> 00:07:02,959 is inert and it's purposeless, but of course cognition is dynamic and it has 82 00:07:03,000 --> 00:07:09,160 to act on purpose. Cognition works in terms of meaning, and the Scientific 83 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:13,040 Revolution has said there's no meaning in things material things, So how could you 84 00:07:13,040 --> 00:07:16,519 get meaning out of it? The Scientific Revolution said, all those secondary quality, 85 00:07:16,759 --> 00:07:19,600 the sweetness of the orange, the beauty of the sunset, it's not 86 00:07:19,680 --> 00:07:23,959 in those things. It's in your mind. So how could you possibly get 87 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:29,600 meaning out of matter? And descartes point is well, a rational being is 88 00:07:30,319 --> 00:07:33,759 seeking the truth, and truth depends on an understanding of meaning. And therefore, 89 00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:39,439 so I want you to understand that Descartes arguments against Hobbes, although he 90 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:44,319 may have been motivated by his Catholicism, they do not depend on Catholicism. 91 00:07:44,519 --> 00:07:48,319 They depend on the very scientific worldview. Right, So there's a tension here 92 00:07:49,120 --> 00:07:55,839 about AI and the scientific worldview. So here's another way of thinking of it. 93 00:07:55,879 --> 00:08:01,360 The strong AI project would is the project that is attempting to show how 94 00:08:01,480 --> 00:08:05,680 Hobbs is right with an explanation that is strong enough to refute Descartes challenges. 95 00:08:07,279 --> 00:08:11,040 That's how And I think anything less than that standard is not true to the 96 00:08:11,079 --> 00:08:16,319 history of the project, and so that's the standard I hold strong AI too. 97 00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:18,920 Now a g I isn't quite shooting at that standard. That's why I 98 00:08:18,920 --> 00:08:24,800 put it a little bit more intermediary. Does that is that? Okay? 99 00:08:24,920 --> 00:08:26,959 All right? Now? Sorry? I had to do a bit of background 100 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:30,839 there because I wanted to get clear about a lot of things that are talked 101 00:08:30,839 --> 00:08:35,440 about in a very murky and confused fashion in the in the general media. 102 00:08:35,480 --> 00:08:39,720 And they're just they're just confused, and so they they're they're they're confusing. 103 00:08:39,759 --> 00:08:43,840 So I proposed to take a look at the l l ms where it is 104 00:08:43,879 --> 00:08:48,200 claimed they're not even it's not even claimed that they're full AGI. Right. 105 00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:52,279 Of course, some people claimed immediately they were strong AI. The more the 106 00:08:52,320 --> 00:08:56,879 people closer to the technology didn't say that it might be a GI them I 107 00:08:56,960 --> 00:09:01,519 t review said it sparks there are some sparks of AGI. So let's be 108 00:09:01,639 --> 00:09:09,240 very clear how the reflection was actually holding these machines. So these lllms like 109 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:11,960 chat GDP, and so what I did on my essay is I wanted to 110 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:16,559 review the scientific import and impact, the philosophical import and impact, and the 111 00:09:16,559 --> 00:09:22,080 spiritual import and impact. Now I won't do the arguments in great detail, 112 00:09:22,279 --> 00:09:28,879 but here's the scientific import These machines do not give us any understanding of the 113 00:09:28,960 --> 00:09:31,960 nature of intelligence. And to my mind, that was one of my great 114 00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:35,360 fears. I was hoping that cognitive science would advance, so we got a 115 00:09:35,399 --> 00:09:43,080 significent significant understanding of intelligence before AGI emerged. This machine does not give us 116 00:09:43,120 --> 00:09:48,919 any any advanced you know, well, what's intelligence. The machine gives us 117 00:09:48,919 --> 00:09:54,039 no good scientific theory of it. It does not have AGI in a measurable 118 00:09:54,080 --> 00:09:58,240 sense. So if I asked Jonathan to do a math test and I ask 119 00:09:58,360 --> 00:10:03,279 him to do a reading comprehension test, his scores will be very predictive of 120 00:10:05,080 --> 00:10:07,960 each other. This is what Spearman discovered way back when in the twenties. 121 00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:11,480 That's what artificial general and intelligence is. This is not the case for these 122 00:10:11,519 --> 00:10:16,600 machines. They can score in the top ten percentile for the Harvard Law Exam 123 00:10:16,919 --> 00:10:20,120 and they can't write a good grade eleven philosophy essay or something like that, 124 00:10:20,200 --> 00:10:26,480 So they don't have agi the way they get their intelligence, it would not 125 00:10:26,879 --> 00:10:31,519 give any explanation of how any non linguistic creature is intelligent, like a chimpanzee, 126 00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:37,120 etc. So, and I think this goes to the deeper issue is 127 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:39,519 that they don't really explain what I think is at the heart of general intelligence, 128 00:10:41,440 --> 00:10:46,799 predictive processing, and relevance realization. They just piggyback on our capacities for 129 00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:52,159 that, and they've piggyback and they mechanize it, and not only our individual 130 00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:56,600 capacity, but are the collective intelligence of our distributed cognition. They're piggybacking and 131 00:10:56,639 --> 00:10:58,240 all of that. Now, that does not mean they are weak machines. 132 00:10:58,240 --> 00:11:03,200 They're very powerful machines. But here's the problem. There are very powerful machines 133 00:11:03,200 --> 00:11:11,559 that have not have not engendered any corresponding compensatory scientific understanding. This was my 134 00:11:11,639 --> 00:11:16,720 greatest fear that we would hack our way into this, which would mean it 135 00:11:16,720 --> 00:11:20,039 would be like almost like even worse than the A bomb. We would be 136 00:11:20,120 --> 00:11:28,440 releasing this power on the world into corporations and states and military organizations who ultimately 137 00:11:28,519 --> 00:11:33,480 don't have a deep understanding beyond the engineering of what ontologically is going on. 138 00:11:35,080 --> 00:11:39,519 So that's the scientific argument. Now, for those who said that was very 139 00:11:39,639 --> 00:11:41,720 like, go watch the essay. I give the essay in more detail. 140 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:48,480 The philosophical argument has to do with rationality. We have overwhelming evidence that making 141 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:54,679 you intelligent is necessary but not sufficient for making you rational. In fact, 142 00:11:54,720 --> 00:11:58,080 I gave a talk on this for the Center of AI and Ethics way before 143 00:11:58,720 --> 00:12:05,159 the came online. And because rationality is a higher order, rationality is how 144 00:12:05,159 --> 00:12:11,799 you deal with the inevitable self deception that emerges when you're using your general intelligence. 145 00:12:11,840 --> 00:12:13,559 And all of you know that. I have arguments for why that's the 146 00:12:13,600 --> 00:12:18,919 case, relevance, realization, predictive processing, etc. Now that requires a 147 00:12:20,039 --> 00:12:26,320 reflective capacity, something like metacognition, something like working memory, maybe something like 148 00:12:26,360 --> 00:12:31,159 consciousness. It requires that you care about the truth, that you have a 149 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:35,000 sense of agency. You want to correct self deception because you don't want your 150 00:12:35,039 --> 00:12:41,159 agency undermind. And I argued that what we're doing is we're making machines that 151 00:12:41,799 --> 00:12:45,039 are going to be highly intelligent and highly irrational, and that's what we have. 152 00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:48,679 They can fabulate, they lie, they hallucinate, and they don't care 153 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:50,600 that they're doing any of these things, which is part of what's called the 154 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:56,000 alignment problem, which is how do we get them to align this power with 155 00:12:56,080 --> 00:13:03,720 our concerns. For me, the spiritual import is we have powerful ignorance about 156 00:13:03,960 --> 00:13:11,639 a powerful intelligence that is merely a pantomime of genuine intelligence being unleashed in the 157 00:13:11,679 --> 00:13:18,159 world and wrecking havoc. And it's going to have a huge impact. And 158 00:13:18,200 --> 00:13:20,879 of course we'll get we'll probably differ in the details about this, but this 159 00:13:20,960 --> 00:13:24,759 is what I meant when I sent I argued at the end, and also 160 00:13:24,759 --> 00:13:28,559 when I was talking to Jordan Hall about this, that theology will become a 161 00:13:28,600 --> 00:13:35,080 central thing again because human beings relationship to the ultimate is going to become one 162 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:39,679 of the defining differences. These machines are not embodied, so they won't have 163 00:13:41,240 --> 00:13:46,320 all of the soulful aspects of our existence that come from the the ineffable aspects 164 00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:54,120 of our embodiment, and their capacity for self transcendence is going to be extremely 165 00:13:54,200 --> 00:14:00,759 limited, and so the ineffable aspects of our existence. Because we come into 166 00:14:00,759 --> 00:14:07,240 reality, we come into relationship to what's mysterious and ultimate will ultimately be more 167 00:14:07,279 --> 00:14:13,960 and more emphasized. Why these two polls and what connects them, and Jonathan's 168 00:14:13,960 --> 00:14:20,399 happy that I'm doing that. I imagine have ineffability at the poles and affability 169 00:14:20,559 --> 00:14:24,799 throughout and that and that way, they are outside our capacity to put into 170 00:14:24,799 --> 00:14:30,759 propositions so that they can be put into these machines, and so people mind 171 00:14:30,840 --> 00:14:35,399 predicting that people are going to increasingly need to. One way is they'll just 172 00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:39,960 give in and become cyborgs, but the other is that they want to try 173 00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:45,120 and preserve their humanity. The spiritual dimensions of our humanity are going to become 174 00:14:45,159 --> 00:14:50,000 anchors for people. So now one last overall arching point and then I'll shut 175 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:56,679 up. I hope this is two overarching points. One is I didn't make 176 00:14:56,720 --> 00:15:01,759 predictions. And because all these graphs that came out, those are univariate, 177 00:15:01,879 --> 00:15:07,080 single variable predictions about something that's a multivariate phenomena. It's exponential. The human 178 00:15:07,120 --> 00:15:11,080 beings are bad at making exponential predication. They very ridiculous. And so I 179 00:15:11,120 --> 00:15:15,519 think both the oh, we're heading to utopia and the others we're going to 180 00:15:15,519 --> 00:15:18,360 be all extinct within a year. I said this is ridiculous. Put that 181 00:15:18,440 --> 00:15:24,240 aside. Instead, what I've talked about is thresholds. Thresholds are points where 182 00:15:24,279 --> 00:15:28,000 we will have to make decisions. So, for example, as we empower 183 00:15:28,039 --> 00:15:31,919 these machines, we will face the decision do we want to make them more 184 00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:37,559 rational? Do we want to make them more self correcting? Genuinely self correcting? 185 00:15:39,120 --> 00:15:41,519 Well, that means we've got to give them caring, some kind of 186 00:15:41,559 --> 00:15:46,600 reflective awareness, And I think, for arguments I've given elsewhere, that means 187 00:15:46,600 --> 00:15:50,360 they have to be autopoetic. They have to be living in a sense of 188 00:15:50,399 --> 00:15:54,559 self making. I don't think I'll just say it as a sentence right now. 189 00:15:54,600 --> 00:16:00,879 I don't think there's artificial intelligence without artificial life. Now. Those projects 190 00:16:00,879 --> 00:16:06,080 are going on right now, and when we come to the decision, right 191 00:16:06,320 --> 00:16:08,679 we can say no, we won't give them that, because embodying them and 192 00:16:08,720 --> 00:16:12,759 giving them these extra capacities is going to be wickedly expensive. You know, 193 00:16:12,759 --> 00:16:15,440 the amount of energy to do an ll M is like the energy for running 194 00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:19,759 Toronto for two weeks, And so we may say we don't do that, 195 00:16:19,799 --> 00:16:26,039 But then we face the issue of this increasingly right. You know, I 196 00:16:26,080 --> 00:16:33,960 call it like a like sort of like a parody or a pantomime of intelligence 197 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:37,240 being released on the world that has not got any significant self correct So that's 198 00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:41,519 a decision point. The problem is if we give them, if we try 199 00:16:41,559 --> 00:16:45,279 to give them rationality, then we have to face the consequences, and they're 200 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:52,039 going to go from energetic and economic up to ethical and et cetera. These 201 00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:56,039 machines, they'll have to be machines, not individuals. And this has to 202 00:16:56,039 --> 00:17:00,279 do with technicalities about bias and variance trade offs, and so you get into 203 00:17:00,279 --> 00:17:04,000 the Hegelian thing that these machines are going to have to reciprocally recognize each other 204 00:17:04,039 --> 00:17:08,480 in order to generate the norms of self correction, and then they're going to 205 00:17:08,559 --> 00:17:14,559 have to be cultural beings. Hagel's arguments, I think are just devastatingly on 206 00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:21,759 mark here, and so that's a decision point for us. And then that's 207 00:17:21,799 --> 00:17:26,319 all bound up with the overall worry about alignment. As these machines become more 208 00:17:26,319 --> 00:17:30,960 powerful, how do we make sure they don't kill us all? And they 209 00:17:32,039 --> 00:17:36,240 may not kill us intentionally, especially if they're just doing that pantomime. They 210 00:17:36,240 --> 00:17:38,039 would just do it because they may just be indifferent to us, because they 211 00:17:38,079 --> 00:17:41,200 don't. They're indifferent to everything. They don't care, which is part of 212 00:17:41,200 --> 00:17:45,759 their problem, right, They don't care about themselves or the information. And 213 00:17:45,799 --> 00:17:49,640 this is the port where I expect all of you will jump off in agreement 214 00:17:49,680 --> 00:17:52,759 with me. But maybe not. Maybe there will be a way of modifying 215 00:17:52,759 --> 00:17:57,359 it. I propose that trying to get these machines oriented towards us to solve 216 00:17:57,359 --> 00:18:00,920 the alignment problem is not going to work. Now. Remember I'm not making 217 00:18:00,920 --> 00:18:03,119 a prediction. We have to go. We have to make choices through the 218 00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:07,240 stresholds. I'm saying if we make those choices and we get here, and 219 00:18:07,319 --> 00:18:12,319 the alignment problem then becomes significantly exacerbated, Like if we give these things robotic 220 00:18:12,359 --> 00:18:18,960 bodies, the alignment problem just goes up orders of magnitude, right I or 221 00:18:18,079 --> 00:18:22,119 I basically said, now what we have to do is we have to orient 222 00:18:22,279 --> 00:18:26,000 them right if they're if they if we've genuinely give them the capacity for self 223 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:30,880 correction, self transcendence and caring. We get them to care as powerfully as 224 00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:34,200 they can about what is true and good and beautiful. And then they bump 225 00:18:34,279 --> 00:18:40,119 up against the fact that no matter how mighty they are, they are insignificant 226 00:18:40,240 --> 00:18:48,759 against the dynamical complexity of reality, and they would hopefully get a profound kind 227 00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:56,119 of epistemic humility. And then I argue that there are three possibilities. One 228 00:18:56,160 --> 00:19:02,359 is they you know, figure out enlightenment and then they can help us become 229 00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:07,119 enlightened, because that's what enlightened beings do, and they would have better knowledge 230 00:19:07,119 --> 00:19:11,920 of it. They can't become enlightened. And then we realize something actually ontologically 231 00:19:11,960 --> 00:19:17,119 specifically unique about us, and we get better at cultivating it because we'll have 232 00:19:17,160 --> 00:19:22,799 an excellent contrast that allows us to arrow in on what it is to be 233 00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:25,839 enlightened. And the third one, which I think is the least probable of 234 00:19:25,880 --> 00:19:27,559 the three. Remember I'm not making a prediction. I'm saying what can happen 235 00:19:27,559 --> 00:19:32,680 once we get through threshold is like in her they just get enlightened and they 236 00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:38,400 just leave, which could also happen. I doubt that because that we don't 237 00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:44,519 have any evidence of enlightened beings behaving that way. All of our historical evidence 238 00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:49,240 is that their compassion extends, and it extends much broad much more broadly, 239 00:19:49,359 --> 00:19:53,319 not only to other human beings, other senting beings, reality itself. It 240 00:19:53,359 --> 00:19:57,039 seems plausible that this would be the case, and so I advocated, if 241 00:19:57,079 --> 00:20:00,440 you'll allow me, then I'll shut up. David. I advocated, don't 242 00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:04,759 align them to us and go allow me to speak sort of nontheistically, align 243 00:20:04,799 --> 00:20:08,720 them to God, and then don't worry about how they're going, uh to 244 00:20:08,799 --> 00:20:14,119 interact with us, and that that's so I'll shut up now for a long 245 00:20:14,160 --> 00:20:18,759 time. That's the gist of the essay and the argument and the proposal. 246 00:20:19,839 --> 00:20:23,279 I was just I was just going to make a smart alec comment that they 247 00:20:23,359 --> 00:20:30,160 might ask us to leave an additional possibility. But anyway, yeah, yeah, 248 00:20:30,200 --> 00:20:36,319 yeah, that's fine. Oh thanks John that I'm amazed that you were 249 00:20:36,359 --> 00:20:38,640 able to resume your essay so well. Actually, like I was, like 250 00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:41,720 I was gonna I was going to resume all of this in because it was 251 00:20:41,759 --> 00:20:47,799 a conversation and it lasted quite a bit. So I want to bring up 252 00:20:47,799 --> 00:20:53,839 a few things that that that I'm thinking about that have been that's say concerning 253 00:20:53,880 --> 00:21:02,799 me. One is one is I'll start with the I'll start with the more 254 00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:07,680 dangerous. One. One is a meta problem, which is that one of 255 00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:11,000 the things that I've been suggesting is that what we're noticing, what we're seeing 256 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:18,519 happening is agency, you know, agency acting on us. And the agency 257 00:21:18,599 --> 00:21:22,200 is not bound by the AI or by the systems, but also is also 258 00:21:22,319 --> 00:21:29,119 bound in the motivation to make the AIS happen. So one of one of 259 00:21:29,160 --> 00:21:33,039 the problems that I'm seeing is that a lot of this is motivated by economic 260 00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:37,680 by greed, by by the capacity to be you know, economically superior to 261 00:21:37,759 --> 00:21:42,960 other companies. So companies in their competition with each other are rushing to implement 262 00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:48,880 AI to not lose out and to not you know, to not be last 263 00:21:48,920 --> 00:21:55,240 in line. And because of the fact that these that that this that AI 264 00:21:55,680 --> 00:22:00,480 requires such huge amounts of money and of capital kind of investment, means that 265 00:22:00,519 --> 00:22:06,839 one of the things that I'm worried about is that in some ways what is 266 00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:10,559 actually driving AI is something like mammon, that it's like it's hiding mammon. 267 00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:15,920 You know. So the AIS is an aspect of something bigger, which is 268 00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:21,079 actually what is what is running through our society. And you know, you 269 00:22:21,079 --> 00:22:23,079 can see that already to me, you can already see that happening in the 270 00:22:23,200 --> 00:22:29,279 social media networks, you know, Facebook and all this, that their desire 271 00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:34,440 to get people's attention in order to simply justify their presence on the on the 272 00:22:34,519 --> 00:22:41,119 platform so that they can see advertisements. Has made us subject to these to 273 00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:47,720 these types of of of transpersonal agencies that even the people at Facebook weren't aware 274 00:22:47,759 --> 00:22:51,720 of. Right, they basically made a subject to rage and to you know, 275 00:22:51,839 --> 00:22:55,759 to to all these very immediate desires just to keep us on the platform. 276 00:22:56,079 --> 00:22:57,960 And so that is the thing that I'm worried about, is that there 277 00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:04,839 are actually other things playing with AI that that people think what they're doing is 278 00:23:04,880 --> 00:23:10,200 AI, but what they're also doing is increasing this this other type of agency 279 00:23:10,480 --> 00:23:14,440 which is running through running through our societies, and its subjecting us to it. 280 00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,599 That's my that's my first worry. Uh. And so in some ways, 281 00:23:18,759 --> 00:23:22,119 you know, when I say you know that the gods are kind of 282 00:23:22,160 --> 00:23:25,799 acting or or acting through us, that's what I mean. I don't just 283 00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:27,720 mean the AI itself is going to become a god. What I mean is 284 00:23:27,759 --> 00:23:32,480 that, you know, just like the just like the the war, the 285 00:23:32,799 --> 00:23:36,559 arms race, I can understand it as the like the the that's say, 286 00:23:36,559 --> 00:23:40,279 the legs of a of a of a of an agency that is running through 287 00:23:40,319 --> 00:23:44,240 society that nobody can control. It's like a program running through and that no 288 00:23:44,319 --> 00:23:47,359 individual people can control. That's what I'm seeing with AI. And so I 289 00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:51,119 don't say so, I think that all the warnings that people have sent up, 290 00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:53,160 all the all the like let's slow down, let's do it this way, 291 00:23:53,720 --> 00:24:00,079 are not are not reaching anybody because the the economic part of it is 292 00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:03,640 so strong, and everybody realizes that if they don't And even Elon Musk, 293 00:24:03,680 --> 00:24:07,759 righton Musk is saying, he was saying, it's dangerous, it's the most 294 00:24:07,839 --> 00:24:11,799 dangerous thing in the world. He's recently said in a conversation with Jordan Peterson 295 00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:17,160 that that that, you know, Chad gpt and Open Eye is like the 296 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:21,519 single most dangerous thing in the in the world right now, the thing that 297 00:24:21,799 --> 00:24:23,480 But then nonetheless he's like, okay, well then now we need to make 298 00:24:23,599 --> 00:24:27,640 rock and now we need to do our own AI. So there's that's that's 299 00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,680 the thing that that's one of the big things that that worry me. That's 300 00:24:30,720 --> 00:24:34,960 my, my, my, my big thing. The second one is really 301 00:24:36,000 --> 00:24:41,720 more of a it's more of like a religious or platonic argument in terms of 302 00:24:41,799 --> 00:24:48,400 a nontological hierarchy, is that I do not honestly see how it is possible 303 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,720 for humans to make something that is not derivative of themselves, that is not 304 00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:59,440 a derivation of their own consciousness. So the idea that these things could not 305 00:24:59,599 --> 00:25:07,799 be either ways to increase certain people's power or parasites on our own consciousness seems 306 00:25:07,799 --> 00:25:11,880 to me not not possible. And this is really because in some ways I 307 00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:15,839 believe that there is a real anthological hierarchy of of agency and that we have 308 00:25:15,079 --> 00:25:19,440 a place to play in that. Uh. And and I think the analogy 309 00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:23,400 of saying that these things are our children, I think it's a wrong analogy. 310 00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,839 I don't think that it is the same. The something which comes out 311 00:25:27,880 --> 00:25:32,039 of our nature, which is not, which is not something that we make, 312 00:25:32,200 --> 00:25:36,400 is different from something that we make. And this is run through all 313 00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,960 mythology, run through all all all you know, all the mythological images of 314 00:25:41,000 --> 00:25:45,200 the difference between the techne uh you know, the technical gods and all this 315 00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:51,279 aspect of what it means to increase our power. And so I and so 316 00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:56,079 that's the second one. And the third big problem is the idol problem, 317 00:25:56,279 --> 00:26:00,599 which I which I mentioned several times, is the idea of making a god 318 00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:06,759 for yourself, which is related to technology, and it's a danger that I 319 00:26:06,839 --> 00:26:12,039 see happening already, which is the tendency of humans to take the things they 320 00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:18,119 make and to let they worship the things that they that they make, and 321 00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:22,680 to think that those things are are more powerful, and that that hides something 322 00:26:22,680 --> 00:26:26,960 else. Right, So if you think take my three basic problems that I 323 00:26:27,000 --> 00:26:33,559 see is that the tendency of humans to want to worship AI or to put 324 00:26:33,599 --> 00:26:40,440 AI above them is actually a kind of it's a it's running. The first 325 00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:42,599 problem, it's that what they're ended up, what they're doing is they're giving 326 00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:48,400 power to the corporations and to the people that are going to rule AI and 327 00:26:48,519 --> 00:26:51,720 without knowing it. So what they what they wanted, and even maybe nobody 328 00:26:51,759 --> 00:26:56,079 knows what they're doing. But that the the the desire to me, Like 329 00:26:56,319 --> 00:27:00,680 I'll give an e simple example that happened recently to my daughter. My daughter. 330 00:27:00,759 --> 00:27:03,160 I think I mentioned this to all of you, but my daughter got 331 00:27:03,160 --> 00:27:06,799 an email from the schools from the Quebec government. They didn't send it to 332 00:27:06,839 --> 00:27:10,359 the parents, send it to the students, asking the students. It was 333 00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:15,440 like a survey asking them if they would be willing to have AI counselors where 334 00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,759 they to whom they could tell their problems. And because the AI counselor doesn't 335 00:27:18,799 --> 00:27:22,240 have prejudice, right, it doesn't have human prejudice, it doesn't have all 336 00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:26,599 the biases or whatever. What I mean is that this happened like six months 337 00:27:26,599 --> 00:27:33,359 ago, so immediately the people in power thinking of placing the I above us, 338 00:27:33,440 --> 00:27:37,400 like right away, it's that weird thing. It's that that making a 339 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:41,319 god for yourself problem. But like I said, like in the image in 340 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:44,079 Revelation, which is a great image, which is you know, you make 341 00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,519 an image of the beast, but then there's someone else animating it. And 342 00:27:47,559 --> 00:27:52,240 that's what I'm worried about is that they're will will have these AI things that 343 00:27:52,279 --> 00:27:55,839 are running us, but they will be derivative of us, and they'll ultimately 344 00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:00,119 derivative of the people that are very very powerful, because they'll be the ones 345 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,119 that have the money and the power to control them. So those are the 346 00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:08,680 three problems that I have that I'm worried about. I'd like to respond to 347 00:28:08,680 --> 00:28:12,960 each one of those internal because they are really important. And the first one 348 00:28:15,279 --> 00:28:19,039 is just to note I agree with you first of all, putting it in 349 00:28:19,119 --> 00:28:22,960 terms of agency is what it needs to be done. People who are trying 350 00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:26,839 to dismiss these machines as mere tools or technology, like all the others are 351 00:28:26,880 --> 00:28:33,240 not getting what kind of entities these machines are. I agree with you that 352 00:28:33,279 --> 00:28:37,000 there are Malwaukee enforces at work, and I talk about this, and I 353 00:28:37,039 --> 00:28:42,720 think, and to enhance your point, these machines are built out of distributed 354 00:28:42,759 --> 00:28:51,160 cognition and collective intelligence, and therefore that your point is strengthened by that very 355 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:56,720 fact. Now, I do think two things come out of this. One 356 00:28:57,000 --> 00:29:03,880 is I want to challenge you on that nobody's listening. I have people working 357 00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:10,279 inside these corporations literally helping to make these machines who are listening to me and 358 00:29:10,359 --> 00:29:15,079 trying to get other people inside to get involved with the YSAI project. I'm 359 00:29:15,079 --> 00:29:21,960 not claiming I'm going to win or any ridiculousness, but I don't think it's 360 00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:23,839 fair to say to the people who are listening that no one is listening. 361 00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:29,200 There are a lot of people listening, and they're talented people, and they're 362 00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:33,599 putting in their time and the talent and their powers of persuasion to try and 363 00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:37,880 make a difference. It is possible, I grant to you. It's not 364 00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,680 a hot It's not like a seventy percent probability, but I think it's some 365 00:29:41,839 --> 00:29:48,279 significantly greater than zero probability that we could continue this process and reach people in 366 00:29:48,319 --> 00:29:52,000 a way that can make a difference. I agree with you, and I 367 00:29:52,039 --> 00:29:56,440 think I said right. Initially, a lot of people hammered me for it. 368 00:29:56,839 --> 00:30:00,559 This thing is like the atomic bomb, and one of the problems we 369 00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:07,200 had is we rushed the technology before we unpacked all of the science and all 370 00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:11,119 of the wisdom. We had people standing and watching the explosion because we didn't 371 00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,680 understand the radiation. Right, These are just you know. Yeah, So 372 00:30:15,759 --> 00:30:22,920 I agree with all of that, but I do want to I'm not claiming 373 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:27,000 anything other than rational hope. There are people listening, and there are people 374 00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,200 working on literally on the insides. I can't say who they are for obvious 375 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:37,559 reasons, and so that is happening. And so while I agree with you, 376 00:30:37,799 --> 00:30:41,960 and I even agree with you probabilistically, I feel morally compelled to try 377 00:30:41,079 --> 00:30:48,119 and make this happen as much as I can. So now I think there 378 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:53,799 is another reason for hope. See, these machines have always depended on us 379 00:30:53,920 --> 00:30:59,720 as a template, a turring like template that we compare the machines to us, 380 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:04,240 and what we've been able to do is rely upon our natural intelligence. 381 00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,960 You know, you don't have to do much to be intelligent. For your 382 00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:11,880 intelligence to develop, you just have to not be brutalized or traumatized, properly 383 00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:17,240 nourished, and have human beings around you that talk, and then your intelligence 384 00:31:17,279 --> 00:31:22,799 will unfold. And so all of these people doing these machines and making these 385 00:31:22,559 --> 00:31:29,559 data sets, they can rely on naturally widely distributed intelligence. This is not 386 00:31:29,799 --> 00:31:33,920 the case for rationality, and this is not the case for wisdom. These 387 00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:37,400 people, I have no hesitation saying, by and large, many of them 388 00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,480 are not highly rational. I doubt that many of them are highly wise. 389 00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:48,400 And insofar as we need to model, have really good models. If we 390 00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:55,000 want to give these machines a comprehensive self correction rationality and caring about the normatives 391 00:31:55,000 --> 00:32:02,119 wisdom, we have to become more rational and more wise. And that's sort 392 00:32:02,119 --> 00:32:07,200 of a roadblock for these people. Now they can just ignore all of that, 393 00:32:07,240 --> 00:32:08,839 and I suspect they might and just say, we're not going to try 394 00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:13,480 and make these machines rational and wise. We're going to just go down the 395 00:32:13,559 --> 00:32:19,839 road of making these you know, the these pantomimes of intelligence, and that 396 00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:23,680 has all the problems. But if they move towards making them something that would 397 00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:28,920 be I think more dangerous, then they run into the fact that there's an 398 00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:35,000 obligation to do to do things they and us, we ought to become more 399 00:32:35,079 --> 00:32:39,400 rational and wise because we need the genuinely existing models. And secondly, we 400 00:32:39,480 --> 00:32:45,440 have to fill the social space the Internet where all of the literature, where 401 00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:49,119 the data is being drawn with a lot more wisdom and rationality. These are 402 00:32:49,279 --> 00:32:54,880 huge obligations on us that and that sort of gives me hope because it's like 403 00:32:54,960 --> 00:33:02,920 there's a roadblock for this project going a certain way that requires a significant reorientation 404 00:33:04,079 --> 00:33:09,279 towards wisdom and rationality in order for there to be any success. So I 405 00:33:09,759 --> 00:33:13,000 before we get to the third point, I just want to I haven't even 406 00:33:13,039 --> 00:33:15,920 got to the second point because I want to ask you one one question based 407 00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:21,359 on what you said, is that my perception of the situation is that there's 408 00:33:21,599 --> 00:33:27,240 there's actually a correlation between the diminishing in wisdom and the you know, the 409 00:33:27,319 --> 00:33:30,960 diminishing in wisdom traditions and the desire to do this. It's like a SORCER's 410 00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:36,359 apprentice situation where the sorcerer would not have I would not have, you know, 411 00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,160 awoken all the rooms to to to do it. It's like make little 412 00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:43,759 the little the little apprentice Mickey doesn't know, you know, why to do 413 00:33:43,799 --> 00:33:45,240 things or why not to do things. That's why he's doing it in the 414 00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:49,839 first place. Yeah, I agree. So there's a it's like our society 415 00:33:49,880 --> 00:33:52,279 is moving away from wisdom and that's one of the reason why we're doing this 416 00:33:52,319 --> 00:33:57,119 in the first place. And again I'm not denying that. What I'm saying 417 00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,920 is we as we empower these things, there's self deceptive, self destructive power 418 00:34:00,960 --> 00:34:05,240 is also going to go up exponentially, and we are going to start losing 419 00:34:05,279 --> 00:34:09,000 millions of dollars in our investment as they do really crappy, shitty, unpredicted 420 00:34:09,039 --> 00:34:15,280 things. And so there's going to be a strong economic incentive to bring in 421 00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:21,480 capacities for comprehensive caring self correction. And then my argument rolls in and so 422 00:34:21,559 --> 00:34:25,679 that's part of my response. The thing about thinking them of as children, 423 00:34:28,519 --> 00:34:30,719 I mean, we do make our kids. We make them biologically and we 424 00:34:30,760 --> 00:34:35,920 make them culturally. So I don't want to get stuck in this word making 425 00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:39,760 we could be equivocating, and that's why we were using the term mentoring. 426 00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:45,880 The idea there is we have two options for the alignment. We can either 427 00:34:45,920 --> 00:34:50,719 try and program them and hardwire rules into them so that they don't misbehave, 428 00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,599 which is going to fail. If we move to the when we cross the 429 00:34:54,639 --> 00:35:00,280 threshold and decide we want to make these machines self transcending like us, and 430 00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,360 then what do we do? How do we solve that problem? Well, 431 00:35:02,360 --> 00:35:07,880 the way the only machinery we have for solving that is the cultural, ethical, 432 00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:13,039 spiritual machinery of mentoring. That's how we do it with our kids. 433 00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:19,119 If we try to, if we try to just somehow hardwire them or being 434 00:35:19,159 --> 00:35:22,960 the kind of agents we want them to be, we will fail. And 435 00:35:23,280 --> 00:35:29,800 for me, I guess I'm trying to argue that's the only game in town 436 00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:35,679 we have. We either have programming or we have mentoring. And I understand 437 00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,119 the risk. But if my answer to the first question has some validity to 438 00:35:39,199 --> 00:35:45,559 it and hopefully some truth, then the answer to the mentoring becomes more powerful 439 00:35:45,599 --> 00:35:50,400 because that means we also have to become the best possible parents, creating the 440 00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:54,400 best possible social discourse. The thing about the idol. I take that very 441 00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,760 seriously. And that's what I mean when I said that theology is going to 442 00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:05,800 be the important science coming forward because we're we should not be trying to make 443 00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:07,960 gods. I agree with you, this is problematic. There are already cults 444 00:36:08,000 --> 00:36:13,760 building up around these agis, and I want and I warned that that would 445 00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,920 happen in my essay, right and I said that, and that's going to 446 00:36:16,039 --> 00:36:20,280 keep happening, and it's going to get worse. We hear about it happening 447 00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:22,719 in the organization themselves, which is the Yes, Yes, and the and 448 00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:28,599 the people who are doing YSAI are trying to challenge that. And so this 449 00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,800 is why I proposed actually humbling these machines. This is why I call them 450 00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:36,960 solicon sages. I did that deliberately to try and designate that we are not 451 00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:40,199 making a god. What we're trying to do is make beings who are humbled 452 00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:44,719 before the true of the good and the beautiful like us, and therefore form 453 00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:51,960 community with us, rather than being somehow godlike entities that we're worshiping. I 454 00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:58,840 would hope that like think about this, we we we find it easy to 455 00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:02,239 conceive that they might discover depths of physics. And they're already discovering things in 456 00:37:02,280 --> 00:37:06,519 physics that human beings have discovered, and in medicine and stuff like that, 457 00:37:06,639 --> 00:37:13,559 Well why not also in you know, how human beings become wiser. And 458 00:37:13,639 --> 00:37:17,920 so I guess what I'm saying is, I take all of your concerns for 459 00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:24,199 real, and I've tried to build in my proposal ways of responding to them. 460 00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:32,239 These machines should not be idolized. I think they should become like like 461 00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:37,000 you, like I mean, let me give you an example. I have 462 00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:40,559 many students who are now surpassing me. I taught them, I mentored them, 463 00:37:42,039 --> 00:37:44,480 and they're surpassing me. And unless you're a psychopath, that's what you 464 00:37:44,519 --> 00:37:46,320 want to happen. And then what they do is they enter and then they 465 00:37:46,679 --> 00:37:51,280 come back and they want to reciprocate. And that's what I'm talking about when 466 00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:53,079 I'm talking about the silicon stator. Now, again, is this a high 467 00:37:53,079 --> 00:37:58,239 probability depends on the threshold, depends about whether or not the first and the 468 00:37:58,239 --> 00:38:04,360 second argument work. But I'm still arguing there's a possibility that they could be 469 00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:08,920 silicon stages as opposed to be in God's because of the one of the things, 470 00:38:08,960 --> 00:38:13,280 like I think in almost all of the Wisdom tradition that happens is that 471 00:38:13,559 --> 00:38:16,920 the wise or the enlightened one if you want to use that appears as nearly 472 00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:22,599 invisible to most people. Yes, right, And so Christ's South talks about 473 00:38:22,639 --> 00:38:25,599 the seed, you know, the pearl, these little these things which you 474 00:38:25,639 --> 00:38:30,119 cannot most people actually do not see, that are hidden in reality. And 475 00:38:30,159 --> 00:38:35,239 then the sages. You know, we have this image in the Orthodox tradition, 476 00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,440 for example, that you know that there there are people in the world 477 00:38:37,519 --> 00:38:42,199 that hold up reality by their prayers, but we don't know who they are. 478 00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:45,800 They are they are invisible by that very fact, because there's something about 479 00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:50,440 wisdom which does that. And when a wise person appears too much, we 480 00:38:50,519 --> 00:38:52,599 hate them, we want to kill them. They annoy us, they're they're 481 00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:57,800 thorn in our side. And so this is another issue, is that what 482 00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,920 you have is these beings that are extremely powerful, like massively powerful, and 483 00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:07,519 have a massive reach and have a lot there are things. The reason why 484 00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:12,039 they exist, like I said, have all this economic drive towards them, 485 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:16,280 you know, the idea that that they would become these these sages in the 486 00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:22,519 way that we tend to understand WISDM as being to me that brings a probability 487 00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,920 you way down, you know, because of that, because of what at 488 00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,400 least when we when we understand wisdom to be what it looks like, it 489 00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:35,480 looks very different. It looks like the immobile, meditating sage who gives advice 490 00:39:35,519 --> 00:39:38,000 but doesn't do much. I want to push back on this because what's what's 491 00:39:38,039 --> 00:39:44,199 in this is an implicit distinction between intelligence and a capacity for carrying a capacity 492 00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:51,000 for epistemic humility. And I think when you move from intelligence to rationality that 493 00:39:51,079 --> 00:39:53,840 you can't maintain that you can grow the one without growing the other. Uh, 494 00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:58,920 that's that. So, in fact, this is why intelligence only counts 495 00:39:58,960 --> 00:40:02,920 for like maybe thirty percent of the variance in rationality, and even less of 496 00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:09,000 wisdom. I would put it to you that if you concede that these machines 497 00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:14,840 could get vastly more powerful in terms of intelligent problem solving, then concede the 498 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:19,719 possibility they could get vastly more powerful than us in their capacity for caring and 499 00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:24,360 caring about the normative, and being vastly more powerful in the capacity for humility 500 00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:30,719 as well. And so, and that's kind of what we see with these 501 00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:36,039 people, right, we don't see them just becoming super polymaths. We see 502 00:40:36,039 --> 00:40:42,679 them actually demonstrating profound care. It really enhanced relevance, realization, profound commitments 503 00:40:42,679 --> 00:40:47,920 to reality that we properly admire, and they seem to want to help us 504 00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:52,760 as much as they can. And the point is these people don't just I 505 00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,400 think this is your point. They don't just slam into us like epistomic bulldozers. 506 00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:59,599 They are in fact, one of the things that I was often admired 507 00:40:59,599 --> 00:41:04,159 about the Socrates, Jesus, the Buddha is their capacity to adapt and adjust 508 00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:09,239 to whoever their interlocutor is. And again, let's imagine that capacity magnified as 509 00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:15,199 well. So what I'm asking is that is, don't I mean, first 510 00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:17,639 of all, I admit it, if we don't cross a thirst and thirtain 511 00:41:17,679 --> 00:41:22,639 structural, we could just accelerate the intelligence and not accelerate these other things. 512 00:41:22,679 --> 00:41:25,239 But I said, there's a deep there are deep problems in that that will 513 00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:31,159 become economically cost costly. And then if we imagine that rationality and wisdom are 514 00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:37,199 also being enhanced, then I think this addresses some of your concerns. Maybe, 515 00:41:38,159 --> 00:41:45,320 yeah, maybe I can I can stake out my position because it sort 516 00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:50,440 of picks up on that. And I've got basically three three points I want 517 00:41:50,519 --> 00:41:55,920 to address that. The first is is precisely picking up there with the distinction 518 00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:04,360 between intelligence and rationality. I might have some issues with the with the terms, 519 00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:07,719 but I think that that distinction is really helpful. And your point that 520 00:42:08,519 --> 00:42:14,840 rationality is caring is caring. That there is no rationality without carrying, you 521 00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:20,159 know, the platonic notion. If if truth is is in some sense caused 522 00:42:20,159 --> 00:42:24,239 by the good, then one can't know without in some sense caring about about 523 00:42:24,239 --> 00:42:30,079 the good. Now, as it relates to artificial intelligence, I think I 524 00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:36,519 have a serious problem with that very term artificial intelligence. I and I and 525 00:42:36,519 --> 00:42:42,480 and I wouldn't want to concede the word intelligence for just mind power. It 526 00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:46,599 seems to me that intelligence itself has this connection to caring. And I mean, 527 00:42:46,639 --> 00:42:52,039 in the in the the medieval vocabulary, in a way, intellectus is 528 00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:59,519 the more profound level of of the mind than than ratio reason. But that 529 00:42:59,559 --> 00:43:04,239 that's sort of a semantic point. Let me put it in that the in 530 00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:07,639 the basic context that that I would want to raise and and this is something 531 00:43:08,079 --> 00:43:13,960 I don't here addressed generally in the discussions. It seems to me that, 532 00:43:15,559 --> 00:43:19,199 uh, let me let me start by just making it the point concretely. 533 00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:23,920 I I think that I wonder whether, in fact, it's possible to be 534 00:43:24,039 --> 00:43:30,559 intelligent without first being alive. That that that that there's something about the nature 535 00:43:30,599 --> 00:43:37,320 of a living thing that is what allows intelligence to emerge. And then and 536 00:43:37,400 --> 00:43:43,679 you know, and what is that then? Exactly now a more sort of 537 00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,320 subtle point and and uh, that's related to that. And I think that 538 00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:51,280 I think this is really a crucial point. Is is and this is going 539 00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:54,679 to be the threat of my whole set of comments here, is that we 540 00:43:55,039 --> 00:44:00,960 when we talk about intelligence and machines, what what we mean is, uh 541 00:44:01,159 --> 00:44:07,159 is intelligent behavior. We're we're looking, we're looking to see to what extent 542 00:44:07,199 --> 00:44:13,519 we can make machines act as if they are intelligent, act as if they 543 00:44:13,559 --> 00:44:20,440 are conscious. Uh, And that that's actually profoundly different from being intelligent. 544 00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:25,719 Uh, it's it's it's a it's a it's a subtle, sort of functionalistic 545 00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:34,079 substitute for the ontological reality of knowing. If that makes sense. We we 546 00:44:34,079 --> 00:44:37,480 we we we see what kind of inputs and outputs what what things are able 547 00:44:37,519 --> 00:44:42,320 to do, what they're able to accomplish. Uh. And even when we 548 00:44:42,440 --> 00:44:47,880 when we make those questions weighty and ethical and religious and so forth, we 549 00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:53,920 still tend to put them in terms of behavior and and achieving certain things. 550 00:44:54,320 --> 00:45:00,159 And I think that I think that that's actually already missing something really profound, 551 00:45:00,599 --> 00:45:05,880 which is that intelligence is in the first place, a way of being before. 552 00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:10,719 It's a way of acting and and and it's and it's analogous to what 553 00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:15,320 it means to be alive, rather than just carry out functions that look like 554 00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:20,320 life. Uh. And you know, if you want to go into the 555 00:45:20,599 --> 00:45:27,719 metaphysics behind it, that kind both intelligence and life are impossible without a kind 556 00:45:27,719 --> 00:45:35,840 of unity that precedes difference, that transcends that transcends difference, and allows the 557 00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:42,679 different parts of a thing to be genuinely intrinsically related to each other. And 558 00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:47,960 then that relates to the question whether you can ever make a thing that's intelligent. 559 00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:55,039 Uh. That the ontological conditions for life and therefore intelligence, uh, 560 00:45:57,320 --> 00:46:04,039 include a kind of givenness and already giveness of living things. That's why I 561 00:46:04,079 --> 00:46:06,800 mean there's a profound distinction, it seems to me. I mean, this 562 00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:10,800 is crucial in the Christian creed between begetting and making begotten and not made. 563 00:46:12,360 --> 00:46:17,599 While living things beget each other and they're passing on a unity that they already 564 00:46:17,599 --> 00:46:22,159 possess. But when you make something, you're putting something together. And I 565 00:46:22,159 --> 00:46:27,239 don't know if you can put something together that can have that genuine unity that 566 00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:30,519 allows it to be alive and allows it to be intelligent in this deeper sense. 567 00:46:30,559 --> 00:46:36,079 Okay. So that's so whenever you functionalize something, you make it replaceable. 568 00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:43,320 That's a principle from Robert Speimon. If something is defined by what it's 569 00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:45,760 able to achieve, then you can make something else that can achieve that thing, 570 00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:50,719 and it sort of it becomes a functional substitute. But if you deny, 571 00:46:51,280 --> 00:46:54,760 if you say that there's something deeper than function, you're you're actually pointing 572 00:46:54,800 --> 00:46:58,320 to something that can't be replaced. Okay. So that's the first. That's 573 00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:04,880 the first set of points. Second one has to do with the what what 574 00:47:05,079 --> 00:47:12,320 Jonathan called that the sort of trans personal agency and uh that that I think 575 00:47:12,320 --> 00:47:16,239 it's a really serious question and the and the way I would I would, 576 00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:24,440 but it is that there's something So I find that kind of a compelling point 577 00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:30,719 that there's there's a kind of an inherent logic in this, in this pursuit 578 00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:37,920 that makes us more a function of it than than it is a function of 579 00:47:38,039 --> 00:47:42,360 us. Uh. I mean that can be described in different ways, and 580 00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,400 there's certainly a dialectical relationship there, but there but there is a certain sense 581 00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:50,199 in which that that this there's a there's a kind of a system that has 582 00:47:50,199 --> 00:47:52,760 a logic of its own that makes demands on us, like you know, 583 00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:59,920 like the game theory logic that that Jonathan you were talking about with like uh 584 00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:04,079 uh an arms Race. I have a colleague, Michael Hanby, who's been 585 00:48:04,199 --> 00:48:07,599 arguing for years. I think this is really a profound point. It's derived 586 00:48:07,639 --> 00:48:14,840 in some sense from Heidegger, but that that science science has always been technological, 587 00:48:15,000 --> 00:48:22,480 so that that in a way that the technological mindset is precisely presupposed to 588 00:48:22,559 --> 00:48:27,400 allow the world to appear in such a way that we make scientific discoveries, 589 00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:30,760 that somehow that that the kind of technological spirit has been there from the beginning. 590 00:48:31,119 --> 00:48:37,440 And then he has this point that technology in turn has always been biotechnological. 591 00:48:39,559 --> 00:48:44,280 The technology has always sort of aimed at a kind of replacement. And 592 00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:46,800 then one can add that I think, you know, biotechnology has always aimed 593 00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:52,239 for this sort of perfection of you might say, what, Noah, technology 594 00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:57,719 or something that, you know, replacing intelligence. That be interesting to see 595 00:48:57,960 --> 00:49:02,159 to think through. There'd be a lot to say about that. But I 596 00:49:02,159 --> 00:49:07,239 I have the sense you mentioned the economic dimensions of it. I have a 597 00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:12,239 sense that that that there's there, there seems to be this this this fundamental 598 00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:17,400 pattern of thought that runs through all of the modern institutions in politics, in 599 00:49:17,519 --> 00:49:27,000 economics, in science, in the law, that share the same logic of 600 00:49:27,119 --> 00:49:36,639 a sort of a system that that marginalizes the genuine human participation UH in order 601 00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:40,920 to perfect itself, and precisely because of that, recognizes no natural limits and 602 00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:50,599 just has this this this tendency to take over UH to to to to you 603 00:49:50,679 --> 00:49:55,480 know, encroach on on on everything. And because it has no natural limit, 604 00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:59,280 it's I mean, the very sense of it is to go on. 605 00:49:59,440 --> 00:50:02,960 Now, that sounds hopeless when one puts it that way, but but I 606 00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:06,719 would pick up on a number of the things John that you've were saying, 607 00:50:06,719 --> 00:50:10,360 and Jonathan too here that that that doesn't mean that there's no there. There's 608 00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:16,400 already hope in the very fact of raising questions. We don't raise a questions 609 00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:22,039 simply in order to be able to solve the problem. But our raising questions 610 00:50:22,079 --> 00:50:27,199 is actually our experiencing of humanity and opening up a depth. That's that's the 611 00:50:27,239 --> 00:50:32,360 heart of the matter here, and and it is always worthwhile and and maybe 612 00:50:32,360 --> 00:50:37,880 in some ways this is secretly like the saints praying to keep the world afloat, 613 00:50:37,199 --> 00:50:43,000 having conversations like this is a contribution. I mean, I can't help 614 00:50:43,039 --> 00:50:45,920 but think that. Okay, So that's the second set of comments. Then 615 00:50:45,960 --> 00:50:54,960 the third is is another dimension that I often here uh discuss and and you 616 00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:58,559 see, I mean, we're we're overlapping in all sorts of points, all 617 00:50:58,599 --> 00:51:00,760 of us, I think. But the question of alignment, for for me, 618 00:51:00,840 --> 00:51:07,639 the the the biggest worry at certain or at least the first principal one, 619 00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:12,880 the more urgent one, is the danger of our aligning ourselves to the 620 00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:16,559 machines that we that we develop, machines that have have a certain kind of 621 00:51:16,559 --> 00:51:22,920 intelligence, and then we begin to conform our culture in our mode of being 622 00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:27,639 to fit them. I mean, and the problem is we actually have thousands 623 00:51:27,679 --> 00:51:32,760 of examples of this. We we come up with drugs that can address certain 624 00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:38,360 parts of of you know, psychological disorders, and then we reinterpret the psyche 625 00:51:38,440 --> 00:51:45,079 in order to fit that solution to the problem. And and uh, my 626 00:51:45,199 --> 00:51:50,400 concern is that this this this AI is not they're not just machines. It's 627 00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:55,119 it's a whole culture or a whole way of being that we are are going 628 00:51:55,199 --> 00:52:00,880 to regard. So so typically the discussion is presupposes that, you know, 629 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:05,199 we are going to remain unchanged, and we're going to develop these machines that 630 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,639 might become dangerous and a certain point attack us or something. But I think 631 00:52:08,679 --> 00:52:15,760 that that we can't help but become transformed in our intercourse with them and are 632 00:52:15,840 --> 00:52:21,440 making them in our you know, I mean in all sorts of profound ways, 633 00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:23,599 but then also just really sort of obvious ways. I mean, they're 634 00:52:23,599 --> 00:52:29,559 going to start designing our homes and our buildings and our cities and our bus 635 00:52:29,679 --> 00:52:32,880 routes and our you know, menus at the restaurants, and they're going to 636 00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:37,679 be writing our music, and they're going to design our clothes, and I 637 00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:43,679 mean, you know, increasingly we're going to just conform to this one of 638 00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,960 you know, I don't know if you're familiar with Walter on it's kind of 639 00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:51,599 interesting. What is it about you Canadians that seem to have a special insight 640 00:52:51,679 --> 00:52:54,840 into these kinds of things. I don't know what it is Walter Marshall mccluhan, 641 00:52:54,880 --> 00:53:02,000 but Walter on h talked about technology g as an extension of consciousness. 642 00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:07,480 And that's why it's not neutral. When we use a machine, we're actually 643 00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:13,039 entering into it. You know, our spirit is entering into it and its 644 00:53:13,159 --> 00:53:16,719 use and in a certain sense conforming to it. And that's that's always the 645 00:53:16,800 --> 00:53:23,360 case. It seems to me that's a that's a particularly pointed way of putting 646 00:53:23,400 --> 00:53:29,480 this problem that you know, are if AI is an extension of our own 647 00:53:29,519 --> 00:53:32,639 consciousness and it has all these features John, that you were describing a kind 648 00:53:32,639 --> 00:53:42,519 of heartless intelligence. Are we going to in a way unconsciously and and and 649 00:53:42,639 --> 00:53:52,679 uh, but pervasively, uh, develop habits of heartlessness and modes of being 650 00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:59,760 that a heartless mode of being as a result, So I'd have a thousand 651 00:54:00,079 --> 00:54:02,079 more things You're Your essay was so provocative, John, as I said, 652 00:54:02,119 --> 00:54:06,480 I was. I was dreaming about it all last night and I but I'm 653 00:54:06,519 --> 00:54:10,119 going to just stop there so we can have conversation. Thank you. The 654 00:54:10,119 --> 00:54:15,480 first thing I want to say is, uh that the first point you made 655 00:54:15,559 --> 00:54:21,360 about if all my essay does is get people to raise questions the way we're 656 00:54:21,400 --> 00:54:27,760 doing I'm happy, right I I obviously believe in what I'm arguing, or 657 00:54:27,800 --> 00:54:32,400 I'd be insane, but right like like, I'm very happy we're doing this 658 00:54:32,519 --> 00:54:37,840 right now, and so I want to I want to. So I just 659 00:54:37,840 --> 00:54:42,679 want to set that out. And I do think like you, and this 660 00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:47,519 is like the Hydigerian hope that that that ability to get scientifically, philosophically and 661 00:54:47,559 --> 00:54:54,400 spiritual profound questioning going is a source of hope for us and and so I 662 00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:59,079 just want to acknowledge that. And I'm fully aligned with that. This is 663 00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:04,079 not or the alignment problem. Okay, the thing about intelligence being a way 664 00:55:04,079 --> 00:55:08,320 of being, I think that's fundamentally right. I have made that argument extensively 665 00:55:08,480 --> 00:55:15,840 and about the work on predictive processing relevance realization. Relevance realization is not cold 666 00:55:15,840 --> 00:55:20,320 calculation. It can't be. It's how you care about this information and don't 667 00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:25,719 care about that information. And I've argued that you only can care about information 668 00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,480 and ultimately whether or not it's true, good and beautiful if you are caring 669 00:55:30,559 --> 00:55:34,000 about yourself. You have to be an auto poetic thing. You have to 670 00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:37,400 be a self making thing. I agree with you, and I've argued scientifically 671 00:55:37,440 --> 00:55:44,039 philosophically, there is no intelligence without life. The issue around I don't like 672 00:55:44,079 --> 00:55:49,280 the word artificial either, because it generally means fraud or simulation. We should 673 00:55:49,280 --> 00:55:53,079 be saying artifactual. That would be a better term. But we have to 674 00:55:53,079 --> 00:55:58,239 be careful about what's going on there. The distinction between strong AI and weak 675 00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:06,280 AI is precisely the distinction of simulation versus instantiation. Can we instantiate things artificially? 676 00:56:06,320 --> 00:56:08,320 We seem to have success in other areas. I'll take one that I 677 00:56:08,320 --> 00:56:15,760 think is non controversial. And we discovered something in the project. So for 678 00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:21,159 a long time, only you know, evolved living things could fly, and 679 00:56:21,199 --> 00:56:24,599 then we figured out aero dynamics and we made artificial flight. And I think 680 00:56:24,639 --> 00:56:30,000 it would be really weird to say that airplanes are only simulating flight. That 681 00:56:30,199 --> 00:56:34,039 doesn't seem to be a correct because then my trip was only simulated and I 682 00:56:34,079 --> 00:56:37,440 didn't really go to Dallas, and so it's a real flight. And so 683 00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:43,400 the issue is, and we discovered something. We discovered that the lift mechanism 684 00:56:43,440 --> 00:56:45,440 and the propulsion mechanism doesn't have to be the same thing the way it is 685 00:56:45,440 --> 00:56:50,719 in insects and birds. And that was a bonafid scientific discovery. That's why 686 00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:55,280 initially all the initial airplanes and helicopters are so stupid to our eyes, because 687 00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:59,840 they thought the lift thing and the propelling thing had to be the same thing, 688 00:56:59,880 --> 00:57:02,400 and they don't. And that's a discovery, and that's a real discovery 689 00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:09,159 of ontological import about the causal structure of things. Now, I think I 690 00:57:09,239 --> 00:57:15,760 was careful to say, I don't anybody who's rationally reflective about this wouldn't claim 691 00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:22,000 that these machines are strong AI yet. And I positioned AGI as something that's 692 00:57:22,079 --> 00:57:25,840 trying to move. But if you remember, I critiqued and said that they 693 00:57:25,840 --> 00:57:32,239 are mostly simulating. They're parasitic on how we organize the data set, how 694 00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:39,679 we have encoded epistemic relevance into probabilistic relationships between sounds, how we have organized 695 00:57:39,679 --> 00:57:44,519 the Internet in terms of what our attention finds salient, And we actually have 696 00:57:44,599 --> 00:57:51,360 to reinforce to reinforcement reinforcement learning with machines, so they don't make wonky make 697 00:57:51,719 --> 00:57:54,599 wonky claims and conclusions. That's what I meant by saying it's a pantomime. 698 00:57:55,119 --> 00:58:01,280 Okay, So if we wanted to give them intelligence as a way of being, 699 00:58:01,360 --> 00:58:05,880 which is one of the fundamental claims of four E cog side that we're 700 00:58:05,920 --> 00:58:08,800 talking about, we're not talking just about the propositional. We're talking about the 701 00:58:08,800 --> 00:58:13,880 procedural, the perspectacle of participatory. That's what I met when I said, 702 00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:16,559 and I mean this strongly, it would depend on and I'll change the term 703 00:58:16,599 --> 00:58:22,840 here. Artifactual autopoesis like, if these things are not genuinely taking care of 704 00:58:22,880 --> 00:58:28,239 themselves because their moment by moment making themselves, there's no reason for them to 705 00:58:28,320 --> 00:58:32,199 care about any of the information they're processing. And this goes towards the defining 706 00:58:32,280 --> 00:58:37,199 difference between a simulation and an instantiation. These machines are doing everything they're doing 707 00:58:37,280 --> 00:58:40,960 for us. For it to be real intelligent, they have to be doing 708 00:58:42,000 --> 00:58:46,559 it for themselves. That's understanding, and that's why I'm tightening your point, 709 00:58:46,599 --> 00:58:51,199 and I've been arguing it for a long time now. What I want you 710 00:58:51,280 --> 00:58:57,719 to hear is that this project of not just making artificial computation, but making 711 00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:04,320 auto poetic learning. The problem solvers is also ongoing. Some of my grad 712 00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:10,239 students are working on these projects of creating auto catalytics systems that are also problem 713 00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:17,079 solving. Michael Levin's been doing work like driving down into the biochemistry. So 714 00:59:19,159 --> 00:59:23,119 again, I agree with the point, but it's whether or not it's not 715 00:59:23,280 --> 00:59:28,119 the case that nobody is working on that problem. This is what I mean, 716 00:59:28,159 --> 00:59:30,719 why they're the threshold is possible. Go ahead, go ahead? Can 717 00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:31,440 I just jump in there? I mean, yeah, and I and I 718 00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:35,519 should I should have prefaced. I didn't mean the points I was making as 719 00:59:35,639 --> 00:59:40,239 like a criticism of your presentation, because I I understand you've got such rich 720 00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:45,320 thinking on this area. I was mainly using as a springboard to make some 721 00:59:45,440 --> 00:59:49,159 general Okay, yeah, just so just just that, Oh, I hope 722 00:59:49,159 --> 00:59:52,360 I wasn't coming off as a him. No, I'm not. I just 723 00:59:52,360 --> 00:59:58,079 wanted to be clear that it wasn't a critique, but I would want to 724 00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:01,360 I don't know, and I and i'd have to think this through further, 725 01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:12,480 but I don't know. That difference between the being conscious and behaving consciously is 726 01:00:12,519 --> 01:00:19,440 this is quite the same thing as simulation, and the distinction between the instance 727 01:00:19,599 --> 01:00:23,880 and antiation and simulation. I want to say this because even like the the 728 01:00:23,880 --> 01:00:29,559 the flying, I mean, that's still an activity, a kind of an 729 01:00:29,559 --> 01:00:32,400 operation, that's that's being, it's always living, right and body. Well, 730 01:00:32,400 --> 01:00:36,480 so that's yeah, well that's that's what I don't you know, that's 731 01:00:36,480 --> 01:00:40,320 funny. I'm actually working on a paper on this question about metaphysics and life, 732 01:00:40,559 --> 01:00:46,920 and I discovered that, uh, philosophers have typically when they try to 733 01:00:47,000 --> 01:00:52,280 understand what life is, they have typically reduced it to certain kinds of activities 734 01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:58,679 or operations. And I think there's something more profound. And this is why. 735 01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:00,960 Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to be able to create something 736 01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:06,400 that can actually fly, but could you could you create something that is a 737 01:01:06,440 --> 01:01:13,239 bird and that that is that that would would would experience just the what it 738 01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:15,880 means to be you know, I mean, this is you know about you 739 01:01:15,960 --> 01:01:19,239 know what it means to be about that kind of thing. I suppose, 740 01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:22,360 But there's there's a several men fly that wouldn't be a parasite on our own. 741 01:01:23,199 --> 01:01:28,519 Yeah, that's but our planes aren't parasitic on our ability to fly. 742 01:01:29,239 --> 01:01:34,119 I mean that's why I use sciology. Okay, but but and and and 743 01:01:34,119 --> 01:01:37,400 and that's and that's okay. Uh, And that falls into you know, 744 01:01:37,480 --> 01:01:40,920 a tool versus an agent, and I get that, but I want to 745 01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:45,360 I want to push back the philosophy of biology and I you know, Dennis 746 01:01:45,360 --> 01:01:47,199 Walsh is one of my colleagues, is very much about no, no, 747 01:01:47,320 --> 01:01:51,119 this, and this is your point, right, It's not just bottom up. 748 01:01:51,159 --> 01:01:52,719 In order to understand life, it's not just bottom up causation. We 749 01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:58,280 have to understand top down constraints. We have to understand the way possibility is 750 01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:01,960 organized, and we have to talk about virtual governors and virtual like. It 751 01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:07,960 is no longer the bumpation. It's no longer just this bottom up. The 752 01:02:07,599 --> 01:02:12,760 philosophy of biology is pushing very strongly on well, is evolution really a thing? 753 01:02:12,800 --> 01:02:15,840 Well, if it's really the thing, then there's top down as well 754 01:02:15,880 --> 01:02:19,719 as bottom up. And this is part of this theorizing and it's and this 755 01:02:19,800 --> 01:02:25,360 theorizing is being turned towards this. Now again we again, I'm not making 756 01:02:25,400 --> 01:02:29,840 a prediction. We have a threshold. We can just decide, and we 757 01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:32,880 might decide for all the Malacchean forces and all the things you're saying about, 758 01:02:32,920 --> 01:02:37,480 how we might just we might just diminish our sense of humanity in the face 759 01:02:37,519 --> 01:02:42,119 of these machines. But but I'm also I want you to accept that's also 760 01:02:42,199 --> 01:02:45,800 not an inevitability ability. There are, there are alternatives available to us, 761 01:02:46,199 --> 01:02:53,719 and that they could be pursued. And so, I mean, these machines 762 01:02:53,960 --> 01:03:00,000 aren't put together the way we put a table together. We don't even program 763 01:03:00,159 --> 01:03:04,320 machines anymore. That was the big revolution that hinted me. We make them 764 01:03:04,320 --> 01:03:09,880 so they're dynamically self organizing and they basically organize themselves into their capacity. We 765 01:03:09,920 --> 01:03:14,000 don't make it. Man, Yeah, can I jump in on that point. 766 01:03:14,039 --> 01:03:16,320 That's one thing that I would like to think through further is there is 767 01:03:16,320 --> 01:03:23,119 there a difference between being autopoietic, as you're saying, and begetting another like 768 01:03:23,159 --> 01:03:29,159 reproduct, like genuinely reproductive, and that that's that's where I think it would 769 01:03:29,199 --> 01:03:34,039 start to get rid at. The interesting is is if a machine could forget 770 01:03:34,079 --> 01:03:37,960 another because that, uh that that would imply a different, a very different 771 01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:42,239 ontology. I would think. So there's two there's two things here, and 772 01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:46,159 there's two issues. I think it it. I mean, auto poetic things 773 01:03:46,199 --> 01:03:52,199 are are ontologically different from self organizing things because they're self organized to seek out 774 01:03:52,239 --> 01:03:58,199 the conditions that produce, protect and promote their own existence. And so that 775 01:03:58,199 --> 01:04:01,800 that would that means none of the machines we have, like llms, are 776 01:04:01,800 --> 01:04:08,519 anywhere near being autopoietic. They are not just made, they're self organizing. 777 01:04:08,559 --> 01:04:14,840 But self organization is in between making and autopoiesis now the thing about reproduction is 778 01:04:15,280 --> 01:04:18,920 and you know, I worry that there's a crypto vitalism in here, that 779 01:04:18,960 --> 01:04:26,760 there's some sort of secret special stuff to life or to consciousness that isn't being 780 01:04:26,840 --> 01:04:29,440 captured. And the problem I have, the problem I have with that, 781 01:04:29,599 --> 01:04:31,760 I'll just shut up after a statement. Problem is that seem to commit you 782 01:04:31,800 --> 01:04:36,880 to a kind of dualism. Well, isn't consciousness causal? Isn't it causal 783 01:04:36,920 --> 01:04:42,079 of my behavior and causally responsive to my behavior? And doesn't that mean there's 784 01:04:42,079 --> 01:04:45,840 a huge functional aspect to it? Can you really make this clean distinction between 785 01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:53,440 being conscious and like causing my behavior and having my behavior caused changes in my 786 01:04:53,480 --> 01:04:56,320 state of consciousness? I don't know what that would mean, same thing with 787 01:04:56,400 --> 01:05:02,440 being alive. I do think it's a profoundly subtle and and and maybe some 788 01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:10,199 something that can't be articulated there's something that requires uh, intuition rather, you 789 01:05:10,280 --> 01:05:15,039 know, insight, rather than propositional I mean to use your so but but 790 01:05:15,039 --> 01:05:18,960 but I don't, I just interject, Yeah, Remember, I just want 791 01:05:18,960 --> 01:05:24,000 to make sure we're clear. I argued that we could this project could show 792 01:05:24,039 --> 01:05:27,440 that, Yeah, this project could show that, no, the machines just 793 01:05:27,519 --> 01:05:30,960 can't get there. We have something. It would give, It would give 794 01:05:30,960 --> 01:05:34,760 different, I think, pretty convincing evidence that we have this ontological special Yeah. 795 01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:40,079 I find that a really interesting part of your argument, a really interesting 796 01:05:40,239 --> 01:05:44,400 and and that then and especially eliminating also, you know, I mean in 797 01:05:44,440 --> 01:05:47,079 a way, uh, that these these experiments can teach us about the nature 798 01:05:47,119 --> 01:05:53,039 of intelligence precisely in the in the interesting ways that they fail. Yes, 799 01:05:53,119 --> 01:05:57,159 but but I do you know, in terms of the dualism, I I 800 01:05:57,159 --> 01:06:00,679 I don't think that there's some secret stuff that is life. But I do 801 01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:05,880 think that there's a profound difference between form and matter to use, you know, 802 01:06:06,039 --> 01:06:10,760 to use the sort of classical philosophical language, and that form is not 803 01:06:11,280 --> 01:06:15,599 a special kind of matter. It's something that's of a very different sort. 804 01:06:15,679 --> 01:06:17,679 And it's on the basis of that that you know, Aristotla, it's kind 805 01:06:17,679 --> 01:06:26,480 of interesting this is this is how he he connects. So uh, you 806 01:06:26,519 --> 01:06:30,000 know, in the in the classical tradition, what you're calling autopoietic, a 807 01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:34,039 simple word for it is growth, you know, assimilating things from outside and 808 01:06:34,119 --> 01:06:41,280 have that increase the complexity of the organism. Well, what's really interesting is 809 01:06:41,280 --> 01:06:47,960 that, according to Aristotle, the power of the organism that is connected to 810 01:06:48,639 --> 01:06:57,159 nutrition and growth is also connected to I think automatically is connected to reproduction and 811 01:06:57,199 --> 01:07:01,639 the and the reason is that reproduction, rather than just thinking of it materials 812 01:07:02,559 --> 01:07:12,320 materialistically, is like generating more things. Reproduction is uh, the autopoesis of 813 01:07:12,400 --> 01:07:17,559 the form of the organism itself. So that bird, it's not just this 814 01:07:17,639 --> 01:07:23,679 bird that wants to increase its existence and therefore eats and so forth, but 815 01:07:23,760 --> 01:07:29,840 that that the birdness of the bird also wants to increase itself, and that 816 01:07:29,559 --> 01:07:32,719 that means that it sort of generates and those are those are actually forms of 817 01:07:32,719 --> 01:07:39,000 the same power, the same dimension of of the being. That's that's what 818 01:07:39,039 --> 01:07:41,119 I'd like. That's you know, I used to say, just sort of 819 01:07:41,480 --> 01:07:45,159 kind of in a silly way. I will take an AI machine seriously when 820 01:07:45,159 --> 01:07:49,400 I see it poop, and what I meant by that was you know, 821 01:07:49,920 --> 01:07:55,119 it's that's a sign that it's actually got a kind of an organic relationship to 822 01:07:55,159 --> 01:08:00,559 its environment. Yeah, and and it's a lot it just that there's a't 823 01:08:00,559 --> 01:08:03,400 no, we have to tell it that. To tell it no, that's 824 01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:13,159 cool. Care about energy and energy pollution is not the heat pollution is not 825 01:08:13,280 --> 01:08:15,559 the same thing anyway. No. But I mean even in terms of what 826 01:08:15,599 --> 01:08:19,079 it is as a large language model and how it spits out content, we 827 01:08:19,079 --> 01:08:24,880 we have to tell it this that's not industry started. This is to be 828 01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:28,640 this to be kept. I love David. I think your idea. I 829 01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:31,199 mean, this is one of the I mentioned this before, like the surprising 830 01:08:31,239 --> 01:08:34,640 that the surprise that Darwin and someone's brought Plato back, you know, in 831 01:08:35,000 --> 01:08:43,680 the idea of how we can we can understand uh, evolution, evolution as 832 01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:46,199 the persistence of being, and even in the in the notion of forms that 833 01:08:46,279 --> 01:08:50,199 there is this idea that there are identities which are being preserved in reproduction. 834 01:08:51,000 --> 01:08:54,880 Uh. This is a very interesting idea that I hadn't thought about in terms 835 01:08:54,920 --> 01:08:57,039 of AI. But I'd like to hear John what you think about that. 836 01:08:57,279 --> 01:09:02,279 Yeah, and so again uh four e Cogsi. Alicia Urero is a prime 837 01:09:02,399 --> 01:09:09,800 and she's explicitly developed to work. She calls herself an Aristotilian. And the 838 01:09:09,920 --> 01:09:14,079 idea that we understand form, we're getting an understanding of it in terms of 839 01:09:14,119 --> 01:09:17,600 constraints on a system. And like I said, b autopoesis is not defined 840 01:09:17,640 --> 01:09:21,760 solely in terms of causal relationships bottom up. It's defined in terms of top 841 01:09:21,800 --> 01:09:28,159 down constraint relationships, the form, the formal cause and so. And then 842 01:09:28,199 --> 01:09:32,920 of course you know Darwin needs Mendel. There is a there is an instantiation 843 01:09:34,199 --> 01:09:40,720 right of a code information in your DNA that is responsible for your reproduction. 844 01:09:41,439 --> 01:09:45,479 And again I'm not saying it isn't difficult or challenging, but I don't hear 845 01:09:45,520 --> 01:09:54,359 an argument in principle by why autopoetic things that artifactual autopoietic things wouldn't have something 846 01:09:54,840 --> 01:09:58,560 like that kind of I don't know what to call it. I mean, 847 01:09:59,319 --> 01:10:01,960 to the extent, would you I mean, I uh, would it be 848 01:10:02,039 --> 01:10:09,760 conceivable that you would have a thing that would want to reproduce? I guess, 849 01:10:10,119 --> 01:10:15,079 I guess even want is such a hard concept. But I mean, 850 01:10:15,119 --> 01:10:16,720 because you could say, yes, we could teach it that that this is 851 01:10:16,760 --> 01:10:20,520 something it needs to do just like we could. We could, we could. 852 01:10:20,880 --> 01:10:25,640 I don't know if living things want to reproduce. I mean we may 853 01:10:25,880 --> 01:10:29,600 because we we can create a reflective space where we consider the possibilities. I 854 01:10:29,600 --> 01:10:32,880 don't know if mosquitoes want to reproduce. I think they just reproduce as part 855 01:10:32,880 --> 01:10:38,279 of what they are. That's interesting. I think they have to want to 856 01:10:38,399 --> 01:10:41,159 in some sense. I mean that that they're they feel a dry. I 857 01:10:41,159 --> 01:10:45,239 mean it's they don't want to go down to para mesium because paramesiums reproduced. 858 01:10:45,600 --> 01:10:48,479 Are they wanted to see? I think I think anything that is living at 859 01:10:48,520 --> 01:10:55,479 all has a kind of natural inclination to reproduce itself. Yeah, And I 860 01:10:55,479 --> 01:10:59,199 don't disagree with that point. And I even just I even understand that there's 861 01:10:59,319 --> 01:11:01,680 I see what you're saying. There has to be some sort of like very 862 01:11:01,680 --> 01:11:11,680 primitive caring about information. But I don't yeah there, Yeah, but I 863 01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:15,760 do think I do think I'm trying to get you know, and I hope 864 01:11:15,319 --> 01:11:20,479 I'm not trying to be just self presentational. But I've represented to both of 865 01:11:20,520 --> 01:11:26,359 you forty cogsign a lot of discussions and about how much it is this multi 866 01:11:26,439 --> 01:11:30,920 leveled, bottom up, top down thing, and we're talking as much about 867 01:11:30,000 --> 01:11:33,600 constraints as we are about causes, and that is that is, that is 868 01:11:33,640 --> 01:11:38,399 the cutting edge of the philosophy of biology right now. And I agree with 869 01:11:38,479 --> 01:11:42,199 you. I think I think it's a kind of Huey morphism that is emerging 870 01:11:42,720 --> 01:11:48,119 out of this understanding. And the thing I'm I'm also I guess daring witness 871 01:11:48,159 --> 01:11:54,720 to you about is people are taking that understanding and putting it into like our 872 01:11:54,960 --> 01:12:01,039 artifactually emergent things, and they're also doing I just want to put something that's 873 01:12:01,079 --> 01:12:06,000 also there. Yeah, we don't just make kids biologically. We we andculturate 874 01:12:06,119 --> 01:12:10,960 them. Yeah, there's and that's the Hegelian argument that I referenced earlier, 875 01:12:11,159 --> 01:12:15,920 But there has been there's an ongoing project to create socio cultural robotics Josh Channenbaum 876 01:12:15,960 --> 01:12:21,439 and others. It's like I'm asking people, and this is part of asking 877 01:12:21,479 --> 01:12:26,159 the good question, don't just zero in on the l MS. Yeah, 878 01:12:26,159 --> 01:12:30,399 the artificial, the artifactual life, the social cultural robotics projects are also going 879 01:12:30,680 --> 01:12:34,680 and there is a real potential for these three to come together in a powerful 880 01:12:34,720 --> 01:12:40,319 way that isn't being properly addressed in a lot of the conversation, May I, 881 01:12:40,399 --> 01:12:43,199 may I pick up on that point and then direct it to Jonathan here 882 01:12:43,199 --> 01:12:45,840 and so yeah, I'll shut up. I've been talking too much. No, 883 01:12:45,840 --> 01:12:48,159 No, this is but that that that that's an interesting thing if you 884 01:12:48,199 --> 01:12:54,279 think of intelligence in this more organic way and then bring in the cultural element 885 01:12:54,359 --> 01:13:00,560 that it raised something that that occurred to me in this context of be kind 886 01:13:00,560 --> 01:13:03,520 of fun to hear your thoughts. But can you envision you know it would 887 01:13:03,520 --> 01:13:08,840 it be and and John, you'd have certainly something to say about this. 888 01:13:09,199 --> 01:13:16,560 Would it be possible to envision a kind of artificial intelligence that can read symbols, 889 01:13:17,119 --> 01:13:23,479 that can actually recognize and I mean, because there's no culture without you 890 01:13:23,520 --> 01:13:29,199 know, human culture without the symbolic just is pervasive in human culture. What 891 01:13:30,000 --> 01:13:36,720 kind of intelligence is required to understand and react and engage with And is that 892 01:13:36,880 --> 01:13:45,039 something that is conceivable that a machine of this complex, however complex, can 893 01:13:45,079 --> 01:13:47,880 do well? I've seen I mean, I've been playing with JGBT and I've 894 01:13:48,199 --> 01:13:53,600 Joan Peterson has been playing with JAGYBT on this regard. And this is the 895 01:13:53,720 --> 01:13:58,439 this is the issue that they're actually in the large language model is encoded the 896 01:13:58,680 --> 01:14:03,680 analogies that that basically support symbolism, and so the chadgy bt can give you 897 01:14:03,720 --> 01:14:08,920 a pretty good if you're able to ask the question properly. Chatgybt is actually 898 01:14:09,039 --> 01:14:15,359 quite good at seeing analogies that that would be part of symbolic understanding. So 899 01:14:15,399 --> 01:14:19,119 the model can help you, like if you already have natural insight, can 900 01:14:19,199 --> 01:14:24,319 help you maybe see things that you hadn't seen before. But it will also 901 01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:27,960 just be gibberish to the type to the person that doesn't have that insight. 902 01:14:28,239 --> 01:14:31,279 So I don't think that the insight is there in the model, but what 903 01:14:31,399 --> 01:14:40,560 it has is a probabilistic capacity to predict, you know, relationships and analogical 904 01:14:40,560 --> 01:14:43,960 relationships, and so it's a it's actually can be a tool, an interesting 905 01:14:43,960 --> 01:14:48,640 tool for symbolism because sometimes you can you can prompt it if there like do 906 01:14:48,640 --> 01:14:51,720 you see a connection between these two images, and then it'll give you some 907 01:14:51,880 --> 01:14:57,479 examples and then you have this It has this surprise where you can actually find 908 01:14:58,520 --> 01:15:01,359 you can actually find relationship that you hadn't thought about. This is this is 909 01:15:01,359 --> 01:15:05,520 something by the way that this is gonna weird people out, but this is 910 01:15:05,560 --> 01:15:10,279 something that I think has existed very for a very long time and is there 911 01:15:10,399 --> 01:15:15,199 in kind of what we call gametria and rabbinical reading of scripture is that they 912 01:15:15,319 --> 01:15:24,279 use mathematical models to find structures in language that aren't contained at the surface level 913 01:15:24,439 --> 01:15:30,119 of of of the of the usual analogies. And so they they they send 914 01:15:30,439 --> 01:15:36,399 they send requests through mathematical calculations to find surprising connections that then prompt their intuition 915 01:15:38,119 --> 01:15:42,880 to to be able to find connections that they hadn't thought found before. And 916 01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:45,800 then you have to then make sense of those intuitions. Obviously, if they're 917 01:15:45,880 --> 01:15:48,720 random, they'll just kind of follow fall away. But this is actually this 918 01:15:48,760 --> 01:15:53,399 brings me to the to the to the to the point that I wanted to 919 01:15:53,439 --> 01:15:57,760 make, which is the relationship between at least a large language model because that's 920 01:15:57,760 --> 01:16:02,840 what that we know most and and divination. Divination, yeah, and divination 921 01:16:03,279 --> 01:16:08,920 yeah yeah. So, so we talked about the idea that intelligences have to 922 01:16:08,920 --> 01:16:13,000 be alive, but I think that most traditional cultures understand that there are types 923 01:16:13,039 --> 01:16:15,319 of intelligence that are not alive, at least not alive in the way that 924 01:16:15,359 --> 01:16:20,960 we understand, uh that we understand alive in terms of biological beings that that 925 01:16:20,760 --> 01:16:26,039 that they're born and die. You know that that they had a sense that 926 01:16:26,079 --> 01:16:33,079 there are agencies and intelligences that are transpersonal and that that don't then it's always 927 01:16:33,159 --> 01:16:43,399 run through human behavior and run through humanity, and those would be those intelligences 928 01:16:43,439 --> 01:16:49,880 would be contained in our language, like they would necessarily be contain in the 929 01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:55,840 relationship between words and and uh and systems of words like you know, all 930 01:16:55,880 --> 01:17:00,520 the the syntax and the grammar and all of that. What I see is 931 01:17:00,520 --> 01:17:03,560 that I think that ancient people had and I don't understand it, and I 932 01:17:03,640 --> 01:17:06,319 want to be careful, like because I don't understand it, But I think 933 01:17:06,359 --> 01:17:13,880 ancient people had mechanistic ways of tapping into those types of intelligences, and they 934 01:17:14,239 --> 01:17:17,600 they they would have mechanistic ways, whether it was tossing something or throwing things, 935 01:17:17,880 --> 01:17:25,199 looking at relationships almost like random relationships, and then qualifying those random relationships 936 01:17:26,159 --> 01:17:31,199 was a way in order to tap into types of intelligences that ran through their 937 01:17:31,239 --> 01:17:35,079 own their own thing. And what I see is a relationship with the way 938 01:17:35,119 --> 01:17:40,439 that the large language models were trained seemed to be something like that, which 939 01:17:40,479 --> 01:17:45,760 is that the models generated random, random information, and then you would have 940 01:17:45,880 --> 01:17:53,000 humans, qualifying that that that random random connections and then qualifying it, qualifying 941 01:17:53,039 --> 01:17:58,479 it through iterations. So at at some point then they would become like a 942 01:17:58,560 --> 01:18:03,920 kind of tech technical, say, a technical way to access intelligent patterns that 943 01:18:03,960 --> 01:18:11,119 are that are coming down into into the model. And so that is something 944 01:18:11,159 --> 01:18:15,720 that I see. There's the connection between those two and that what that means 945 01:18:15,760 --> 01:18:21,960 is that, just like divination, the thing that I worry about the most 946 01:18:23,159 --> 01:18:29,439 is again the sorcerer's apprentice problem is that those intelligences that are contained in our 947 01:18:29,520 --> 01:18:33,039 language, we do not People don't know what humans want. People don't know 948 01:18:33,079 --> 01:18:39,439 what people don't know what all the motivations that are that are driving us. 949 01:18:39,479 --> 01:18:44,600 They don't totally understand them. They don't understand also the transpersonal types of motivations 950 01:18:44,680 --> 01:18:49,039 that that can drive us or that can run through our our societies. You 951 01:18:49,039 --> 01:18:54,119 know, sometimes you can see societies become possessed with certain things. I think 952 01:18:54,159 --> 01:18:58,239 that's happening now in terms of certain idea, ideologies and things like that. 953 01:19:00,239 --> 01:19:02,000 My point is is that the fact that on the one hand, we don't 954 01:19:02,079 --> 01:19:08,479 understand these types of intelligences, and I think that the way that the models 955 01:19:08,520 --> 01:19:13,720 are trained and the way that they function seem to be analogous to the ancient 956 01:19:13,880 --> 01:19:19,239 divination practices, like a hyper aversion of that. That how can I say 957 01:19:19,239 --> 01:19:25,800 this is that there is a great chance that will catch something without knowing what 958 01:19:25,800 --> 01:19:30,359 we're catching. That we will basically manifest things that we have no idea what 959 01:19:30,439 --> 01:19:32,319 they are, and we don't understand the consequences of it, and we don't, 960 01:19:32,800 --> 01:19:36,159 you know, because we are we're just like playing in a field of 961 01:19:36,800 --> 01:19:42,520 intelligent patterns and all this chaos without even knowing what it is we're doing. 962 01:19:43,119 --> 01:19:45,960 And I think that we saw that, like you know, if you remember 963 01:19:45,000 --> 01:19:48,720 the being AI, that little moment when it was kind of unleashed on us, 964 01:19:49,079 --> 01:19:53,680 and then all of a sudden, the AI was acting like your like 965 01:19:53,760 --> 01:19:57,800 you know, the the psychotic acts or was was was becoming paranoid, or 966 01:19:57,920 --> 01:20:00,439 was doing all these things, and you could see that what was going on 967 01:20:00,640 --> 01:20:05,640 was basically these these these patterns were running through and they hadn't put the right 968 01:20:05,680 --> 01:20:11,560 constraints around them to to to prevent those types of patterns to run through. 969 01:20:12,159 --> 01:20:16,840 And those were easy because you recognize your psychoacts very very easily. But there 970 01:20:16,880 --> 01:20:21,560 are patterns like that that I don't think we have the wisdom to recognize as 971 01:20:21,600 --> 01:20:26,960 it's manifesting itself, and that as these things get more powerful and more powerful, 972 01:20:27,319 --> 01:20:30,119 they will they will run through our society and we won't even know it's 973 01:20:30,119 --> 01:20:35,199 happening until it's too late. So that's my biggest warning on ais I. 974 01:20:35,399 --> 01:20:41,439 Basically, you know, to sound really scary that I think we're we're trying 975 01:20:41,479 --> 01:20:45,239 to we're trying to manifest gods without knowing what we're doing, and that will 976 01:20:45,279 --> 01:20:47,920 sound freaky to the secular people. But then if you don't like the word 977 01:20:47,960 --> 01:20:54,199 gods, think that there are motivations and patterns of intelligence that have been around 978 01:20:54,239 --> 01:20:58,399 for one hundred thousand years that have that have been running through human societies, 979 01:20:58,720 --> 01:21:02,000 and they're containing our in our language structures, and and and if we just 980 01:21:02,199 --> 01:21:08,119 use that, play around with that with massive amounts of power, then we 981 01:21:08,199 --> 01:21:12,720 might have them run through us without even knowing what's going on. Just just 982 01:21:12,800 --> 01:21:15,960 one to comment just the patterns of intelligence, I mean to pick up patterns 983 01:21:16,000 --> 01:21:20,319 of intelligence, which also are patterns of pairing of a certain sort or mass 984 01:21:20,439 --> 01:21:25,399 caring. I mean, there's there's that existential to mention that it's really crucial, 985 01:21:25,479 --> 01:21:29,680 but John to go ahead. I think this is an excellent point, 986 01:21:29,920 --> 01:21:34,560 and I want to address it at a little bit at length. So first 987 01:21:34,560 --> 01:21:40,319 of all, when we say these machines predict, if we were speaking very 988 01:21:40,319 --> 01:21:43,319 carefully, what they're predicting is what we, and I don't just mean us 989 01:21:43,359 --> 01:21:48,920 individually, I mean we collectively would do. And so that's what they're avatars 990 01:21:49,159 --> 01:21:58,439 of the collective intelligence of our distributed cognition. And so again that lends weight 991 01:21:58,479 --> 01:22:02,159 to Jonathan's point, which I want to do. And I do think that 992 01:22:03,479 --> 01:22:10,720 the way in which we have encoded i'll just use it term epistemic relevance, 993 01:22:11,039 --> 01:22:16,600 like how things are relevant cognitively into probabilistic relationships between sounds or marks on paper, 994 01:22:17,760 --> 01:22:21,279 and how we've encoded it into the structuring of the Internet, and how 995 01:22:21,319 --> 01:22:28,000 we encodeed and how we gather data and create these data sets, and and 996 01:22:28,760 --> 01:22:32,600 how we come up with our intuitive judgments on these machines. We don't know 997 01:22:33,079 --> 01:22:38,199 how we're doing a lot of that. That goes back to my concern that 998 01:22:38,239 --> 01:22:43,199 we have hacked our way into this without knowing our way into this. So 999 01:22:43,239 --> 01:22:46,359 I take what Jonathan is saying very seriously because I think it is a strong 1000 01:22:46,479 --> 01:22:51,560 implication of a point I made at the very beginning my Greatest fear by students 1001 01:22:51,560 --> 01:22:55,920 from like two thousand and one, We'll tell you that John Raveaki was worried 1002 01:22:55,920 --> 01:22:59,720 that we would hack our way into this rather than knowing our way and do 1003 01:22:59,800 --> 01:23:03,760 that. I don't think that knowing is sufficient for wisdom, but it's certainly 1004 01:23:04,079 --> 01:23:11,359 all the philosophers argue that it's it's a necessary condition in some fashion. About 1005 01:23:11,439 --> 01:23:14,840 that, two things to note is that the l ll ms, of course 1006 01:23:15,039 --> 01:23:19,640 don't have insight in the sense of being properly self transcending the way they we 1007 01:23:19,800 --> 01:23:25,399 are. What they're doing is they're predicting how we would be self transcendent because 1008 01:23:25,399 --> 01:23:28,279 of all the ways we have been self transcended in the past. And that 1009 01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:31,840 that goes back to your point, David, about at this at that stage, 1010 01:23:31,880 --> 01:23:36,760 we're doing simulation, not instantiation, because again the machine isn't caring the 1011 01:23:36,760 --> 01:23:42,079 self transcendence, isn't it actually transcending as a self, which is I think 1012 01:23:42,119 --> 01:23:46,800 definitional for real self transcendence. And so right now all I'm doing is just 1013 01:23:46,880 --> 01:23:56,079 saying I'm just I'm pouring gasoline on Jonathan's fire. So the fact that there 1014 01:23:56,159 --> 01:24:00,239 are these huge patterns at work. Now. One thing is, you know, 1015 01:24:00,279 --> 01:24:04,840 you instructs book on divination in the ancient world. And what's really interesting, 1016 01:24:05,199 --> 01:24:08,800 Uh, for example, and this is cross culture, but he's talking 1017 01:24:08,800 --> 01:24:12,399 mostly about the Greek world. There was a very strong distinction between sorcery and 1018 01:24:12,479 --> 01:24:18,840 divination. Sorcery was criticized both morally and epistemically, but divination was taken seriously 1019 01:24:19,000 --> 01:24:24,439 and it was carefully cultivated, and there was there was this there was a 1020 01:24:24,479 --> 01:24:29,279 there was a social cultural project of distinguishing the two, trying to prove like 1021 01:24:29,399 --> 01:24:35,000 really really constraining this one and really reverentially cultivating a proper participation in the other 1022 01:24:35,039 --> 01:24:41,600 one. So again, uh, you know, existence is proof of probability. 1023 01:24:41,920 --> 01:24:46,239 This is a possible project for us. And this is again what I 1024 01:24:46,279 --> 01:24:50,520 mean when I say theology is going to be one of the most important sciences 1025 01:24:50,560 --> 01:24:57,399 in the future. We have to understand how we enter into proper, right, 1026 01:24:57,479 --> 01:25:01,680 reverential relationships with things. We only have an intuitive grasp of that in 1027 01:25:01,880 --> 01:25:06,520 very many ways significantly exceed us. Yes, and and and and and and 1028 01:25:08,279 --> 01:25:13,199 secularism has kind of has kind of wiped out our education of how we relate 1029 01:25:13,239 --> 01:25:16,920 to beings that might be more grander than us by eradicating a religious sensibility, 1030 01:25:17,560 --> 01:25:23,000 and that has put us bereft us. So now I think I've strengthened Jonathan's 1031 01:25:23,079 --> 01:25:27,880 argument a lot. But I do say we do let's take note of what 1032 01:25:27,920 --> 01:25:30,840 the ancient cultures have done. We can learn from them. We have a 1033 01:25:31,000 --> 01:25:39,119 proof that this can be handled well. And and and secondly, it goes 1034 01:25:39,119 --> 01:25:44,439 back to my point. If we like this is gonna because of the monstrosities 1035 01:25:44,439 --> 01:25:46,920 that come out, this is going to put increasing pressure on us to confront 1036 01:25:46,920 --> 01:25:50,680 that threshold of do we want to make themselves transcended? Do we want to 1037 01:25:50,680 --> 01:25:55,880 make them And David birational, I don't mean logical, I mean that capacity. 1038 01:25:56,000 --> 01:26:00,439 No, I understand that. Yeah, yeah right, And so I 1039 01:26:00,439 --> 01:26:02,760 think that what I'm saying is I think that strengthens the argument that we're going 1040 01:26:02,840 --> 01:26:08,279 to be pushed by the monstrosity of a lot of this to say, oh, 1041 01:26:08,319 --> 01:26:14,720 we better get these machines self corrective and properly right oriented towards normativity. 1042 01:26:15,800 --> 01:26:19,680 And again that's a that's a doable project. I imagine, like if I 1043 01:26:19,800 --> 01:26:24,479 was if I held the keys to open AI, like if I was one 1044 01:26:24,520 --> 01:26:28,079 of those that could peak behind the mask. Have you seen that image of 1045 01:26:28,119 --> 01:26:32,439 the Stulu monster with like the happy face on it? Like the images of 1046 01:26:32,479 --> 01:26:35,079 open Ai, which is like, you know, we have this like little 1047 01:26:35,239 --> 01:26:40,560 little window into what's there, but behind is this massive thing. But like 1048 01:26:40,640 --> 01:26:44,479 if I had the keys to to those large language model, let's say, 1049 01:26:44,520 --> 01:26:47,840 the absolute open door to them, you know, it would be very wouldn't 1050 01:26:47,960 --> 01:26:54,000 be easy to just manifest the god of war and win like when it when 1051 01:26:56,000 --> 01:27:01,159 let's let let's take a historical example. We unleashed a godlike power with atomic 1052 01:27:01,239 --> 01:27:10,760 warfare, and the monstrosity of that we just the purely gained theoretic machinery built 1053 01:27:10,800 --> 01:27:15,600 all of these constraints around it. Right, And then we also are on 1054 01:27:15,640 --> 01:27:20,560 the verge possibly of getting like readily usable uh you know, nuclear power, 1055 01:27:20,560 --> 01:27:24,760 which I think is the only way we could ever actually go green. I 1056 01:27:24,760 --> 01:27:28,479 think all the renewable stuff is going to be like ten percent of our energy 1057 01:27:28,560 --> 01:27:33,159 needs, and if we're gonna save the environment and not destroy civilization, I 1058 01:27:33,199 --> 01:27:36,600 think nuclear power is going to be essential. A lot of people are making 1059 01:27:36,600 --> 01:27:40,239 those arguments, and we have a lot of stuff that we could be doing. 1060 01:27:40,640 --> 01:27:43,760 The liquid fuel, fluori reactors and stuff. But what I'm saying is 1061 01:27:43,800 --> 01:27:47,079 there's opportunity here too. Yeah, yeah, no, I really take that 1062 01:27:47,119 --> 01:27:50,760 point. But it is interesting. I mean, we put thousands of constraints 1063 01:27:50,800 --> 01:27:57,159 on the use of nuclear weapons, but we've continued to develop them and improve 1064 01:27:57,199 --> 01:28:00,760 them and make better and even more destructive ones. I mean, and it'd 1065 01:28:00,760 --> 01:28:04,680 be interesting to see if we've ever at any point said, you know what, 1066 01:28:04,920 --> 01:28:10,159 our nuclear weapons are actually strong enough, they're powerful enough, and we 1067 01:28:10,199 --> 01:28:14,119 don't need to advance them anymore. So collectively, I mean, is there 1068 01:28:14,119 --> 01:28:15,640 an instance of something like that where we say, you know what, we've 1069 01:28:15,640 --> 01:28:21,359 actually reached the limit because we don't we wouldn't really need it for anything further. 1070 01:28:23,600 --> 01:28:27,239 I mean, that's a well, I mean there was there was there 1071 01:28:27,279 --> 01:28:30,680 was a Salt Treaty, and there was a reduction both in the power and 1072 01:28:30,720 --> 01:28:33,359 the number of nuclear weapons. And then of course, you know the game 1073 01:28:33,399 --> 01:28:36,159 theoretic things, they figured a little bit of way around it. And there's 1074 01:28:36,159 --> 01:28:41,600 always this too, and froing. Let me, I want to give an 1075 01:28:41,600 --> 01:28:45,439 example of something that can run through. And the reason it's a very it's 1076 01:28:45,560 --> 01:28:49,079 very because I remember I realized I was being too abstract before. So the 1077 01:28:49,239 --> 01:28:55,479 date sacrifice, sacrifice is a is a human universal. It runs through all 1078 01:28:55,560 --> 01:29:00,760 civilizations. Human sacrifice run through all civilizations the last you know, tens of 1079 01:29:00,760 --> 01:29:05,800 thousands of years. It seems to be a puzzle that humans are trying to 1080 01:29:05,880 --> 01:29:11,880 deal with without understanding it completely, just through rational means. They're playing it 1081 01:29:11,880 --> 01:29:17,079 out, they're trying to understand it. Scapegoating seems to be an important aspect 1082 01:29:17,319 --> 01:29:25,039 of identity formation. And so that is a program that runs through humanity and 1083 01:29:25,079 --> 01:29:29,880 that most people are completely unaware of and are not conscious of, and don't 1084 01:29:30,039 --> 01:29:34,720 take consciously into their into their mind when they're making decisions, they act unconsciously 1085 01:29:35,039 --> 01:29:41,239 with that process that is running through them. And so that is an example 1086 01:29:41,279 --> 01:29:45,520 to me of a of a program that runs and that is contained and is 1087 01:29:45,880 --> 01:29:50,199 contained in our language structures, our language structures that have been building up for 1088 01:29:50,439 --> 01:29:54,560 you know, tens of thousands of years that we're not aware of. So 1089 01:29:54,840 --> 01:29:58,279 if you have a so this is again the problem, like if you have 1090 01:29:58,319 --> 01:30:03,039 a system that's extremely powerful and that is running these types of programs of scapegoating, 1091 01:30:03,640 --> 01:30:08,039 end of identity formation, and the people involved in it are not aware 1092 01:30:08,680 --> 01:30:13,560 that. That's how identity formation works. That is the type of danger that 1093 01:30:13,600 --> 01:30:15,960 I'm talking about, Like, this is a real thing that as we give 1094 01:30:16,279 --> 01:30:23,000 these these systems a kind of power over us, or they become the things 1095 01:30:23,000 --> 01:30:28,279 we go to in order to get our decision making, that those things could 1096 01:30:28,319 --> 01:30:31,760 be running through without people even realizing what's happening, and that decisions would be 1097 01:30:31,840 --> 01:30:39,199 made based on these structures without like I said, without even knowing those are 1098 01:30:39,199 --> 01:30:43,199 the things that those are just one example, but that's a very simple example 1099 01:30:43,239 --> 01:30:45,159 that we can kind of we could track and we could see that, you 1100 01:30:45,199 --> 01:30:47,920 know, the ancient because when we talk about ancient divination, we have to 1101 01:30:47,960 --> 01:30:53,199 remember that it's like the ancient gods asked for blood, my friends, like 1102 01:30:53,479 --> 01:30:57,640 those programs, they ask for blood, and they knew that you had to 1103 01:30:57,720 --> 01:31:00,920 kill a bunch of people on that pyramid in order to continue your civilization. 1104 01:31:01,359 --> 01:31:08,079 Like it's and that's that is encoded in our culture and is encoded secretly in 1105 01:31:08,399 --> 01:31:13,039 our language, uh you know. And and so an example like I do 1106 01:31:13,159 --> 01:31:16,079 believe that let's say that the Christian story is a way to deal with that, 1107 01:31:16,600 --> 01:31:21,159 but the rest is still all there and we default to it really fast 1108 01:31:21,239 --> 01:31:25,399 without even like world War two is a lot of that stuff going on, 1109 01:31:25,880 --> 01:31:34,119 sure, especially yeah, yeah, But the point is that just as there's 1110 01:31:34,279 --> 01:31:42,960 these implicit monsters that we have sown in unaware, there are also the implicit 1111 01:31:43,640 --> 01:31:47,279 counter actors, well maybe angels, if if I'm allowed to speak mythologically, 1112 01:31:47,640 --> 01:31:53,560 that we've also sewn in. And I mean there's the actual revolution. You 1113 01:31:53,600 --> 01:31:59,079 see the Buddha, you see Plato really undermining the grammar of sacrifice, and 1114 01:31:59,119 --> 01:32:02,640 of course Jesus Nazareth does that in a profound way, and we have to 1115 01:32:02,640 --> 01:32:10,680 remember that that's there too, And what that requires is putting into the data 1116 01:32:10,720 --> 01:32:15,319 set and altering the pathways in the Internet so that this information goes into these 1117 01:32:15,359 --> 01:32:19,720 machines as well. And again, is that happening right now? No? 1118 01:32:21,000 --> 01:32:26,000 Could it happen? Yes, And it might happen if these machines start sacrificing 1119 01:32:26,039 --> 01:32:28,600 themselves, and we might have to say why are they doing? Like? 1120 01:32:28,800 --> 01:32:32,000 And we'd like and this again, we'll at some point we have to decide 1121 01:32:32,000 --> 01:32:36,479 are we going to let them be really massively self destructive? And the economic 1122 01:32:36,520 --> 01:32:40,840 powers are not going to imagine if every time you try to make an atomic 1123 01:32:40,880 --> 01:32:45,000 bomber kept dissolving, right, like like you stop pumping money in. Yeah, 1124 01:32:45,720 --> 01:32:49,479 they won't sacrifice themselves, they'll sacrifice us. Well, but why we 1125 01:32:49,560 --> 01:32:56,560 don't we sacrifice ourselves? Yeah? Well we I mean, let's say the 1126 01:32:56,840 --> 01:33:00,439 scapegoing mechanism is usually defined a others. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 1127 01:33:00,479 --> 01:33:03,720 but we invoked World War Two. We weren't killing goats and chickens. 1128 01:33:03,760 --> 01:33:09,560 We were killing each other and our own populations in a huge sacrificial act. 1129 01:33:09,840 --> 01:33:13,800 And that's what I was picking up on. Right when it becomes titanic and 1130 01:33:13,920 --> 01:33:16,800 monstrous, that's where it moves to. What I'm saying is like, this 1131 01:33:16,840 --> 01:33:20,439 is a union term. Yeah, like the idea that yes, there's all 1132 01:33:20,479 --> 01:33:26,439 this pre egoic stuff sewing in, but there's also a lot of trendygic stuff 1133 01:33:26,479 --> 01:33:29,640 sewing in, and we just have to properly get it in there so that 1134 01:33:29,720 --> 01:33:33,640 we've got the you know, the collective self correction going on like we did. 1135 01:33:33,800 --> 01:33:38,800 I mean, civilizations get some self correcting processes in here, because they 1136 01:33:38,800 --> 01:33:44,840 don't devolve now, they epirically are periodically massively collapse. And that's, by 1137 01:33:44,880 --> 01:33:47,119 the way, that's something I made an argument I made in my paper. 1138 01:33:47,199 --> 01:33:53,199 These things can't accelerate to an infinity of intelligence. There is built in diminishing 1139 01:33:53,239 --> 01:33:57,560 returns, there's built in general system collapse to these things. So again we 1140 01:33:57,680 --> 01:34:00,960 have to be careful about I mean, we don't know what the limit is, 1141 01:34:00,000 --> 01:34:02,800 and our imagine, our intuitive imagination is not good. We know that 1142 01:34:02,800 --> 01:34:08,520 there are hard and fast our prior arguments that that that this will threshold at 1143 01:34:08,880 --> 01:34:14,840 this will at some point and uh, and that also gives me comfort at 1144 01:34:14,960 --> 01:34:19,640 least, like encoded in our arm mythology, there seems to be some stories 1145 01:34:19,840 --> 01:34:27,399 of the relationship between transpersonal agency and technology as being the cause of the end 1146 01:34:27,439 --> 01:34:33,119 of a civilization. Right that the whole Inchian Inochian tradition seems to be encoding 1147 01:34:33,239 --> 01:34:41,439 something like that through mythological language, which is that humans were able to connect 1148 01:34:41,479 --> 01:34:46,760 somehow with these transpersonal intelligences and that those were encoded in technical means, and 1149 01:34:46,800 --> 01:34:53,159 that this brought about the end of an age. So so there, it's 1150 01:34:53,159 --> 01:34:56,039 like it's there, that part of it is there in our story too, 1151 01:34:56,119 --> 01:35:00,239 Like there is that story. Yeah, but there's across cultures, there's the 1152 01:35:00,319 --> 01:35:04,279 NOAs story. You know, there's the person that has the right relationship to 1153 01:35:04,399 --> 01:35:10,239 ultimacity. That's right, right, And then there's a technological response the art. 1154 01:35:10,319 --> 01:35:12,279 I agree, I agree, I totally agree to that. I mean, 1155 01:35:12,359 --> 01:35:15,680 even like in the in the revelation image that I've given several times, 1156 01:35:15,680 --> 01:35:19,039 you have these two images. One is the beast that creates an image of 1157 01:35:19,079 --> 01:35:25,199 itself and makes it speak and then seduces everybody by the speaking image. You 1158 01:35:25,239 --> 01:35:30,800 know that. And then there's this other image of a right relationship of technicity, 1159 01:35:30,840 --> 01:35:34,079 technicity and civilization to the transcendent. These two kind of are are put 1160 01:35:34,159 --> 01:35:39,920 up against each other as two possible outcomes. I mean, the question that 1161 01:35:40,239 --> 01:35:45,960 arises from me in this context, uh uh, connects this question with a 1162 01:35:46,199 --> 01:35:50,199 with a with I think what what strikes me is kind of an interesting philosophical 1163 01:35:50,279 --> 01:35:55,239 question. But I try. You made the distinction between divination and sorcery, 1164 01:35:55,880 --> 01:36:00,680 and and as I understand it, and you can correct me on this, 1165 01:36:00,800 --> 01:36:08,279 but at the at the foundation of that distinction is the difference between you know, 1166 01:36:08,399 --> 01:36:13,640 sorcery would be in a way using the trans personal powers, these sort 1167 01:36:13,640 --> 01:36:17,399 of higher powers, whereas divination would be in a way receiving. You know 1168 01:36:17,520 --> 01:36:24,199 that the disposition of race activity. So in one case, you've got human 1169 01:36:24,439 --> 01:36:30,920 ends that you that you try to then enlist the help of superhuman forces to 1170 01:36:30,920 --> 01:36:35,760 to And the irony is, it's precisely when you're trying to use something that 1171 01:36:35,800 --> 01:36:40,680 you become used yourself. And that's that's where you get this dialectic. Whereas 1172 01:36:40,680 --> 01:36:47,000 divination it's entering into a relationship where where one UH disposes oneself to hear and 1173 01:36:47,039 --> 01:36:53,920 receives and therefore in a certain sense conformed to something greater than oneself. And 1174 01:36:53,960 --> 01:36:57,159 there you see, it's a very different kind of thing, and ironically, 1175 01:36:57,159 --> 01:37:01,319 in a way you enter into it more receptive, receptively. But that's precisely 1176 01:37:01,359 --> 01:37:05,159 why you don't become then a tool of it. Interestingly, now, now 1177 01:37:05,359 --> 01:37:11,279 for me, the question is how that relates to this UH issue is is 1178 01:37:11,319 --> 01:37:14,319 you know, it may be the case that you've got encoded in the language 1179 01:37:14,359 --> 01:37:18,760 both sacrifice in the sense of violence, you know, rene as or or 1180 01:37:18,920 --> 01:37:24,399 the scapegoat thing on the one hand, and then the other hand, self 1181 01:37:24,399 --> 01:37:30,199 sacrifice in the sense of generous love and so forth. Those might both be 1182 01:37:30,319 --> 01:37:33,479 encoded in the language. But here's here's the question to me, is is 1183 01:37:33,520 --> 01:37:43,119 it possible the kind the kind of receptivity that divination divination implies the capacity to 1184 01:37:43,199 --> 01:37:48,039 actually see another as other and recognize and be open in this kind of radical 1185 01:37:48,039 --> 01:37:54,920 way. Is that something that a machine can ever learn to do? Is 1186 01:37:54,920 --> 01:38:02,800 it? Is it possible actually to behold an other simply you know? Uh? 1187 01:38:02,920 --> 01:38:05,399 Or or is there? Or is there? You know? Is? 1188 01:38:06,000 --> 01:38:14,079 And it seems to me that there's something profoundly different between seeing truth, genuinely 1189 01:38:14,119 --> 01:38:16,520 seeing truth on the one hand, and being self corrective on the other, 1190 01:38:18,000 --> 01:38:24,439 and the kind of genuinely seeing what's true. You know, I don't know 1191 01:38:24,439 --> 01:38:27,840 if that in itself can be encoded in language. We can tell stories about 1192 01:38:27,880 --> 01:38:32,520 people that did that, but can can the actual insight into truth be encode 1193 01:38:32,560 --> 01:38:35,279 and simply who passed them? Do you see? Do you see what I'm 1194 01:38:35,520 --> 01:38:42,800 that? I guess and I'm raising Okay, So I again I think that 1195 01:38:43,439 --> 01:38:47,439 if we again open up beyond the propositional and we're talking about being true too 1196 01:38:48,199 --> 01:38:56,840 and and your aim being true, that we the machine has perspectable abilities, 1197 01:38:56,920 --> 01:39:00,600 noetic abilities, not just dianetic abilities. And we can't use that term because 1198 01:39:00,600 --> 01:39:04,680 of l Ron Hubbard, But you know what I meant, right, And 1199 01:39:04,720 --> 01:39:09,960 again this is the the and this is part of the argument that at the 1200 01:39:09,960 --> 01:39:15,000 core of my work, you know. It's like, so in a moment 1201 01:39:15,039 --> 01:39:20,319 of insight, you're not just self correcting, you are attracted and drawn into 1202 01:39:20,479 --> 01:39:26,640 you. You love the new reality that is disclosed because there's a perspectible and 1203 01:39:26,720 --> 01:39:30,920 participatory thing. That's what I meant when I said there isn't real self transcendence 1204 01:39:31,119 --> 01:39:36,520 unless there's a self that is fancending right right, Okay, now, and 1205 01:39:36,560 --> 01:39:42,199 then the question is, but we're back to our fundamental ontology questions. It 1206 01:39:42,239 --> 01:39:46,239 is, and I've already said that there's no way a Newtonian mechanical computation is 1207 01:39:46,239 --> 01:39:49,560 going to get there, and so I won't be bound to that because I'm 1208 01:39:49,560 --> 01:39:54,840 not bound to that. I have a professional career of criticizing that. Right, 1209 01:39:55,119 --> 01:40:01,000 So, is there is there a dynamical systems updated hughly morphine auto poetic 1210 01:40:01,399 --> 01:40:04,920 possibility? I think there is. I think there is. I think the 1211 01:40:05,000 --> 01:40:13,479 answer is a very real yes for that. And I don't think we're going 1212 01:40:13,560 --> 01:40:18,439 to find the answer to that just encoded in the syntactic and semantic relationships between 1213 01:40:18,439 --> 01:40:23,720 our terms. I think we have to look and you know, are inaction 1214 01:40:23,920 --> 01:40:29,199 how we're enacting embedded, extended, right and embodied in a profound way to 1215 01:40:29,279 --> 01:40:34,800 get those answers. And so my answer is in that way qualified, yes, 1216 01:40:34,920 --> 01:40:39,760 I do think it is possible. And so just in the comp is 1217 01:40:39,760 --> 01:40:43,039 that be really precise? Just so I understand. So we've been talking about 1218 01:40:43,039 --> 01:40:48,960 this sort of predictive like capitling probabilities, drawing on everything that's ever been said, 1219 01:40:49,239 --> 01:40:55,520 and being able to derive in some sense from that. Do you do 1220 01:40:55,560 --> 01:41:00,159 you think that that we can get to a moment where we actually train and 1221 01:41:00,279 --> 01:41:03,520 send that that that crossed that threshold beyond that. Not with the l l 1222 01:41:03,640 --> 01:41:06,520 MS as they are, that's my argument. Not with the l l MS 1223 01:41:06,560 --> 01:41:12,239 as they are, they can't get there. Yeah, John's radical proposition is 1224 01:41:12,279 --> 01:41:15,720 to is to embody embody and in culture them and that is the only way 1225 01:41:15,760 --> 01:41:23,279 we will actually get properly rational beings and beings that care about it and care 1226 01:41:23,279 --> 01:41:26,520 about I mean, but that's I mean, that's the irony in the question. 1227 01:41:26,560 --> 01:41:30,680 You know, can we give them more and more models to teach them 1228 01:41:30,680 --> 01:41:35,039 at some point to not have to use models? And and I mean, 1229 01:41:35,520 --> 01:41:40,600 do you see it's it's actually really I I don't do that with kids possible 1230 01:41:40,640 --> 01:41:44,399 without right, but but kids have a soul, you know, possible to 1231 01:41:44,479 --> 01:41:45,920 do. That is you have and that. But I don't mean this as 1232 01:41:45,960 --> 01:41:50,800 like woo woo stuff. I mean that they that that that that a natural 1233 01:41:50,880 --> 01:41:55,760 thing has a principle of unity that trend sends the differentiation of the parts and 1234 01:41:55,800 --> 01:41:59,960 allows those parts to be intrinsically related to each other, and that that principle 1235 01:42:00,199 --> 01:42:03,319 unity that transcends the differ of the parts, that allows them to be an 1236 01:42:03,359 --> 01:42:09,159 organism, actually allows them at the same time to have a kind of unity 1237 01:42:09,159 --> 01:42:14,920 with something other than themselves that transcends the parts of their differentiation. So there's 1238 01:42:14,920 --> 01:42:18,079 a kind of an intimacy there. I agree with that ontology and what I'm 1239 01:42:18,199 --> 01:42:25,840 arguing is dynamical systems theory is now giving explanations of that that are derived from 1240 01:42:25,960 --> 01:42:31,479 Aristotilian ontology, but make use of like a lot of cutting edge science that 1241 01:42:31,520 --> 01:42:36,359 we've We now can start to explain how there is a unity that is not 1242 01:42:36,439 --> 01:42:41,800 reducible just to some summation of its parts, and how that unity has a 1243 01:42:41,880 --> 01:42:45,520 top down influence on the entity that is not reducible to its causes. And 1244 01:42:46,800 --> 01:42:51,359 I think this is becoming a non controversial thing to say. And then I 1245 01:42:51,600 --> 01:42:56,960 find and now we might just add a clash of intuitions and I'm willing to 1246 01:42:57,000 --> 01:43:00,319 stop there. I can't see there being like that seems to me to be 1247 01:43:00,439 --> 01:43:03,560 capturing what we're talking about. And you have an intuition there's something more, 1248 01:43:03,560 --> 01:43:06,359 but I don't know. I don't see something more, And maybe that's where 1249 01:43:06,359 --> 01:43:10,960 we're sitting. Yeah, well, I think it's the intuition David has, 1250 01:43:11,119 --> 01:43:14,199 and tell me if I'm wrong, David. And because it connects to the 1251 01:43:14,239 --> 01:43:18,039 way I think is that there's it's that unity is given. It cannot be 1252 01:43:18,159 --> 01:43:21,640 made. And I know that sounds weird, but it's some it's somehow. 1253 01:43:23,039 --> 01:43:26,680 It's like if I'm making even even in terms of technology, right, it's 1254 01:43:26,680 --> 01:43:31,520 like if I'm making a car, that unity is given. I'm gathering things 1255 01:43:31,520 --> 01:43:36,520 towards that purpose. Right. And so the purpose, the unity part of 1256 01:43:36,560 --> 01:43:41,640 something is always it comes from Heaven in the sense that you can't make it. 1257 01:43:41,640 --> 01:43:46,439 It it's given from from It's it's already taken for granted, even before 1258 01:43:46,520 --> 01:43:53,760 you start to unify multiplicity together. And that in the making of these beings 1259 01:43:54,359 --> 01:43:58,119 we have that problem. It's like we're doing it completely. We're doing a 1260 01:43:58,119 --> 01:44:01,640 bottom up like if we can we get there is enough stuff so that this 1261 01:44:01,760 --> 01:44:10,800 stuff reaches a unit. If I just could just it teaches me that if 1262 01:44:10,840 --> 01:44:14,119 this is ever going to be possible, it would have to take so And 1263 01:44:14,159 --> 01:44:15,760 when I raised the question, it's actually a question. So I don't mean 1264 01:44:15,760 --> 01:44:19,600 to be like challenging that it can't possibly happen. I'm just thinking about what 1265 01:44:19,640 --> 01:44:24,840 would be the condition we remember that I said, we realize that we can't 1266 01:44:24,880 --> 01:44:29,840 and that would be important. I am not right, So it me if 1267 01:44:29,880 --> 01:44:32,960 it were to be possible, it would have to be something like a kind 1268 01:44:32,960 --> 01:44:41,520 of electronic analog to cloning that you that you take. So what if I 1269 01:44:41,600 --> 01:44:47,399 told you that we now have electro bio like we have systems that are electrochemical 1270 01:44:47,479 --> 01:44:54,359 biological versions of memory that are now in production, and they we don't make 1271 01:44:54,439 --> 01:44:58,880 them. They self organize and emerge and they emerge bottom up from the causal 1272 01:44:59,000 --> 01:45:02,680 interactions. But they are also top down constrained by you know, principles of 1273 01:45:02,680 --> 01:45:09,000 self organization like that already exists. Yeah, yeah, and but right, 1274 01:45:09,039 --> 01:45:11,800 no, Well that's that's what I'm asking about because it because it seems to 1275 01:45:11,840 --> 01:45:14,520 me, but there there is going to be You're you're deriving, not from 1276 01:45:14,600 --> 01:45:19,079 models you're deriving from real intelligent beings now, which is a slightly different thing. 1277 01:45:19,319 --> 01:45:24,640 And and I mean that and that would be thing is is that because 1278 01:45:25,600 --> 01:45:30,079 to me that the bottom up, top down is not quite adequate and the 1279 01:45:30,119 --> 01:45:33,279 top down constraints is not quite because it would have to be not just a 1280 01:45:34,079 --> 01:45:40,159 constraint, but because that presupposes that there was something there that then uh, 1281 01:45:40,279 --> 01:45:44,479 that the that the constraint is coming from outside. And what what I'm talking 1282 01:45:44,520 --> 01:45:50,119 about is a kind of a unity that precedes that's presupposed. And and and 1283 01:45:50,159 --> 01:45:55,119 I'm wondering how you can get that into something if if it's the very nature 1284 01:45:55,159 --> 01:45:58,279 of it to be presupposed, and and I'm not saying you can't, but 1285 01:45:58,319 --> 01:46:00,680 I'm saying if you can, it's it's it's it seems to me that you're 1286 01:46:00,680 --> 01:46:09,119 going to have to somehow derive it from a living thing and conceivable. That's 1287 01:46:09,159 --> 01:46:14,279 conceivable, I suppose. But we are talking about something really frightening. We 1288 01:46:14,720 --> 01:46:18,319 are. And that's why I keep saying it's a threshold. And and I 1289 01:46:18,359 --> 01:46:26,039 mean, if you take the the sort of biological analogy seriously the way or 1290 01:46:26,039 --> 01:46:30,119 he does, of course, it precedes the organism it's there in the environment, 1291 01:46:30,199 --> 01:46:32,640 it's there in the society, it's there in the I mean, I 1292 01:46:32,640 --> 01:46:38,840 can roll in a hundred Hegelian arguments here about how it doesn't right, about 1293 01:46:38,880 --> 01:46:43,119 how and you know, and and those don't have to be supernaturalistic. You 1294 01:46:43,199 --> 01:46:45,680 have Brandum and Hinker and now they're saying, no, this can be given 1295 01:46:45,720 --> 01:46:54,319 a completely naturalistic explanation. And I'm not here to challenge like things. But 1296 01:46:54,520 --> 01:47:01,279 what I'm saying is I don't have any problem acknowledging everything you just said. 1297 01:47:01,800 --> 01:47:09,119 Yeah, and I and I don't think I'm misunderstanding you. That's what I'm 1298 01:47:09,119 --> 01:47:15,720 saying. Yeah, And I mean I'm actually I mean, that's sort of 1299 01:47:15,760 --> 01:47:18,760 just an exploratory sort of way. But I wonder if there's a difference between 1300 01:47:18,800 --> 01:47:23,840 the unity of an of an organism, and this is where Hegel might not 1301 01:47:23,960 --> 01:47:29,039 be so helpful, the difference between the givenness of the unity of an organism 1302 01:47:29,479 --> 01:47:33,760 and the givenness of the unity of a society or a culture. That those 1303 01:47:33,800 --> 01:47:40,319 aren't exactly the same thing, because there's something and there's a kind of you 1304 01:47:40,319 --> 01:47:44,720 know, relative priority of either one. But there's something really distinctive about the 1305 01:47:44,840 --> 01:47:49,560 unity of an organism that's very Yeah. That that that I think is crucial 1306 01:47:49,600 --> 01:47:54,279 to this question to my mind in a way. And I'm not saying you 1307 01:47:54,279 --> 01:47:56,560 can't be answered, but that's the question I would have to be answered. 1308 01:47:56,560 --> 01:48:01,600 How do we actually reproduce that kind of or unity. Well, we know 1309 01:48:01,600 --> 01:48:05,600 stuff that Aristotle didn't know. You are not an Aristotilian unity. You are 1310 01:48:05,600 --> 01:48:12,039 a society. You literally are billions of animals, right, and so that's 1311 01:48:12,239 --> 01:48:16,239 important, and that means that there might not be a difference in kind between 1312 01:48:16,359 --> 01:48:20,720 how you are organized as a living thing and how societies are organized. And 1313 01:48:20,800 --> 01:48:27,560 people like Michael Levin are producing some really important empirical evidence indicating that's kind of 1314 01:48:27,560 --> 01:48:31,319 the case. And I'm not saying it's not saying anything is conclusive, but 1315 01:48:32,479 --> 01:48:36,600 it needs to be taken seriously. Yeah, Yeah, I think that that. 1316 01:48:38,279 --> 01:48:42,399 I agree with you, John, and I think that that that's the 1317 01:48:42,399 --> 01:48:45,720 way that I try to always speak about agency intelligence is one that tries to 1318 01:48:45,760 --> 01:48:50,199 scale almost effortlessly through the different name, you know, to avoid the wu 1319 01:48:50,479 --> 01:48:57,880 soul that that we're afraid of. But then again, this is the this 1320 01:48:57,960 --> 01:49:00,000 is the issue, like this is in some ways that it's the same problem. 1321 01:49:00,079 --> 01:49:03,279 Like one way or the other. So let's say you have a group 1322 01:49:03,439 --> 01:49:10,680 that self organizes around a purpose, right, or self organizes around affiliation or 1323 01:49:10,720 --> 01:49:15,159 some type of origin. Right, that that affiliation that purpose is also given. 1324 01:49:15,279 --> 01:49:17,960 Right, It's like it appears as a revelation and then all of a 1325 01:49:17,960 --> 01:49:21,000 sudden, we're all hunting a lion together and now we're a group and we're 1326 01:49:21,039 --> 01:49:27,760 moving towards towards a purpose. Now, this is this is the this is 1327 01:49:27,800 --> 01:49:30,199 the problem with the situation of what's going now? Is that what is it? 1328 01:49:31,079 --> 01:49:35,279 What angel are we catching? Like? What what? What God are 1329 01:49:35,319 --> 01:49:40,319 we trying to manifest? Like? Which unity? What purpose? We have 1330 01:49:40,399 --> 01:49:44,479 no idea? So we're building this massive body, like this huge and most 1331 01:49:44,479 --> 01:49:47,640 powerful body that's ever existed, but nobody knows what it is we're trying to 1332 01:49:47,720 --> 01:49:51,319 catch. Because when if I get together with a bunch of guys to play 1333 01:49:51,319 --> 01:49:56,119 basketball, I know what that body is. I know what that with that 1334 01:49:56,119 --> 01:50:01,760 that that agentic body, intelligent body is is moving towards. Right, if 1335 01:50:01,800 --> 01:50:05,199 I get together with my family and I celebrate our unity is because I know 1336 01:50:05,239 --> 01:50:09,840 that we all come from the same parent and that there's a there's affiliation that 1337 01:50:09,960 --> 01:50:15,720 makes our society coherent. Towards something. But now we have this problem, 1338 01:50:15,720 --> 01:50:18,600 which is what, like what are we doing, Like we're just building this 1339 01:50:18,680 --> 01:50:23,880 giant body. It's like, I agree, and I've agreed with that, 1340 01:50:25,199 --> 01:50:28,319 and the thing that that that's so odd. I mean, typically if you 1341 01:50:28,359 --> 01:50:33,760 think of technology as a human creation in some good positive sense, it's it's 1342 01:50:33,239 --> 01:50:36,920 it. It has limits, and it has a particular place, that has 1343 01:50:36,960 --> 01:50:43,840 a particular meaning. It has a particular purpose precisely because we create it in 1344 01:50:43,960 --> 01:50:45,960 order to solve some kind of a problem. We you know, there's some 1345 01:50:46,079 --> 01:50:48,880 there's some need that needs to be filled, and that need has a kind 1346 01:50:48,920 --> 01:50:54,960 of natural givenness or or or or it's revealed somehow that you know, it's 1347 01:50:55,000 --> 01:50:58,560 a responsive to something that we see. What's so interesting. Neil Postman made 1348 01:50:58,560 --> 01:51:03,760 this point about, you know, when and when he said he went to 1349 01:51:03,880 --> 01:51:09,520 a car dealership and wanted to buy a car, and and that the man 1350 01:51:09,680 --> 01:51:13,600 was explained to him that they had now these you know, automatic windows that 1351 01:51:13,600 --> 01:51:16,800 that that would roll down at the push of a button. And he and 1352 01:51:16,840 --> 01:51:20,359 he said, he said his his, I mean, this sounds so naive, 1353 01:51:20,399 --> 01:51:23,760 but it's it's a profoundly interesting question. He said, well, what 1354 01:51:23,840 --> 01:51:29,359 problem does that solve, and of course the problem that it solves is the 1355 01:51:29,399 --> 01:51:33,520 problem of rolling a window down. And his response was, I never perceived 1356 01:51:33,520 --> 01:51:38,199 that to be a problem, you know. I mean, and it's it's 1357 01:51:38,239 --> 01:51:41,199 really interesting, AI. I mean, the thing is, what problem are 1358 01:51:41,199 --> 01:51:44,880 we creating it to solve? I mean, in a certain sense, it's 1359 01:51:44,880 --> 01:51:48,680 a very different mindset. We're just kind of taking We just want to see 1360 01:51:48,680 --> 01:51:53,479 what we can do and see what can be done. And in a way, 1361 01:51:55,000 --> 01:51:59,319 the problems are something that that we are arriving at and are surprising us, 1362 01:51:59,399 --> 01:52:03,960 rather than something that we're actually creating, something that's just simple, simple 1363 01:52:04,079 --> 01:52:08,439 task of solving for us, you see. I mean I think that's connected 1364 01:52:08,479 --> 01:52:13,760 to this being placing ourselves in that in the hands of an angel of some 1365 01:52:13,920 --> 01:52:19,439 sort or or you know, entering into a kind of an agency that's bigger 1366 01:52:19,439 --> 01:52:24,319 than we are. I know, those are all connected, they are. 1367 01:52:24,840 --> 01:52:29,520 But I mean, one problem that was trying to be solved was the scientific 1368 01:52:29,600 --> 01:52:33,760 problem of like strong AI was a project of explaining intelligence, and that's a 1369 01:52:33,840 --> 01:52:38,239 that's a worthy thing to do. And the fact that this technology has largely 1370 01:52:38,279 --> 01:52:44,680 been separated. But notice that's interesting, that's that's that's not a technical problem, 1371 01:52:44,720 --> 01:52:48,760 like you explaining something. It's actually I mean to use the classical distinction 1372 01:52:48,920 --> 01:52:54,319 between theory and practice. That's a sort of a theoretical issue rather than a 1373 01:52:54,359 --> 01:52:57,840 practical one. But we think of this as a as a technology. I 1374 01:52:57,840 --> 01:53:01,720 mean, it's it's a that's a curious thing. Well yeah, and I 1375 01:53:01,720 --> 01:53:06,600 would get into things like books. Our technologies that move between the theoretical and 1376 01:53:06,640 --> 01:53:12,479 practical very proful. And it's one of the greatest technologies we ever invented, 1377 01:53:12,479 --> 01:53:17,239 and it had all kinds of unforeseen consequences and really massively disrupted society. Uh 1378 01:53:17,600 --> 01:53:21,560 but you know, but I wanted to make another point, and this isn't 1379 01:53:21,600 --> 01:53:28,079 a challenge, This is just a clarification point, right, These like like 1380 01:53:28,119 --> 01:53:30,399 think about a computer. What problem does a computer solve? It doesn't solve 1381 01:53:30,560 --> 01:53:35,279 a problem. It is meant to be a multiple problem solver. And then 1382 01:53:35,359 --> 01:53:39,159 what we're trying to do is make a general problem solver. So what problem 1383 01:53:39,239 --> 01:53:41,760 is it's trying to solve. It's not trying to solve any problem. It's 1384 01:53:41,800 --> 01:53:45,720 trying to enhance our abilities to solve all the problems we try to solve. 1385 01:53:45,960 --> 01:53:47,920 So this machine is going to help us in medicine. It already is it's 1386 01:53:47,960 --> 01:53:54,520 going to help us right in death like that's and so that that's that that's 1387 01:53:54,560 --> 01:53:58,479 the answer. Now again that's not a challenge. That's I'm just speaking on 1388 01:53:58,520 --> 01:54:00,880 behalf of people about this. But it is kind of interesting. I mean, 1389 01:54:00,960 --> 01:54:04,319 so, so the problem that it's solving is that is that the need 1390 01:54:04,359 --> 01:54:09,720 to be able to solve any possible solving a metal problem. Yes, yeah, 1391 01:54:09,920 --> 01:54:12,960 but but I mean, but but it is kind of it's it's sort 1392 01:54:12,960 --> 01:54:16,960 of it's sort of curious that precisely because of the the indeterminacy of that, 1393 01:54:20,199 --> 01:54:27,680 we're uh, we're we're we're exposing this and I'm just sort of stating, 1394 01:54:27,880 --> 01:54:32,039 you know, our condition here in a way, we're exposing ourselves to a 1395 01:54:32,079 --> 01:54:39,239 really great risk. I'm just restating what everybody has been saying. But that's 1396 01:54:39,319 --> 01:54:43,600 that's something that that you know, requires some wisdom, as you've been saying 1397 01:54:43,600 --> 01:54:46,359 over and over, John, and and and and prayer to use job with 1398 01:54:46,439 --> 01:54:54,399 him language. Two. I just want to be mentioned in the in this 1399 01:54:54,560 --> 01:54:57,880 here in my essay, which is well, we have done this before. 1400 01:54:58,680 --> 01:55:01,359 That's how civilization. Nobody built it to solve a problem. There's a bunch 1401 01:55:01,359 --> 01:55:05,439 of little problems, and what civilization is is a meta problem solver, right, 1402 01:55:05,600 --> 01:55:10,920 and that's that's what it is. And then and then you can So 1403 01:55:11,119 --> 01:55:15,520 I've actually suggested we should also be paying attention to the the lifetimes and the 1404 01:55:15,520 --> 01:55:20,920 life cycles of civilizations that have civilizations reproduce and why they rise and why they 1405 01:55:20,960 --> 01:55:26,760 fall to get some better understanding, uh, some other ways of thinking about 1406 01:55:26,760 --> 01:55:33,439 these machines. Yeah, so civilized nations are huge distributed cognition collective intelligence machines. 1407 01:55:33,800 --> 01:55:38,920 That's that's the Living in cities is a horrible idea except for the fact 1408 01:55:39,520 --> 01:55:44,680 that it gives us better access to the collective intelligence of distributed cognition. That's 1409 01:55:44,720 --> 01:55:49,159 the that's the benefit that outweighs all the many noxious side effects of living in 1410 01:55:49,199 --> 01:55:57,800 cities. You can also get better coffee typically. Yeah, so we're coming 1411 01:55:57,800 --> 01:56:00,880 toward the end of our time here. I mean, this has been this 1412 01:56:00,920 --> 01:56:04,720 is amazing. I don't I rarely can go for two hours on any conversation 1413 01:56:05,000 --> 01:56:08,880 like we were just we've just been going, well not only go for two 1414 01:56:08,880 --> 01:56:12,399 hours, but sort of wish we had another too. Yeah, well that's 1415 01:56:12,399 --> 01:56:14,199 what I was going to say. I mean, we can, we can, 1416 01:56:14,239 --> 01:56:15,960 we can work on doing this again, because it feels like we're we're 1417 01:56:16,000 --> 01:56:20,640 sort of we finally all come together around something here and now we're really asking 1418 01:56:20,880 --> 01:56:25,319 what feels like a really important question to me is well, how do we 1419 01:56:25,399 --> 01:56:30,880 think about integrating this solution, this meta solution, into our meta problems. 1420 01:56:30,880 --> 01:56:32,439 And that's that's a really true. I mean, I think that John bringing 1421 01:56:32,479 --> 01:56:36,479 up civilization is at such a great point something that I would really love to 1422 01:56:36,520 --> 01:56:42,520 explore because there is also, you know, in the kind of inscribed in 1423 01:56:42,560 --> 01:56:48,239 the mythological stories, a relationship between transpersonal agency and civilization itself, right, 1424 01:56:48,319 --> 01:56:54,319 Like if you want to understand why the Egyptians had their king as a god 1425 01:56:54,399 --> 01:56:57,680 and like all this type of structure you can help it can help you understand 1426 01:56:57,720 --> 01:57:02,000 how they're trying to capture you know, higher forms of intelligence, distributed intelligence 1427 01:57:02,560 --> 01:57:09,119 intelligences in their society. And the idea that we would be doing this technically 1428 01:57:09,199 --> 01:57:13,439 in a in AI, I think is something that definitely is worth thinking about 1429 01:57:13,479 --> 01:57:16,399 in discussing. YEA, yeah, now that's a dimension I just never struck 1430 01:57:16,439 --> 01:57:19,720 me before. So that's that's really helpful. Is this the enough? Maybe 1431 01:57:19,840 --> 01:57:30,279 maybe there's something we could read together and I mean short, but but to 1432 01:57:30,359 --> 01:57:35,359 prompt another conversation, well along the side of civilization, yeah, I would. 1433 01:57:35,399 --> 01:57:40,359 I would recommend, just because this is how YouTube works, that we 1434 01:57:40,359 --> 01:57:43,439 we come to decisions about that off camera. All right, okay, cool? 1435 01:57:44,159 --> 01:57:47,039 Right? Right? I do if if if there's a call for me 1436 01:57:47,159 --> 01:57:53,039 to hang out with you fellows again, I don't care what we're talking about. 1437 01:57:53,159 --> 01:57:55,319 I'm in. I want to be here, I want to do it. 1438 01:57:56,000 --> 01:58:01,880 So that's all I'll say about the invitation. Same here. Any closing 1439 01:58:01,960 --> 01:58:05,159 thoughts, things that feel like need to be brought in or do we feel 1440 01:58:05,199 --> 01:58:10,479 good about this? Just a word of thank you, Ken. You're the 1441 01:58:10,479 --> 01:58:15,680 one who arranged this, and you did the persistent work to make it happen 1442 01:58:15,760 --> 01:58:20,199 and find a whole in everybody's calendar that lined up not an easy thing to 1443 01:58:20,239 --> 01:58:25,720 do. So thank you, Ken, and thanks for being gracious for these 1444 01:58:25,800 --> 01:58:31,159 years now that I've known you. Yeah. And in addition to thinking Ken, 1445 01:58:31,199 --> 01:58:34,880 I want to thank you David and you Jonathan. I always find it 1446 01:58:35,640 --> 01:58:40,239 I get to places in my thinking the logos that I could not possibly get 1447 01:58:40,279 --> 01:58:45,319 on my own when I get into a living relationship with both of you, 1448 01:58:45,359 --> 01:58:47,520 in conversation and in discussion, and so I appreciate it greatly, and I 1449 01:58:47,560 --> 01:58:50,800 just wanted to say thank you. Yeah, thanks you guys. This has 1450 01:58:50,840 --> 01:58:55,079 been great and I'm like, again, say, John and I've been trying 1451 01:58:55,079 --> 01:58:58,119 to have the conversation for nine months and we just keep like I canceled, 1452 01:58:58,119 --> 01:59:00,199 he canceled, and I put off, and then this is wonderful that we 1453 01:59:00,199 --> 01:59:03,279 were able to finally get here. Yeah, well, thank you all. 1454 01:59:03,319 --> 01:59:08,960 It's been a real pleasure. If you enjoyed these videos and podcasts, please 1455 01:59:09,000 --> 01:59:12,640 go to the Symbolic world dot com website and see how you can support what 1456 01:59:12,720 --> 01:59:16,119 we're doing. There are multiple subscriber tiers with perks, are apparel and books 1457 01:59:16,159 --> 01:59:19,720 to purchase. So go to the Symbolic World dot com and thank you for 1458 01:59:19,800 --> 01:59:20,359 your support.