Steven Levy is a veteran of many decades of computer tech reporting and generally among the best at that there is.
Here he tackles some of the biggest questions:
What is this AI thing, is it conscious, is it a living entity?
Tech discussions don’t generally feature these “Big Questions” as the priority debate about AI.
Instead we want to know:
- If AI can be trusted, is it safe, is it honest, does it actually know the things it says it knows?
- Does it replace me as something valuable to the workplace and to my social world?
- Is it just too alien to deal with? Is it going to eliminate the human race?
- If I have spiritual faith, then where does my faith in God figure in here?
- And if I’m instead more cynical about existence, what does this super smart thing say about that sense that I know what ‘s going on?
- Does it upset all my presumptions about reality and my place in it?
So asking the fundamental questions as Levy does below, is actually apropos for most of us.
That’s true even if we don’t ask ourselves these questions specifically; the AI vs Humans situation can still be very unnerving.
This is an edition of Steven Levy’s Backchannel newsletter. Read previous newsletters here.
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