made out of meat, what AI and sexual fetishes have in common & trains
CC#68 - The Value of Elite Colleges, fewer Vegetarians & Controversial Research
Hey there and welcome to ✨ CuratedCuriosity - a bi-weekly newsletter delivering inspiration from all over the internet to the notoriously curious.
Things I Enjoyed Reading.
🧐 What Can Fetish Research Tell Us About AI?
Definitely a different perspective on the discussion around AI alignment - some entertaining yet not completely useless analogies.
We try to explain AI alignment by analogy to human alignment. Evolution “created” humans. Its “goal” is for humans to spread their genes by (approximately) having as many children as possible. It couldn’t directly communicate that goal to humans - partly because it’s an abstract concept that can’t talk, and partly because for most of biological history it was working with lemurs and ape-men who couldn’t understand words anyway. Instead, it tried to give us instincts that align us with that goal. The most relevant instinct is sex: most humans want to have sex, an action that potentially results in pregnancy, childbearing, and genes being spread to the next generation. This alignment strategy succeeded well enough that humans populations remain high as of 2023.
👽 Greetings, people of Earth [🎧]
Some more AI analogies - a mixture of interviews with microsoft employees on their thoughts regarding GPT4, a great science fiction short story and a sneak peak into a teenager’s daily life. No worries, it will all make sense why these things are part of one podcast episode.
Humans encounter non-human intelligences of various kinds and try to make sense of them.
Act One: In this past year we’ve witnessed a revolution in A.I. since the public rollout of ChatGPT. Our Senior Editor David Kestenbaum thinks that even though there’s been a ton of coverage, there’s one thing people haven’t talked much about: have these machines gotten to the point that they’re starting to have something like human intelligence? Where they actually understand language and concepts, and can reason?
Act Two: A short piece of fiction from the perspective of aliens who’ve been scouting Earth, from writer Terry Bisson. It’s called “They're Made Out of Meat.”
🧑🏫 Thoughts on high-stakes college admissions
Interesting thoughts on the value of elite universities - are the beneficial for society? What’s the underlying value of an elite degree? Is it just signalling? Is it the peer network or actually the knowledge on gains? Insightful musings on these questions.
I wouldn’t suggest literally dismantling Harvard. (Caution is advised before destroying your most successful institutions.) My real thesis is more like:
College admissions are (1) highly competitive and (2) consequential. Maybe those alone are bad? Maybe we should think about them instead of exclusively arguing about admissions criteria? (…)
I only half-believe that high-stakes college admissions are bad. But I think it’s weird that this view is so absent from public debate.
Any critique of college admissions should acknowledge one central fact: Most of the reason Ivy grads do so well is not because they learn so much in college, nor because they make powerful friends in college, nor because Ivy degrees have magical gold star signaling power. Mostly it’s that Ivy admits are smart and rich and would do well no matter what.
Food for Thought.
🙃 How would you react to a controversial research finding?
🥕 Was the popularity of vegetarianism just temporary?
🏫 Is this development good or bad?
Random Stuff.
📊 The Climate Change Tracker is an interactive, freely accessible dashboard that reports all kind of interesting climate indicators over time:
🚅 This is a map from 2014 about China’s highspeed railway expansion plans. I guess the current global power dynamics are not favourable for such a project - nonetheless, just imagining a world where one could travel form Beijing to the U.S. by train in less than 32 hours somehow makes me excited.
🍄 Artists developed a device that you can put on a smart home assistant (like e.g. Alex) and active through voice. When turned on, it makes sure that the smart assistant cannot listen (i.e. its technically impossible) - cool project to counteract increasing fear of surveillance (code is open source).
Personal Update.
First of all my apologies for the long break - there was just a lot going on…
Amongst others I have be come an artist! Or at least I can say I have participated in an exhibition at Ars Electronica. Definitely, got out of my usual ‘bubble’ within those weeks (although I have to say, I think everyone is better off if I don’t pursue an artisitic career…). Here are some impressions from Linz (and I can promise you it was more interesting than my impression might convey…)
The Founding Lab Summer School ended last week but next adventure already started: At the moment I am in a nighttrain to Umea to attend IceLab Camp 2023 -very much looking forward :)