Both Roger's and Marcus' replies mentioned the co-construction of *the* world, at least
indirectly. Your concept of narrowing sounds to me like a refining, rather than a
narrowing. In order to refine, you do have to narrow the scope (or decrease the focal
length of your lens), but you're not narrowing the world. I'd argue you're enlarging the
world by adding detail in a "dense" way ... in the interstitial spaces between
coarse constraints.
One possible flaw in both Roger's (or Irene's?) argument that the act of
explanation facilitates understanding is, from a pluralist perspective, if we
really are co-constructing the world, then such exercises in explaining are
simply narrative-reinforcers. The chatbots are good at telling stories, but
less good at teaching the core curiosity necessary for having experiences from
which stories can be told ... story-generators are different from
story-repeaters ... I guess it's like the old distinction between teaching and
doing. Sabine's admiration of flat earthers is good, if awkward, along these
lines: https://youtu.be/f8DQSM-b2cc?si=xyqpS2FJjH4imOy4
That has consequences to your sense of the chatbot pushing you toward homogeny
and a risk in Marcus' abdicating to the chatbots, as well. Unnecessary
anecdote: I was just discussing the role SpaceX has played in demonstrating
Agile versus Waterfall approaches with a nuclear decomissioning consultant
(yes, at the pub, of course). Given her role(s), she's naturally more inclined
to the latter. Having a good conception of the end-of-life status for something
like nuclear power requires significant look-ahead. And I'm far from an Elno
advocate. But there's a kind of meta-processing we have to go through in
deciding where Agile is best versus where Waterfall is best. I sincerely doubt
either of us could have had such an argument with a chatbot, even in the
medium-flung future.
On 9/13/24 11:34, steve smith wrote:
Glen -
I appreciate your speaking more directly to these thoughts/ideas than we have been here.
I have been moved by your assertions about vocal (linguistic?) grooming since you first
introduced them. I am recently finished reading Sopolsky's "Primate's Memoir"
which adds another dimension/parallax-angle (for me) on intertribal behaviour among
primates beyond the more familiar Chimpanzee and of late Bonobo.
I am just now also just finishing (re-reading parts) of Kara Swisher's "Burn
Book" which covers her own experience/perspective across TechBro culture where a
pretty significant amount of Alpha/Beta pecking order exhibits itself and we see the
current rallying of (too) much of that sub culture to MAGA/Trump fealty.
We've talked about how some of us really enjoy simulated conversation with chatbots ...
"really" is an understatement ... it looks more like a fetish or a kink to me ... too
intense to be well-described as "enjoyment". Anyway, this article lands in that space, I
think:
I will confess to having an "appreciation" for the "simulated conversation to which you
refer... It might have reached kink or fetish levels for a little while when I was first exploring the
full range of GPT 3.5 and then 4.0 available to me. I've referred to GPT as my "new bar
friend" or maybe to the point a little like finding a new watering hole with a number of regulars
who I can find a qualitatively new conversation.
I've mostly moved past that fascination... I'm not as surprised by these "new
friends" as I was for the first few months of dropping in on them.
It seems to me that some arbitrary thought can play at least a few roles to a
person. It may provide: 1) a kernel of identity to establish us vs. them, 2)
fodder for feigning engagement at cocktail parties and such, and 3) a foil for
world-construction (collaboratively or individually).
(1) and (2) wouldn't necessarily mechanize refinement of the thought, including
testing, falsification, etc. But (3) would. For me, (2) does sometimes provide
an externalized medium by which I can change my mind. Hence my affinity for
argument, especially with randos at the pub. But it seems like coping and
defense mechanisms like mansplaining allow others to avoid changing their minds
with (2).
Like you (only very differently in detail I am sure) I tend to push my chatbot "friends" until they begin to
contradict me or argue with me. While some of the discussions involve "worldbuilding" I think of it more as
"world narrowing"? In my case meaning, helping me think and talk my way through a *subset* of the
possibilities I see on "solving a problem" which might be more appropriately framed as building a
problem-space world and then narrowing (or even bending) the solution space away from the conventional.
For example discussing (at excruciating length) the design and construction of a modest addition on my home, starting with fairly conventional big-box-available industrial solutions but evolving toward using locally sourced, somewhat more natural materials (soilcrete, rough-sawn timbers from nearby, scoria/perlite for in-ground insulation, mycelium (grown in loose cellulose, oat-straw or hemp-fibers) roof and wall insulation, etc. Most of my DIY friends are capable of engaging in this but their idiosyncratic (as opposed to my own) preferences (fetishes and fears) tend to taint the dialog a little. GPT *does* try to channel me back to the conventional, offering reasons why I really *should* consider using the most conventional materials/methods. Nevertheless if I speak in reasonable and coaxing tones it will usually acknowledge that their are contexts wherein my ideas might be viable (though there always remains a skeptical bias) and in fact helps me split hairs on just
what might be the contexts where my ideas *are* viable...
Another concept I've defended on this list is the vocal grooming hypothesis. If
a lonely person engages a chatbot as a simple analogy to picking lice from
others' fur, then their engagement with the bot probably lands squarely in (1)
and (2). But if the person is simply an introverted hermit who has trouble
co-constructing the world with others (i.e. *not* merely vocal grooming), then
the chatbot does real work, allowing the antisocial misfit to do real work that
could later be expressed in a form harvestable by others. I wonder what
humanity could have harvested if Kaczynski or Grothendieck in his later years
had had access to appropriately tuned chatbots.
I'd like to think the chatbots I hang out with might have helped them talk
themselves *out* of their most acute anti-social activities... but maybe not.
--
glen
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