Jacob Coxon, the engineer who recently resigned from Anthropic to protest its safety policies, says A.I. could “kill us all by the end of the decade.” But if A.I. is so outrageously dangerous, why should we accept modest proposals to “pace” its development? Why not call in the Turing cops, and pull the plug? - The New Yorker
Their perception is that jobs that feel meaningful are being slashed by government or stolen by AI. As a result, she reported, members of Gen Z may just need to find meaning in their hobbies and interests outside of work and pursue jobs that allow them to fully check out at the end of the day. - 3 Quarks...
Descendants of Italian migrants generally express an intense pride in their heritage, and many continue to live by its sociocultural tenets in spite of decades, or more, of absence. It is as if time away from Italy, and geographical distance, only amplify a yearning for it. - Aeon
Scientists already know that confusing memories happens more often than forgetting them altogether. What’s less clear is how the brain gets confused. - The Conversation
High-profile authors are obviously under pressure to offer novel frameworks, but rarely do these second acts feel like an about-face. Duckworth insists that “Situated” is not a reversal but an expansion of her earlier research; as an account of individual success, grit is “necessary but not sufficient,” and must be complemented by the larger picture. - The New Yorker
Timnit Gebru: Sometimes “I read quotes to people about artificial intelligence that I’ve gathered in my research, and I ask, What decade was this statement made in? Sometimes people get it right, but a lot of times they do not, because it all sounds the same.” - Wired
“Winning work highlighted during the 36th annual award ceremony” (which was in Zurich this year rather than Boston) “included hilarious research on the aerodynamics of nose blowing, gently stepping on venomous snakes, confirming that teenagers do indeed smell worse than babies and other side-splitting scientific undertakings.” - Smithsonian Magazine
Flock was reported to have a valuation of more than eight billion dollars, with its biggest investor being the venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Around forty per cent of the United States’ law-enforcement agencies now have contracts with the company, and a reported hundred and thirty thousand cameras monitor roads in every state but Alaska. - The New Yorker
As young people, the future billionaires were spending hours (under their covers with flashlights, I imagine) consuming stories about killer robots or Mars colonies. What they seemed not to get—maybe couldn’t get—was that these were cautionary tales, stories that projected deep societal worries into space or onto a future many millennia away. - The Atlantic
"Far from merely raising a reactionary fist in the air at the new science, Swift identified an attitude that is still around today — and one that has created many of the greatest challenges now facing educators." - The Dial
When competent work is available at nearly zero cost, it provides little competitive advantage. We have seen versions of this value shift before: Cloud computing changed the skills required to manage infrastructure and GPS reduced the value of navigational skills. AI brought on a similar reset across a broader range of knowledge work. - Fast Company
As philosophers of science have long recognized, that such advances require not inductive reasoning that derives a general rule from the accumulation of data or examples, but abductive reasoning: “a creative leap that invents a cause for a singular phenomenon”. - Nature
“Obviously, failing and struggling is not fun, but the sense of pride and succeeding afterwards is very, very motivating for me. And I don’t think you’d get that same kick or that same hit from getting a ninety from ChatGPT versus getting a ninety over an essay where you spent six hours in a basement.” - The Walrus
Just because something makes sense doesn’t mean that it’s true. Even valid reasoning cannot establish that its starting premises are correct. Even today, science continues to rely on experience, reasoning, and knowledge passed down by others. Much of the scientific process comes down to how we check our knowledge. - 3 Quarks Daily
