Smart (part 6) - a world view we don't share

This is the sixth and final post in the Smart series where I have been exploring why so much of the writing about ‘artificial intelligence’ causes me such irritation. I’ve identified so many wordly issues with key terms like intelligence, language, agency, learning, personality, decision-making, etc. You can read previous posts here: 

• Smart (part 1) - now did things get to be smart
• Smart (part 2) - a way with words
• Smart (part 3, an interlude) - toons on AI perils
• Smart (part 4) - convincing or human hacking
• Smart (part 5) - the not-so-secret AI agents

This post will draw on all this previous content. 

Okay, it’s definitely time to stop adding to the plethora of writing about so-called ‘AI’ . 

But before I do, I must spend some time exploring some better names, more accurate names, less misleading names. Alternative names that can help us be smart about this amazing technology. Alternative names that might help us avoid selling off our future cheaply.

Smart (part 4) - convincing or human hacking?

The problem with taking so long to write this Smart series about Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the 34,372 extra articles published on the topic in the meantime! 

Interestingly, though, not much has really changed. I still find most of this writing incredibly irritating and I'm still trying to work out exactly why. Here is a brief summary of my explorations so far.

In Smart part 1, I pointed out that intelligence is a complex concept (and not a thing) created to talk about human abilities. Consequently, our tests of intelligence are based on human attributes and physiological limitations. Intelligence is a contested concept – there is not broad agreement about what it even means. I asked, given intelligence is not a discrete thing in humans, how could we actually know when it ‘appears’ in machines?

In Smart part 2, I explored the concept of language to show why the conversational abilities of ChatGPT and its ilk are easily explained by sophisticated programming and the nature of language use by humans. It’s nothing to do with intelligence. And yet, the tech developers seem to be using the natural language capacity of the smart bots as a (quite flawed) proxy for intelligence. (Smart part 3 was a diversion into some of the fabulous toons on this topic, but now back to being serious!) 

As a reference, I keep coming back to the Turing Test that says if a machine can convince a knowledgeable human observer of its intelligence, then it should be considered to be intelligent. 

In this post, I explore how the focus of recent development has been more on the convincing than on the intelligence part of the Turing Test. Convincing, or perhaps more accurately it could be called human hacking.

Smart (part 3, an interlude) - toons on AI perils

Source: SMBC

Among the endless articles about what we call ‘artificial intelligence’, so much is written about its potential perils. So much speculation about disasters. So many potential catastrophes. 

The fascinating thing to me is what all this catastrophising says about our nature, what we pay attention to, and what we fear. 

However to contain the Smart series on AI (see Part 1 and Part 2 so far), I won’t explore this topic in a blog post. Next post, my focus will return to the wordly misuse that characterises this area, because I think it explains why many of the upbeat claims and terrifying disasters are unlikely. And it points to the things that really should be getting our attention right now.

Instead, as an interlude (and to distract from how long I’m taking to write a post these days!), I wanted to share some of the many cartoons¹ about potential AI catastrophe that I’ve collected through this exploration. 

In way fewer words than I ever could, many wonderful cartoonists have explore the many ways we fear it could all go wrong…

Smart (part 2) - a way with words

In part 1, I started exploring why the myriad articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) leave me feeling so frustrated. 

To start, I explored the abstract and contested concept of intelligence in humans, and then as applied to machines. I concluded that while so-called AI can do some gobsmackingly sophisticated and incredibly useful things, and can far surpass human capacities in specific functions, this isn’t what I would label intelligent. 

So, I worked out one major source of frustration for me is the lack of sophisticated understanding about intelligence in humans by those trying to create an artificial version of intelligence. Disconcertingly, computer science is building on the computational model¹ of human intelligence just as cognitive science is abandoning it!   

Despite my personal doubts, the latest AI-based chatbots appear to many users to be really quite smart. They communicate via voice or text, using language a lot like humans do. AI programmers are focusing their efforts on the ability of smart chat bots to interact with humans in natural language.  

Are the AI research scientists claiming that language makes machines intelligent? That sounds like Wordly Exploration territory!

Smart (part 1) - how did things get to be smart?

I seriously do not enjoy reading the endless articles on Artificial Intelligence (AI) that turn up in my social media. Not because they are too technical, nor for fear that AI might revolutionise our lives in unpredictable and scary ways.

It is because the people who are driving the AI race¹ are really, really sloppy with the way they use important words. 

I'm starting to suspect that some of the fantastical claims about the future of AI are based on a pile of rubbish word use. It's a massive pile. It irritates me so much, I felt compelled to explore the many words and concepts used in writing about AI.

Why do AI articles now refer to all manner of devices and machines as ‘smart’? Does it really mean the same as when I say a friend is ‘smart’? What does it mean to claim machines will soon ‘surpass’ human intelligence? And why do some of these articles suggest that if a machine can be smart like a human, is can also be ‘conscious’?

To explore these questions I will dig into what ‘smart’ means, what human intelligence is and what artificial intelligence is supposed to be. In a second post, I will also explore how intelligence relates to language, and how a device supposedly demonstrates to us that it is intelligent. And finally, I will ponder why so many claims about artificial intelligence rest on considerable human ignorance.² 

Follow me on a wordly exploration of the use - or more accurately - the misuse of words about AI!

Clarity - about my need for clarity

Many times over the last year, I’ve started articles for this blog. Some were drafts of a few pages, some remained just a collection of images about my key questions, some were notes headed, ‘A Wordly Exploration topic?’ But nothing has made it to publication. 

As you may have noticed.

It’s been a rough two years for me for finding time and energy and routine to write. Floods, illness, loss and grief. Initially, I managed to post a few articles, but then it became too much.

I tinkered with ideas. I put them down.

A year - then more - ticked by since the last substantial article. Was the Wordly Explorations blog heading for oblivion, like so many others? 

This week is two years since my home was flooded, and two years since this blog went on the backburner. This post is about what I learned through this hiatus.

Evolving (part 4) - the language dance

Parody on the March of Progress

The Evolving series began by looking at Darwin's ground-breaking theory of 'descent with modification' to explain biodiversity in organic lifeforms. In parts 2 and 3, we explored how people have misinterpreted and misused his work ever since, including loading it with various moral judgements. 

Our everyday use of the words evolve and evolution reveals that we¹ think of evolution as purposeful and progressive improvement (a contradiction of Darwin's theory) but also natural and scientific. This (mis)interpretation provides what I call a 'sciencey veneer' over any number of beliefs.

We think of 'evolutionary progress' as how the world works. This understanding is so widely shared it is a common meme. 

So, I'm finally back to my starting point for exploring the words evolve and evolution: what do we mean when we say that language 'evolves'? Why don't we just say that language changes? Is language change like biological evolution? Are we saying that language improves and progresses over time? 

Unsurprisingly, the answers are not straightforward! 

Evolving (part 3) - scientific and natural

Parts 1 & 2 of the Evolving series explored our everyday use of the words evolve and evolution. 

We¹ have rather strange ways of talking about how biological evolution works. When we talk about life-forms evolving, we imbue a random, undirected, aimless process (Darwin's 'descent with modification') with agency, intention and purpose (part 1). We tell stories of change, and of life progressing and improving. 

When we tell 'evolution stories' (with agents and purpose), we add moral judgements about improvement. We meld the two contradictory dictionary meanings of evolution into a hybrid² concept of 'descent with modification (technical meaning) toward improvement and a better state (non-technical meaning)'. This sits behind many moral judgements about the 'value' of various life forms, particularly about non-human animals, e.g. saying that humans are the pinnacle of evolution (part 2).

Our 'stories' of evolution work more like metaphor - a simplifying shortcut - than being an accurate description.

This story of 'evolving' and improving is now the dominant way that we understand the world - not limited to explaining biodiversity (as Darwin intended his theory). We refer to societies, cultures, ideas, businesses, technology, musicians, language (and more) as evolving. 

And that leads to some very dangerous ideas. 

Evolving (part 2) - progress and human ascendency

Part 1 of Evolving started my exploration of our everyday use of the words evolving and evolution.

Part 1 showed that when we¹ talk about evolution, we tend to use concepts of agency (some who acts), intention, purpose. This means our everyday use of the words evolve and evolution contradicts the very theory of evolution: the unpredictable favouring of random, undirected, purpose-less changes leads to the Earth's vast biodiversity.  

We use the words this way because we understand the world through stories rather than bits of information, and to tell stories we have to impose the features of storytelling - who, how, why!   

The other common feature of storytelling is morality. And sure enough, morality turns up in the way we use the words evolve and evolution. 

This post will explore how the idea of progress and human ascendency came to be seen as the 'purpose' of evolution (while Darwin rolls in his grave for the 100th time).

Evolving (part 1) - agency and purpose

I read about spitting cobras the other day. Not a critter I'd like to meet. 

The headline of the article read: Spitting cobras may have evolved unique venom to defend from ancient humans.

I pondered: not only can the cobra spit venomous liquid some distance, it chose to purposefully develop this capacity in order to poison humans.

A planning and spitting cobra! Definitely not a critter I'd like to meet!!

This sounds a bit ludicrous, sure. We know that's not how evolution works, but that is implied in the heading: choice, intention and purpose about changing physiology on the part of snakes. 

It's just one of many examples of the strange ways we talk about evolution and about life forms evolving. 

I think how we talk about evolution says a lot about us, and not very much about evolution! 

Research - in praise of the prefix 're-'

Along with widespread distrust in authority, experts and professionals, we see the very common suggestion (or sometimes taunt) online to ‘do your own research’.

I know several people who have 'done their own research' - spending three or four years of their lives working extremely hard on a specific question to earn a PhD. Having watched just how difficult it is, and how they had to put the rest of their life on hold, I don't really want to 'do my own research'.

So, why is it so commonly suggested? And why is it so often accompanied by poor spelling and insults?

Unless… perhaps they don't really mean 'research.'

The @ sign - my symbolic resistance

By guest explorer: Fred Shivvin

Language is dynamic and constantly changing, that is what makes it powerful.

 

But when our language changes - the word meaning, the punctuation, grammar, usage rules, spelling, and more - we often don't like it. Many of us resist many of these changes, and some sticklers never give in.

But for most of us, slowly, gradually, insidiously, the unwelcome changes slip into how we talk and write. The shift happens without our awareness, until one day we find ourselves using the word form, sentence structure, punctuation, etc., that we had resisted in the past.

We don't often recognise our shift to acceptance, we don't remember how long we resisted, we don't often even notice we've stopped fighting language change. And if we do, we might shrug an acknowledgment, and then get on with life and language.

But there's one change I resisted for exactly 27 years and 9 months. Until last week, to be precise.

Cynical - the easy way out

It's that time again in Australia - the time we're not officially in an election but, yeah, we sure are in an election. We can tell by the politicians' behaviour: the clearing of decks, the salves to lobby groups, the announcements, the special funds for 'special' electorates. 

One of the words I hear a lot around election time is cynical. We're told the 'voters are cynical' and wary of political promises, but equally we hear that some politicians undertake actions as 'cynical attempts to win votes'. And we turn off. 

That makes me wonder: where does cynicism reside? 

Is it in me - in the way I interpret other people's behaviour as negative? Or is it in other people - in the way they think they can treat me, can buy me off? If I describe a politician's actions as cynical, just who is the cynic? Is it a type of judgement or is it a more general 'lens' through which a person sees the world? 

Welcome to the first Wordly Explorations for 2022. I will return to truth soon, but the universe keeps flinging things at me that don't allow much writing time, and not enough for a challenging topic like truth. 

Post-truth (part 13) - lead up the garden path by a metaphor

I've now been exploring the house construction metaphor for truth for a year. It's a long time since I declared the journey metaphor for truth was false and misleading.

Source

My interest in the truth was piqued by the word post-truth. Post means 'after' - which seems odd. Because the journey metaphor tells us we're on a torturous journey, heading toward truth (eventually), what does it mean to be in a time or place after truth? Are we lost; did we miss our truth destination somehow?

As I wrote in part 8, post-truth is a dangerous cover word for propaganda. But how does propaganda fit in the journey metaphor? What about lies, illusions, gaslighting, beliefs and wrong beliefs, delusions, mistaken memory, how do they all fit in the journey metaphor?

Our sense of truth is fundamentally important to us as individuals and as a society. Despite turning away from religion and toward science as our key source of truth, humanity's desire for truth remains tied to our needs for belonging, agency, safety, meaning and certainty.

So, how we think about truth is extremely important.

A critical question remains: is our metaphor for truth really that important? How does the journey metaphor influence how we think about truth, the varieties of 'non'-truth, and post-truth? 

Post truth (part 12) - reminders about words and truth

It's not necessary to think about words all the time, but sometimes it is essential.  

Over the last two posts (parts 10 and 11), I explored how words are representations of our experience of reality, and yet we treat them as part of the things they represent. We also tend to assume that if a word exists, a 'thing' for that word must also exist, even if the word represents an idea (like freedom) rather than a thing. 

Source

Because we use words to make sense of the world, and because we need a stable sense of reality to function, we treat words as if they were objective, neutral and stable. We ignore that we use subjective, value-laden, abstract representations (words) to construct our sense of truth. We need both to be stable and solid - so we just assume they are. 

This false assumption is brilliant and productive. With it, we create and share amazing knowledge, technology, literature, and much more with words.

However, it is foolhardy to forget entirely that we make such an assumption. It dulls our awareness to the deliberate destruction of words as a way to supplant the social construction of truth.

Further developing the house construction metaphor for truth, in the previous post I added handmade unfired bricks to build with. They are a metaphor for our human tendency to treat words as objective and solid things, despite being subjective and abstract representations. With these solid - yet easily damaged and eroded - bricks we build our floor of facts and our walls of explanatory stories. The house feels snug and safe. 

We forget all about words and the social construction of truth. Luckily a whole pile of people is ready to remind us. 

Post truth (part 11) - making things with words

In the last post, I turned my focus to the role of words in the construction of truth. This is Wordly Explorations, after all. 

Words are what humanity uses to label, understand and share our experiences of the world, and to create explanatory stories that form our coherent view of the world. We use explanatory stories to make sense of the world (and one of those stories is that humans are progressing always toward truth).

I explored how words - spoken, written, signed, symbolled - are 'representations', abstract symbolic units that 'stand in for' our experience of reality. As representations, our words are thus laden with our values, beliefs and ideas (shortened to 'subjective' for this post). 

The conundrum is that, while we might agree in theory that they are subjective, in practice, we need to assume words are stable, neutral and objective in order to use them. 

The human need for a stable sense of reality, which we construct with words, means that we need words to also be stable 'things'. So we just assume they are. We treat words as solid things, despite being confronted with numerous times when they are not (misunderstandings, disputes over meaning, propaganda, etc.). 

To integrate this into the house construction metaphor for truth, I added handmade unfired clay bricks (solid but easily damaged) to represent the words with which we build our house. We use these handmade bricks to construct our floor of 'facts' and our walls of explanatory stories, and they hold up the roof and our sense of safety in truth. 

When we have words for things and concepts for our experience of reality, we feel we know reality.

What does this mean for our understanding of the world? What does it mean for our idea of truth? And does it say anything about the word post-truth? 

Post truth (part 10) - words are our building blocks

Many posts ago, I started my exploration of the word post-truth.

I've thought about the human experience of reality, the social process of constructing a shared truth, the psychological and social role of truth, the weaknesses in human reasoning about their experience of the world, how many people take advantage of the nature of truth, and ended with the contention that post-truth was a camouflage word for propaganda, which I defined as 'truth determined by one person alone'.

I represented those concepts through the metaphor of the construction of a house - the ground being the reality we assume exists, the foundations and floor being humanity's probing, perception and interpretation of reality, the walls being the explanatory stories about the world, and the roof being the sense of safety and stability we need as humans and as societies to function. Read a summary of the series so far. 

Through the series, I have interrogated many words as part of telling explanatory stories, expositing facts, declaring evidence, and sharing a sense of reality with our society. 

What I have not yet explored is how words work in the construction of truth and how they fit in the house construction metaphor. 

This post explores words as things that humans use, to set the scene for a future post relating this to the construction of truth.  

Post-truth (index) - grandma tours the house

This series began in November 2020 with my puzzlement about the word post-truth and what it reveals about the word truth. 

I had no idea then how hard it would be to explore these words. They are complex and difficult to write about. I am satisfied I've added some clarity to the thinking on this question.

However, I believe that if you can’t explain a complex idea to your grandmother, it could mean you may be hiding behind vagueness, abstract words and fuzzy concepts. 

So, this post takes my gran on a tour of the house construction metaphor for truth. 

It serves as a series index, lists what is planned, and acknowledges some areas that I really should go back to. 

That is, if gran doesn’t tell me that it’s all claptrap.

Post-truth (part 9) - camouflage for an old adversary

House Under Construction
Kazimir Malevich
Source 

The emergence of the word post-truth sparks a very old philosophical question - what is truth? 

I've now written over 20,000 words in 8 posts to attempt to explain how I see truth. (A full recap and a contents page are coming.) 

My exploration has focused on how humanity pictures the concept of truth. I contend that our most common image - the metaphor of the tortuous journey to an absolute objective truth as a destination (out there) - is part of problem in thinking clearly about truth and post-truth. 

In this series, I have presented a new metaphor that is a better fit with humanity's relationship with truth - the house construction metaphor. The metaphor represents the shared process of constructing and maintaining the house - our sense of truth - and also the vulnerabilities inherent in any project that involves a lot of people. 

The house construction metaphor illustrates that truth is personal, provisional, and socially constructed by humans, and that is not only okay, it is inevitable. Our concept of truth, as I see it, is the outcome of our human needs. 

So, how does the new metaphor help in understanding post-truth? 

Counter-anti-dis - the prefix strategy in politics

When I was growing up, my family would compete to find the longest word. (There was no internet then, and no Wikipedia with a page entitled Longest word in English).

My brother trounced with floccinaucinihilipilification with 29 letters. We liked the meaning: a series of Latin words that each mean 'nothing' - floccus ('a wisp') +‎ naucum ('a trifle') +‎ nihilum ('nothing') +‎ pilus ('a hair') + -fication used together to mean "the act of estimating something as worthless" 

So, family members: admit defeat! You can buy
this shirt by GolemAura at Redbubble

My favourite word was antidisestablishmentarianism (at 28 letters) for its inherent ‘anti-anti-’ness. I loved how English allowed the construction of seemingly endless suffixes and prefixes: establish with -ment, then -arian, then -ism, then dis-, then anti-.

I didn't know then that antidisestablishmentarianism was an archaic word that meant a position that advocates that a state Church (the 'established church') should continue to receive government patronage, rather than be disestablished (or I would have liked it way less). I liked it because I could beat my brother by adding another prefix: counter- to make a word with 35 letters.¹

 
Counter-anti-dis-. Anti-anti-anti-. It was a good joke if you were into words.

It was difficult to fit on a t-shirt though.  

Lately, however, I’ve noticed what I am going to call a 'counter-anti-dis-establishmentarian strategy' in politics.

And it's no joke at all.