Katy Waldman: It was striking to me how A.I. converged with the ghostly in your stories, because to me they seem very different. Ghosts are aligned with the past, whereas A.I. feels related to the future.

Jeanette Winterson: I was brought up in a very religious house. Religion is so deeply sunk into the self for me that it cannot be separated. And so I’m intrigued that the religious notion of the biological self as a temporary condition is now finding a new home in science and tech. They’re saying “Well, yeah, [the biological self] is a temporary condition that you’ll be able to sidestep through the creation of a digital self.” That’s the promise of technology, and it’s also the promise of religion, the first disrupter of death. And it amuses me to see the separation from the biological self that religion has always promised and foretold coming into vogue, coming into fashion, through the agency of Big Tech.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/jeanette-winterson-has-no-idea-what-happens-next

Human, also amused

As one gets closer to personal dissolution ("me" and my brain/body), one may find oneself wondering more and more what it's all about.

Because there is no readily available reliable data regarding a hereafter, one cannot really adduce what follows the surrender of one's mortal coil.

One can hope, and many may include paying tithing, along with other gestures of metaphorically not stepping on a crack and breaking your mother's back, that there is enough evidence for such hope...

I am of the school of thought that labels all the attempts to technologically reproduce a life-like personal mechanicalcondition as being only able to create Artificial Stupidity.  I don't fear AI, but I do worry about AS.


Okay, do I want to continue on as a nitwit upon the shuffling off of my mortal coil?  Sure, why not?!  

Will we still get overtime after eight hours and periodic cost of living increases?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2023 02:43AM by Dave the Atheist.

Hummmm... interesting thought....


Dusty Rusty wakes up to pee, wanders the mansion looking for the lighted pen when the spirit of inspiration depends upon his mind. Forgetting what was inspired, an impression settles upon his mind.... then fades...

Wandering further, Rusty notices a strange device in the corner of curious workmanship. Similar to the combination of a Urim and a Thumumm, it was like unto a television and a typewriter.

After pondering the endless possibilities of a book of mormon that came to pass for many more countless pages had Joseph's myth been forthcoming on a word processor--Lucy Harris you have no power here--the lard impressed upon the profit to consult the devils portal 'chatgpt' a great query

"How to get the church growing again?"
"How to increase the thithes?"

Desperate times breed desperate measures!

I was amused at how fast Sam Altman got his job back after being fired by his board of modern day Luddites.

We are back to the early days of the automobile.

https://ghostsofdc.org/2018/07/16/horse-dealers-claim-automobiles-a-fad/

"This analysis of a 1900 Washington Post article on the advent of automobiles shows a disregard for the new technology, with horse dealers even calling it a fad."

I have to wonder what spooked the prior board of OpenAI. Did their AI become sentient? Is sentience intrinsic to suffiently advanced AI?

Is there literally a ghost in the machine? I know it sounds whacked, but in a pantheistic Universe where do you draw the line if sentience emerges simply because it can? Wouldn't that make humans a form of artificial intelligence?

I think AI is about to blow the doors off physical materialism.

From what I can tell from reading about the OpenAI situation, the people who were most concerned about going too fast and safety issues ended up having to leave (both women, Tasha McCauley and Helen Toner). Only the ones who agree to be more aggressive with Altman remain. I don't exactly find that comforting.

As usual, it's all about money and screw people who care about long term potential damage. Regulators have already let tech get too far without constraint, IMO.

If I were in charge, all AI would be required to attach a footnote list of everywhere it got information it used. Plus, I would require a permanent watermark.