In “Hyping Artificial Intelligence Hinders Innovation” (podcast episode 163), Andrew McDiarmid interviewed Erik J. Larson, programmer and author of The Myth of Artificial Intelligence (Harvard University Press, 2021) on the wrong path he thinks some analysts are taking in terms of what machines can and can’t do. Plus they discussed Alan Turing’s change of heart. Then they looked at the critical fact that Big Data can easily be the enemy of new ideas. And now, the future …?
https://episodes.castos.com/mindmatters/34ce0d74-aa74-4ad9-9599-e9ddf2be56a7-Mind-Matters-News-Episode-163-Erik-Larson-.mp3
This portion begins at roughly 38:23 min. A partial transcript and notes, Show Notes, and Additional Resources follow.
They began with: How do we determine that we are not simply manipulated by social media? Larson recommended a book by computer scientist Jaron Lanier, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (2018).
Erik Larson: He’s got some other stuff out. The first book I think he wrote is one of his best, it’s called You Are Not a Gadget, [2011] and it’s more of a deeper dive philosophically. In 10 Reasons, he … never let passively algorithms determine what you’re doing next. In other words, actively search for the movie and do the research like you said, right? So it’s just a way of stopping this seemingly inevitable slide into just being these passive sort of data points for profit-making companies in California.
Andrew McDiarmid: And that’s honestly something I want to help people do. Don’t be passive with your tech and with big tech and with these algorithms, be active. Don’t be afraid to step outside the model. Make mistakes, be accidental, yeah. That whole free thinking and thinking outside the box, we need a lot of that.
I was chuckling the other day, I saw Facebook experimenting with a select group where they’ll facilitate prayer requests. Have you heard of this?
Erik Larson: No.
Andrew McDiarmid: Obviously if they’ve gathered the data that you might be a faith believer or religious in some sort, they’ll say, “Hey, do you have prayer requests? We’ll help you share them.” Which is sort of funny because obviously they only care about us connecting so that they can make money with advertising. But what’s ironic is that is how prayer works. Not only are we bringing the prayer to the Creator, we’re also sharing with the community and they can lift up that in prayer as well and so it’s just kind of …….
Source: https://mindmatters.ai/2021/12/understanding-the-de-facto-cold-war-with-china/