[Rodney Marsh]

Stop Press: AI researchers install a Right Hemisphere<div>

I had argued in the general discussion (which I wrote before reading ch 22 on Time) that since a data based approach cannot have a right hemisphere attention nor a presence in the ‘eternal now’ of the present moment – It can never have a RH virtue/conscious present attention to tasks or opinions expressed. The moderation of a RH AI instalation MUST we rules based (and rules can be gotten around!). Nor can AI ever have the imagination for what is not yet known and have an Eisteinian “ah ha” moment. This new form of intelligence is very backward looking. AI will fix us in an eternal loop from which it could never provide an escape route. Combined with an infinite capacity for banal evil I think it very dangerous. Does ANYONE see holes in this opinion? What should/could we do?

“AI, both machine learning and language models, using an immense superhuman data bank are uncannily predictive on the basis of past learnings and so can help create great new tools to live with reality. But only creative human attention to the ‘now’ can provide the knowledge needed to live into a secure future for a rapidly changed and changing world. Past human insight and wisdom, harvested by AI, will be necessary to build the world of the future, but a secure future cannot be built without the creative leadership of the open attention of the right hemisphere to the present moment. As Jesus said, a true teacher “brings out new and old treasures from the storeroom.” Most importantly, the living practices of training the attention and paying attention, which are embodied in the world’s Wisdom meditation practices, are always ‘in the moment’ and hold the keys to humanity living in harmony with what is. We cannot live into the future without building on the past, but neither can we walk backwards into the future using old methods to solve new problems.”

(The footnote was

”…we fear that the most popular and fashionable strain of A.I. — machine learning — will degrade our science and debase our ethics by incorporating into our technology a fundamentally flawed conception of language and knowledge.” Opinion | Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT – The New York Times (nytimes.com) It seems to me that a purely left hemisphere machine learning system can only have a ’second hand’ right hemisphere perspective so, whilst it can be immensely useful, there are no limits to the damage it can do. In life, only the right hemisphere can provide limits to the left hemisphere‘s capacity for banal evil. For the opposite opinion see scottaaronson.blog ”The False Promises of Chomskyism” and an interesting discussion particularly Chatbot’s own opinion (comment#16) that it possesses a ”unique kind of intelligence”.)

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