I can tell. There is a lot of clarity I gained when I began studying apologetics, and now I am trying to read more church fathers. A friend of mine wrote an excellent article about how so often we get lost in the trends we realize many of our questions have solid, simple answers in history (transhumanism, treating the body as disposable and the mind/spirit as ultimate being another form of gnosticism, for example). When it comes to AI and recognizing what is good and useful on both a practical, material level and a spiritual, creative level, I do think examining the principles which underly a thing are more likely to generate a coherent response than examining a thing as-used (also useful info, just different.) Understanding human nature will better inform our understanding of the ethics of AI than what people can or do use it for, that is. It has been so long since I've had to formulate coherent arguments for something (and impossible on substack mobile to reference an article and comment at the same time) that I speak mainly in generalities, but this was a more interesting way to examine AI than "evil art pirate job stealer vs creative tool for the unskilled" debates I usually see. I'll be reading the other articles in this series too.
This is a wonderful analysis that brought up points I hadn't been aware of or thought of before. People complain about the power/space/heat needs/output of AI, but this gave good specific examples (chips, chip size, the actual material components) but I also very much enjoyed the philosophical discussion of approximation, teasing out categories of difference. I remember, in school, one of my professors gushing about Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (which I probably read but apparently haven't retained...I didn't like that professor much), but your comparisons made sense as for when is a thing the thing, or superior, or not comparable, and how would we know. You put words to it which have helped me advance thoughts I could never quite finish in college. This made me think and learn, so thank you.
I'm incredibly happy to hear that! I don't get to talk about these things to this level of depth with very many people, so I often wonder if it's really as well thought out as it feels.
Of course, first time it goes down to paper, I realize it really isn't, but after a few attempts I think I found a nugget of truth in my thoughts. Studying the rich tradition of metaphysics in Christianity really helped.
I can tell. There is a lot of clarity I gained when I began studying apologetics, and now I am trying to read more church fathers. A friend of mine wrote an excellent article about how so often we get lost in the trends we realize many of our questions have solid, simple answers in history (transhumanism, treating the body as disposable and the mind/spirit as ultimate being another form of gnosticism, for example). When it comes to AI and recognizing what is good and useful on both a practical, material level and a spiritual, creative level, I do think examining the principles which underly a thing are more likely to generate a coherent response than examining a thing as-used (also useful info, just different.) Understanding human nature will better inform our understanding of the ethics of AI than what people can or do use it for, that is. It has been so long since I've had to formulate coherent arguments for something (and impossible on substack mobile to reference an article and comment at the same time) that I speak mainly in generalities, but this was a more interesting way to examine AI than "evil art pirate job stealer vs creative tool for the unskilled" debates I usually see. I'll be reading the other articles in this series too.
https://open.substack.com/pub/inflectionsandconvergence/p/nothing-is-new-and-isnt-that-beautiful?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1p1dhs
Article in question
I will give that a read later!
This is a wonderful analysis that brought up points I hadn't been aware of or thought of before. People complain about the power/space/heat needs/output of AI, but this gave good specific examples (chips, chip size, the actual material components) but I also very much enjoyed the philosophical discussion of approximation, teasing out categories of difference. I remember, in school, one of my professors gushing about Baudrillard's Simulacra and Simulation (which I probably read but apparently haven't retained...I didn't like that professor much), but your comparisons made sense as for when is a thing the thing, or superior, or not comparable, and how would we know. You put words to it which have helped me advance thoughts I could never quite finish in college. This made me think and learn, so thank you.
I'm incredibly happy to hear that! I don't get to talk about these things to this level of depth with very many people, so I often wonder if it's really as well thought out as it feels.
Of course, first time it goes down to paper, I realize it really isn't, but after a few attempts I think I found a nugget of truth in my thoughts. Studying the rich tradition of metaphysics in Christianity really helped.