Thinking about AI
AI is a box. A box is not the whole. No matter how big the box, the box is not able to be the whole.
Consciousness, that still unable to be located experience of life, the ability for ever more complex sense-making that weaves the weightless immeasurable unable to be reduced to zero’s and one’s dimensions of existence, is not included in the box, no matter how big the box.
Input into the box is a determinate of the humans inputting – their worldview, bias, and ability to understand complexity.
If all the data in the box is topic-specific – like reading radiological images – the applied statistics we call AI can do a fabulous job.
Yet, it still cannot respond to the multi-sensory interpretation of a complex human mind and, therefore, is not to be fully trusted. Just as the human interpretation might not be able to be fully trusted. They are complimentary.
Relinquishing all decision-making to applied statistics, also known as AI, is the equivalent of relinquishing decision-making to the median of data, reducing it in the process to the consensus. In other words, a dumbing down. Is this the world we desire?
The race to own AI is the current-day equivalent of the Wild West. A mob of cowboys, drunk on testosterone, untethered from knowing what they are really doing and the consequences, see only the possibility of riches and power. This is not progress. It is immaturity, led by the same thinking that created this world on the precipice.
Applied Statistics will replace jobs. Jobs that do not require the exceptional, artistic, awe-inspiring complexity of human creativity.
If we are to fear Applied Statistics, we might look to the creators of the various boxes. Who they are speaks to what is in the box. Fear them first.
Photo January 23rd 2025, Article written February 17th 2025.
