It's idealistic but I love it. I've been thinking a lot about this.
At my alma mater they forced all of us to take a couple of humanities courses. They were actually the highlight of my senior year. I do believe it's something that's quite lacking in an number/outcome-based education that should actually strive to produce well rounded individuals that will-not-do-evil.
I’ve been thinking lately how lots of tech people dunk on humanities and liberal arts, only to come to forums like this and discuss ethics, reality, and the nature of consciousness (at quite a shallow level)
Do we have any examples of societies or governments ran by humanities people? I at least don't know any country ran by tech execs. If we can find examples of both, then we can compare and see.
I’m not sure tech needs much of anything except less Venture Capitalists throwing money at whatever bullshit SV produces and more FOSS to actually keep the system going for the betterment of mankind. However, you as a human being need humanism more than ever. I think the biggest threat to humanity created by AI (and before transformers were introduced, platform application like Meta and X) is the fact that we ourselves become more machine like, callous, self-centred and, simply cruel. The algorithm should brute its force through obstacles trying to find the thing you desire, not you yourself.
Poetry, literature, arts and philosophy are good for the soul. That is why Umanistas in Renaissance Italy sought the philosophy and arts challenging the medieval doctrines after the Greek texts - Plato especially- were reintroduced to Europe. They ground you in history and the common themes we people experience regardless of our vast differences. And it doesn’t need to be classics, modern cinema, theatre, literature has lot to offer to anyone who cares to seek them, but there is no algorithm or streaming app. You really need to get off your ass, go to the gallery, museum, cinema or library and seek them out.
I like the approach that the writer takes, emphasizing the importance of humanistic experience into technology. Language will be the deciding factor for what technology becomes, and on this point I have some critique of the language that the author uses.
> Become the most flexible, underscore-shaped mind you can cultivate, the best-prepared proto-diplomat and translator of cultures, the family philosopher (because you no longer need someone to fix your printer).
In previous sentences, but here explicitely, the language used reflects that of the AI labs themselves. We do not need to find a metric to reduce our human experience to. We will not address systematic issues by pushing ourselves to become perfect. We need to start talking to our friends and families and question why we use the words we use in technology.
I like the idealism, but an important factor making this viable is that people (i.e. employers) must realise that this fundamental reasoning is scarce and pay enough for it to support life, and this must happen before AI takes over.
I can't say without studying, but I feel Chinese people might be more sane about AI and not suffer from this psychotic "fear" of AI that causes them to lose all grip and regress back to things like dualism, false arguments, etc. They tend to be less religious or at least spiritually different from the West too, that might help.
The author is not wrong, but telling a group of tech bros, autists and weirdos who are worth 8-11 figures that they need to develop skills to "address real user needs" just isn't going to convince any of them.
See for example 'philosophers' of consciousness who can't do thermodynamics, turing computability and information theory. One would expect these three fields are the basic and inexhaustive baseline requirements to put any theory on consciousness.
Let me introduce you to medical ethics... Unlike in engineering, ethics is a mandatory subject for medical students. And while there's a long-winded explanation for why it is that way, the short and an immediate explanation is that if you don't understand ethics, you, and the hospital that employed you, and the insurance company that pays for you will be sued out of profession. Because people's health and ultimately lives are at stake, and people become very touchy when someone dies or loses a limb unnecessarily.
I don't know what the situation is with other (mechanical, electrical etc.) engineering students, but I'm very much certain that the legal fiction that software comes with no warranty whatsoever is going to expire. Perhaps sometime soon. And then users of the said software will be allowed to sue, and, what do you know, ethics will suddenly be factored into CS curriculum ;)
Tech specialists ignoring human feelings about AI and the future of tech, while also looking at the amount of downright evil tech out there makes reconsider about wanting to continue to work in this profession over and over again.
Before I knew how to program I used to think software developers were smart wizards capable of creating cool stuff out of thin air but the recent years proved me differently given how many of them outright water out of their mouths at the mere thought of replacing the human in the loop with some bullshit parrot we call AI.
Especially on this website I rarely find people having human first thoughts and it makes me despise software engineers.
The trouble with some of these techs is that its good or bad depending on use. Flying drones are great for disaster aid, delivery of items in difficult regions, mapping your farm, etc. Mass surveillance, yes, thats unpleasant, but its a bit hard to see how for instance we can't also have advances in camera technology and not incentivize it happening anyway due to people just installing cameras of their own accord. AI trained to deny insurance claims, well, I'd put that on using AI as an excuse to launder the insurer's own wishes.
Big tech has provided me immense improvements in life. Governments are great at fumbling things at best, experts at killing millions at worst. How is tech worse than governments or other businesses? I am every day grateful to Google, Amazon, OpenAI etc for the wonderful services they provide for so cheap or free. The people who whine are precisely the problem people. Many shopkeepers used to be lazy, rude and think themselves kings. After amazon and home food delivery services, they have gotten whipped into shape. Many items were simply not available at all in one's city, and I can now easily have them at my doorstep.
You are whining because you are either one of those lazy businessmen who got upended by Amazon or you just like to complain about big tech without giving reasons why. It has its harms but on the overall balance I find it immensely positive.
At my alma mater they forced all of us to take a couple of humanities courses. They were actually the highlight of my senior year. I do believe it's something that's quite lacking in an number/outcome-based education that should actually strive to produce well rounded individuals that will-not-do-evil.
https://catalog.caltech.edu/current/information-for-undergra...
Alas, I went on to write code for a living anyway.
“Engineer’s disease” and all that.
They do have a clue, what's missing is any sort of belief in the value of ethics.
Poetry, literature, arts and philosophy are good for the soul. That is why Umanistas in Renaissance Italy sought the philosophy and arts challenging the medieval doctrines after the Greek texts - Plato especially- were reintroduced to Europe. They ground you in history and the common themes we people experience regardless of our vast differences. And it doesn’t need to be classics, modern cinema, theatre, literature has lot to offer to anyone who cares to seek them, but there is no algorithm or streaming app. You really need to get off your ass, go to the gallery, museum, cinema or library and seek them out.
> Become the most flexible, underscore-shaped mind you can cultivate, the best-prepared proto-diplomat and translator of cultures, the family philosopher (because you no longer need someone to fix your printer).
In previous sentences, but here explicitely, the language used reflects that of the AI labs themselves. We do not need to find a metric to reduce our human experience to. We will not address systematic issues by pushing ourselves to become perfect. We need to start talking to our friends and families and question why we use the words we use in technology.
I don't know what the situation is with other (mechanical, electrical etc.) engineering students, but I'm very much certain that the legal fiction that software comes with no warranty whatsoever is going to expire. Perhaps sometime soon. And then users of the said software will be allowed to sue, and, what do you know, ethics will suddenly be factored into CS curriculum ;)
Before I knew how to program I used to think software developers were smart wizards capable of creating cool stuff out of thin air but the recent years proved me differently given how many of them outright water out of their mouths at the mere thought of replacing the human in the loop with some bullshit parrot we call AI.
Especially on this website I rarely find people having human first thoughts and it makes me despise software engineers.
And what exactly do you define those as?