To be oneself or someone else, to love or to hate, to use logic or emotion, no one knows how these questions will be answered. All we can hope is that AI will do the right thing for humanity. What’s right to me may not be right to you. Does the cycle ever end or does it create an uncontrollable cycle of “self” conflict? Who’s self? Do you need to be born in this world and have a beating heart to have a “self”? Maybe no one decides and they do, that’s terrifying.
Great post Nick, hope that you continue to question the “why”. Life’s intricacies are meant to be questioned, unfortunately most times the question bears no answer.
Lots of really important ideas in here Joe, and while there might not exist answers to these questions, the best we can do is struggle with them as hard as we can. Looking forward to struggling alongside you
This piece is suffuse with beauty and warmth, and I'm extremely excited to see where it goes. The loss of truly textured, deep-contact-with-reality-style beauty and good feels highly salient right now—it's so easy to get caught up in "10^40 lives" and lose sight of the rich and profound detail those lives should have. Thanks for creating this :)
Would be interested in your take on those of us pursuing a “corporate world” that is subject to certain potential “vices” of AI. Is their room for these types of folks (myself) amongst this “enlightened” crew? Does one need to take a risk / separate oneself in order to truly live a life of purpose and meaning? I’m currently reading James Patterson’s “Disrupt Everything” — while not AI focused, I think it serves as an interesting adjacent take on your piece and may be worth diving into. No answers here but excited to learn more and follow along.
A quick personal take might be something along the lines of:
There needs to be room for everyone amongst this crew of people trying to learn more about the technology and trying to have a say in how its developed. But at the same time these spots are earned, not given freely. People need to be willing to grapple with really hard and messy questions. What we're trying to do here is bring down the barrier to entry and widen this circle.
When asking about needing to take risks or separating oneself, I think the answer depends on what you're really asking. In some ways, though, I think a lot of "important" things, no matter the lens or perspective, result from taking some sort of risk—whether it's a financial/career risk starting a company or a social/ego risk telling someone you have feelings for them.
Based on how I know you, my reading of your question, and my understanding of that book, though, it seems like there's an implicit assumption hiding in the question that I might want to push back on. This might be something like a notion that purpose or meaning are attached to some sort of "exceptionality," whether that's exceptionality in terms of career success, wealth, fame, or what have you. Meaning and purpose are esoteric concepts I struggle with, but I do know that they can be found in lots of places, and it's only a very very recent development that people have sought them out through things like work or a career.
I find meaning in watering my plants in the morning. I find meaning in connecting with a Joachim Trier Film (btw you gotta watch Sentimental Value). I find meaning in our friendship. Sure, this publication also provides meaning to my life, but if I didn't think it was necessary to make, and I didn't make it, I don't think my life would be any less meaningful because I'd just find meaning in other pursuits.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this and it has left me with so many questions yet none at the same time; it's that paralysis of not knowing what we don't know so forming the questions becomes difficult. I look forward to reading and seeing things that challenge the ways I approach not only AI but technology in general. I envision a world where we can live in harmony, but I agree that it requires us to work hard to accomplish that. This won't be an easy feat by any means but maybe they're right, maybe it really is the 'how you get there' that matters, not 'when or if you get there'. At some point I'd like to take the time to share my own experience with the infrastructure of AI and shed more light on the environmental impact of it. I would like for us, myself included, to be more conscious and intentional with our usage of it. Every query has real implications on our surroundings and self and we need to be aware of that.
Thank you for this initial post & ill be sure to be present for future letters, cheers!
10000% agree on the environmental impact of AI -- there are so many things that happen behind the scenes that are totally invisible to us. Disappointingly, I think this is a rather overlooked thing within even the AI safety community. But in general, climate change is a rather "invisible" happening because it's not a very violent spectacle + is otherwise slow-moving... ah! I will turn to Rob Nixon here; he explains it much better than I can. I'd recommend his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. I'd also recommend Pollution is Colonialism by Max Liboiron. The fact that I can remember the names of these readings a year later should be indicative of how formative they were to some of my thoughts on this haha
But yeah! Imagine living next to a data center, developing a chronic illness, having your faucet barely *dribble*, and when you are able to amass some amount of water, seeing lots of sediment in it... goodness
And what you were saying about each query having real implications on the SELF! Great observation. I would love to write more here, but I am afraid this would be a very beefy reply if I did...
Either way, seems like you have something to say -- I do hope you'll write for us soon, and we are really excited to welcome your thoughts ^-^
Thank you so much for your comment, Forrest! I would like for you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to be intentional in your response and for supporting us!
Ben I know we talked about this on the side, too, but super excited to see your explanation of some of the deeper industrial-level impacts going on behind the scenes. We all hear the datapoints about the water consumption and energy use, and as if those weren't bad enough, there's even MORE going on beyond that, that most people have no idea about (such as the wastefulness and resource intensity of linear economic models in the GPU business, as you told me). Looking forward to including your voice here!! The road ahead is arduous, but at least we'll have each other on the way.
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❤️❤️❤️
To be oneself or someone else, to love or to hate, to use logic or emotion, no one knows how these questions will be answered. All we can hope is that AI will do the right thing for humanity. What’s right to me may not be right to you. Does the cycle ever end or does it create an uncontrollable cycle of “self” conflict? Who’s self? Do you need to be born in this world and have a beating heart to have a “self”? Maybe no one decides and they do, that’s terrifying.
Great post Nick, hope that you continue to question the “why”. Life’s intricacies are meant to be questioned, unfortunately most times the question bears no answer.
Lots of really important ideas in here Joe, and while there might not exist answers to these questions, the best we can do is struggle with them as hard as we can. Looking forward to struggling alongside you
This piece is suffuse with beauty and warmth, and I'm extremely excited to see where it goes. The loss of truly textured, deep-contact-with-reality-style beauty and good feels highly salient right now—it's so easy to get caught up in "10^40 lives" and lose sight of the rich and profound detail those lives should have. Thanks for creating this :)
always appreciate your support and infinitely grateful we met this summer
can’t wait to read your writing! ^^
Exciting!
:))
Would be interested in your take on those of us pursuing a “corporate world” that is subject to certain potential “vices” of AI. Is their room for these types of folks (myself) amongst this “enlightened” crew? Does one need to take a risk / separate oneself in order to truly live a life of purpose and meaning? I’m currently reading James Patterson’s “Disrupt Everything” — while not AI focused, I think it serves as an interesting adjacent take on your piece and may be worth diving into. No answers here but excited to learn more and follow along.
A quick personal take might be something along the lines of:
There needs to be room for everyone amongst this crew of people trying to learn more about the technology and trying to have a say in how its developed. But at the same time these spots are earned, not given freely. People need to be willing to grapple with really hard and messy questions. What we're trying to do here is bring down the barrier to entry and widen this circle.
When asking about needing to take risks or separating oneself, I think the answer depends on what you're really asking. In some ways, though, I think a lot of "important" things, no matter the lens or perspective, result from taking some sort of risk—whether it's a financial/career risk starting a company or a social/ego risk telling someone you have feelings for them.
Based on how I know you, my reading of your question, and my understanding of that book, though, it seems like there's an implicit assumption hiding in the question that I might want to push back on. This might be something like a notion that purpose or meaning are attached to some sort of "exceptionality," whether that's exceptionality in terms of career success, wealth, fame, or what have you. Meaning and purpose are esoteric concepts I struggle with, but I do know that they can be found in lots of places, and it's only a very very recent development that people have sought them out through things like work or a career.
I find meaning in watering my plants in the morning. I find meaning in connecting with a Joachim Trier Film (btw you gotta watch Sentimental Value). I find meaning in our friendship. Sure, this publication also provides meaning to my life, but if I didn't think it was necessary to make, and I didn't make it, I don't think my life would be any less meaningful because I'd just find meaning in other pursuits.
Thoroughly enjoyed reading this and it has left me with so many questions yet none at the same time; it's that paralysis of not knowing what we don't know so forming the questions becomes difficult. I look forward to reading and seeing things that challenge the ways I approach not only AI but technology in general. I envision a world where we can live in harmony, but I agree that it requires us to work hard to accomplish that. This won't be an easy feat by any means but maybe they're right, maybe it really is the 'how you get there' that matters, not 'when or if you get there'. At some point I'd like to take the time to share my own experience with the infrastructure of AI and shed more light on the environmental impact of it. I would like for us, myself included, to be more conscious and intentional with our usage of it. Every query has real implications on our surroundings and self and we need to be aware of that.
Thank you for this initial post & ill be sure to be present for future letters, cheers!
10000% agree on the environmental impact of AI -- there are so many things that happen behind the scenes that are totally invisible to us. Disappointingly, I think this is a rather overlooked thing within even the AI safety community. But in general, climate change is a rather "invisible" happening because it's not a very violent spectacle + is otherwise slow-moving... ah! I will turn to Rob Nixon here; he explains it much better than I can. I'd recommend his book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. I'd also recommend Pollution is Colonialism by Max Liboiron. The fact that I can remember the names of these readings a year later should be indicative of how formative they were to some of my thoughts on this haha
But yeah! Imagine living next to a data center, developing a chronic illness, having your faucet barely *dribble*, and when you are able to amass some amount of water, seeing lots of sediment in it... goodness
And what you were saying about each query having real implications on the SELF! Great observation. I would love to write more here, but I am afraid this would be a very beefy reply if I did...
Either way, seems like you have something to say -- I do hope you'll write for us soon, and we are really excited to welcome your thoughts ^-^
Thank you so much for your comment, Forrest! I would like for you to know that I appreciate you taking the time to be intentional in your response and for supporting us!
Ben I know we talked about this on the side, too, but super excited to see your explanation of some of the deeper industrial-level impacts going on behind the scenes. We all hear the datapoints about the water consumption and energy use, and as if those weren't bad enough, there's even MORE going on beyond that, that most people have no idea about (such as the wastefulness and resource intensity of linear economic models in the GPU business, as you told me). Looking forward to including your voice here!! The road ahead is arduous, but at least we'll have each other on the way.