We need to figure out what’s going on

This is something a Silicon Valley celebrity said recently — and I’ve decided to “steal” it because the meaning is actually rather ambiguous and depends a lot on context. The person who said it, simply said it in passing and didn’t contextualize what was meant at all — I actually have a vague “gut feeling” that it was actually used in a manipulative way (because the entire conversation it was embedded in rather nonchalantly was pretty much all about manipulation — perhaps it was itself nothing other than a piece of propaganda?)

Very well, then — what does this statement mean to me? (and hopefully, by the time I am done, also to you?)

I’m so glad we’ve asked! 😉

One thing that’s going on right now is this stuff called “artificial intelligence” (AI) — and a primary reason for this activity has to do with economics.

Yet another reason is the recent “discovery” of language. So-called “prompt engineering” has to do with using language in such a way that effective results can be obtained (this is “ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer” on steroids … or even stronger: AI).

So, this line of thinking goes like this (more or less): Increasingly, content will be “created by machines”. If you’re thinking “that’s fucking absurd!“, then I guess we’re sort of on the same page.

One of most important distinctions to make is the vast difference between intelligence and pattern recognition. Intelligent beings can identify patterns. Artificial intelligence can only recognize patterns that have been defined (i.e., “cognized“) by intelligent beings. All of the hot air and cyber-bullshit boils down to this very simple but immensely significant distinction. Artificial intelligence cannot surpass human intelligence, simply because it is based on human intelligence much in the same way as a reflection is based on the original image.

The second completely wack-o notion is the crazy idea that natural languages are logical. Only extremely feeble-minded nincompoops would ever go so far out on a limb as to propose something so preposterous. Unfortunately, there seems to be a very large congregation of very wealthy and very narcissistic people engaging in precisely such moronic behaviors with one another on a very large scale right now, currently, as we speak, as if they knew the answer to some kind of metaphysical question. It’s actually nothing — it’s just bullshit. [1]

Now I will make a prediction of my very own about the future. In the near to medium future, some of these silicon fanatics will finally come to the realization that there is no such thing as a “logical language” that will solve all mysteries across the universe. That’s simply not how language works. Nature (and natural languages) are distributed processes and as such are very localized and limited. We can breathe in the air [2] here on Earth, but not in space or on Mars. The way such a realization event will most probably ultimately precipitate is when the so-called “large language models” become advanced enough to be able to distinguish several distinct languages to the point that some languages will be deemed appropriate for particular tasks (while other languages will be deemed more appropriate for other tasks) — much in the same way that E.F. Schumacher (and his followers) were able to distinguish other “appropriate technology” solutions to the highly localized economic issues and problems that were being solved at the time.