Pretty soon I'll be using the words faculties of consciousness as if they always have existed. Yes, Momo. Did you know my novel TCOTNK puts a children's picture book in the lead?
Keep those thoughts coming Veronika! I think the rest of the piece has some tickles too...
The Faculties of Consciousness have always existed! They've been waiting for us to discover them. Did you know they each have their own territory in the inner world, their own populations, languages, and cultures? You can meet them soon...
I don't know about your novel. Tell me more, I'm curious!
Charlotte, a headstrong 16yo, leaves home to rebel against the world. She joins a gathering of outcasts sparking her flame. Thirty years earlier, her grandmother already knew she would, and has left instructions in a picture book.
Her first festival changes Charlotte's live. Her last festival changes all else.
And here you can find the Index with links to all seasons and chapters:
For Billy: Be a one off. Do a one off. Look at how others do, and find your own way of doing it. You are here to leave a mark. A mark the shape of you.
This essay is bigger than AI, it’s the whole question of what am I for. I remember writing in college and telling my writer boyfriend that I didn’t see why to write cause everything was already there on the internet. Now I’m building something that is definitely me-shaped. A food and farming collaborative. Relational. Grounded. And I’m experiencing the true wildness of my Billy and our pack of big ancient-brain-type dogs trapped in town between the police. And there’s nothing like it in the struggle and wild joy of it, which is not always pretty but it’s somewhere AI could never get. It’s the fox crossing the road in front of me while I write you because I’m going so hard this is the only time to write you and he the fox is too. This is our time to cross. It’s Marlowe Tackett’s, the wild dance hall of a generation back in all its sex and violence and glory
I admit I haven't read the full post yet, Bertus (promise to come back and continue later). But to the first section I had already so many thoughts flooding in, I want to share some with you before they fly off...
You write, "Because this unprecedented rise of uncanny technology does scare me shitless. Not because I resist the use of incredible tech. Way more the lukewarm response and half-baked objections to what could be, and probably is, a soul-devouring flood."
I picked up the struggle to respond to all those 'sleek and good arguments' from proponents of AI. And of course we are using AI all the time already just by communicating via computer and internet...
But there is a difference in being pulled deeper into this technology they call AI (in my understanding) Artificial Intelligence is actually not intelligent at all. It is only using this word because 'Intelligence' has been equated with 'Intellect' and ever since Descartes people have believed that the rational mind IS THE MIND.
Now we know that's not true at all. There are so many more Faculties of Consciousness which most people are only vaguely aware of and certainly don't know how to use to their full potential. All Faculties of Consciousness contribute to human creativity. (The intellect is probably the least important one.)
The promises of AI only focus on end results. On production. Doing things faster, more perfect, saving us time and effort. (Reminds me of Momo by Michael Ende. Have you read the book?)
But creativity is not about production of products which can then be turned into easy cash...
Creativity is about the process of engaging with the medium, and all the wonderful things we discover along the way (as you and I know). Why would we want to let a dumb Bot take that away from us?
Sorry huge comment ahead. But as an artist who works in AI research, this post was really something.
Thank you for such a rich, deep post !
Very insightful. Beautiful too. Ease is not fulfillment. Reminds me of this passage from dostoievsky's notes from the underground :
"Drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself."
As soon as the point of art becomes the finished product, and we automatize the rest, art becomes pointless. No mountain to climb. No hard to chew on bits, no way to prove ourselves.
As far as answering the question of why it's better to make art yourself, and not through AI, other than the subjective value of engaging in the full process, I might venture this one (among many other reasons) :
"
AI art models are trained to mimic. That is their mathematical objective function. They are unable to produce anything that's not typical. If your means of going from the image in your mind to the image on the canvas (or tablet, whatever) is a system that is allergic to novelty, you aren't free to create.
AI introduces a creativity bottleneck in the artist's workflow.
"
That bit about planes flying being incomparable to birds flying is so spot on. When we draw, we can look at our own hand and feel the years of experience move it as if magically.
We can watch as the lines on the paper come to be from nothing, and at the same time know that it is us doing the whole thing. And at any time, we can break this contemplation, and decide to abruptly move our hand elsewhere.
There is no such thing in AI art. It's as close to being an artist as sitting in a plane is to being a bird. Fantastic comparison !
"And what if there is no answer? Just hollow emptiness?"
I'm fine with there being no answer. No answer doesn't mean emptiness. It doesn't feel hollow. It feels like reality. Rich and overwhelming. There is no objective, no absolute guide. We are to dive into this world, feel what it makes us feel, act, react, and eventually, die. Where does this need for an objective purpose shared among everyone come from ? AI has a mathematically defined, absolute objective. But that's one of its pitfalls. Why do we crave one too ?
"Will it push us to find what really matters?"
That's why I'm a bit excited about AI. I can't wait to see what real artists come up with in reaction. To differentiate themselves from the flood of well-composed, well-rendered yet empty AI images, what are artists going to create ? What food for the eyes, for the soul ?
- Tell me how you keep it real, how do you stay grounded?
Spending time alone and in nature. It's cliché, but every time I sleep in the forest in a hammock, I come back to the city with a completely new outlook on life and a more refined plan for the future.
- Already using this power-tool? What do you think are the pitfalls of generative tech?
I use it everyday. For code, because I work in AI but don't like to code. It's great at automatizing stuff you don't want to do.
But I have friends who LOVE to code, and they will never use these tools.
In the same way, the main pitfall of image ones for me is that I enjoy drawing. If I want to copy a Goya and place myself in his half-insane mind for a few hours, it would be absurd to ask an AI to generate a copy, and consider it done.
Also, models like Midjourney are finetuned to give more aesthetic results, on a dataset that is heavily biased towards American middle-aged photographs. That is just one of their many biases.
- Tech can only truly serve if it can be trusted. But how can we?
With modern AI, there are no guarantees. Black boxes with hundreds of billions of parameters (some rumors place chatgpt at two trillion parameters !) cannot be verified, understood, explained.
- In what way are you already sabotaging your outgoing data? How do you stay invisible to unseen eyes and ears?
I don't post my finished pieces. I have a day job, and do art because it is fulfilling. But I'm not too afraid of my style being copied. I don't think the value I have to offer in my art is purely visual, or even half visual. An interesting composition isn't as impactful as the message that is behind it.
Guernica wouldn't cause the emotion it does if it didn't represent a real event.
Saturn devouring his own son isn't captivating because of the colors that are chosen or the particular visual style, but because it is absolutely insane. It could have been made in almost any style, and retained the message.
AI is not insane, it doesn't feel anything about bombardments, and it doesn't want to communicate anything to us. Why would I fear it, and try to sabotage it ?
"But a straight line only graces our sphere. Down here all trajectories are curved."
Thanks, great comment. Glad I discovered your Youtube channel and I suspect it will quickly grow into an important dialogue about possible responses to AI flooding into all creative sectors. No easy answers to what it will do to culture. I am beginning to wonder if it might be both the worst and the best at the same time.
As an artist I do see crazy potential in the tool, but already I feel that the paywalls block me from integrating that assistant. What excites me is that this tech asks for combining the ways and processes of engineering and art. The best stuff probably lies in small, local cooperatives, that share the costs and knowledge needed to make indie films, animations, documentaries, games, inventions, that produce local 'goods' at a level unprecedented. Or will art go underground? Become invisible? Is there a new type of Jazz brewing? A counterculture that starts doing what is still unthinkable today? Will new waves shred the AI like Hendrix did his guitar?
As it has always been it is the artists that have to find those ways forward with the available means. Despite not knowing what lies ahead. And we must address the ones with the means to make those means available to the courageous ones.
Let's keep talking...
(If there is a reason for you to stay anonymous, than that's fine, if not, I would love to know your name and face....)
Absolutely, there are no easy answers. I find my own opinions on the matter evolving from week to week, with every conversation I have.
But it is so fascinating, that I just want to be part of the discussion. We are lucky to be alive at this pivotal moment, and it would be a waste not to participate.
There will definitely be many unique ways of making art emerging locally out of a chance encounter of AI talent and artistic talents. By knowing how AI works and using that knowledge to modify it, morph it into an envisioned shape, groups of two or three people (for instance, a DJ, a concept artist, and an AI guy) will have amazing opportunities for groundbreaking art.
AI has infinite potential for bridging with other disciplines. For instance, I once lent my AI skills to a researcher in Ecology, to do work on the evolutionary nature of beauty.
You're right, there is definitely a new type of Jazz brewing. The laws of the universe dictate that there will be a reaction to AI. Maybe it'll be bigger than jazz, or maybe it'll be a poor and hollow movement. But it'll be there.
How will it look ? Maybe they will emphasize the physical ? Sculpt things by throwing rocks at other rocks in a fit of anger ? Maybe those of us with the fullest souls, those full of flames and flowers, will seek a group to express their deep insights in a way they never can with AI. Maybe they will all converge somewhere at some point, in some city or some online space, and the reaction to shallow AI would be the deepest inquiry into the human soul ever undertaken.
Who knows ?
Is it paywalls holding you back ? For me it's the technical aspect (I'd rather run these models in code than deal with the awful discord interface of Midjourney).
I feel like 20 bucks a month to generate images at will with DALLE-3 and talk to the best AI text generator everyday, has been more than worth it.
When SORA comes out, I don't know how much they'll charge, but I'll probably pay for that too.
(I’ve decided to remain anonymous to keep the focus on the ideas, not on personal details. I’m generally a private person and like to keep it low-key. I’m open to sharing a bit more about myself if you'd rather talk to a face than to a logo, but not publicly. Really, I’m just here to spark some meaningful discussions and learn from them.)
Wow, Bertus, this was an incredible read. Like so many others here, my mind is swirling with comments. Though I can't recall where now, I recently read something about how humans are really good at making models of things as the way we come to understand the thing. We make maps to better understand space. To use one of your examples, we make airplanes (models of birds) to understand flight. Even though our models are usually pretty terrible, there is something about this model making that speaks to the way we learn. And so, my hope with AI has been that through this model of intelligence that we've created, we'll come to better understand intelligence in general. Through this artificial model, maybe we'll learn how to recognize the intelligence of forests and oceans and stars. (Then again, maybe I'm especially naive.) And then, I also was very struck by your discussion on the idea of fulfillment. It occurred to me that fulfillment is something we do with a promise or a vow. It made me wonder about the idea of life itself being the fulfillment of a promise. Anyway, I have many many more thoughts but I'll leave it there. Thank you so much for this wonderful work! ♥️
wow you kept me all the way through, what an invitation and opening to what we humans uniquely know how in our "becoming" natures..to experience "fulfulling" felt sense satisfactions given through our human tissue communication. Ahhhh that feels sooo good. Creation, making, imagining, being messy and discovering
(Have read just the first 1/4 of your interesting article.) Some initial thoughts:
The steam engine, the internal combustion engine, nuclear power ("will make electricity so cheap it won't even be worth billing people"), the computer, internet ('will bring peace because everyone will have equal access to all knowledge) .... every new technology is sold as "progress" without ever defining what 'progress' means. (ill-defined words/concepts are a typical ruse in ideological statements (like Make-America-Great-Again ... when was America last 'great' and what parameters define a country as 'great'?)
The ideology of progress (as with every ideology) involves ramping up the ends justifying the means. (This is logically impossible as Gandhi and Aldous Huxley pointed out [amongst others] because ends & means are 'one-thing'. The separation is false).
Technology is also an amplifier of human intent and its power has far outstripped the spiritual maturity of humans to handle it well -- ie: as a servant, not a master. This role-reversal is a sign of idolatry (to use an old fashioned word), ie: worshipping a false god which is expected to give us benefits in exchange for our 'sacrifices' to it.
(Looking forward to reading the rest of your article.)
Good to see you here Joshua, thank you for this. To slowly find people who 'confirm' the perspectives I arrived at intuitively long ago but had no words for. Who share the doubt and the openness. I am largely self educated and had no academic circle to guide or support me in this. You probably know how dismissive most people are of fundamental flaws in the human construct. I cherish this connection and hope it will deepen further.
I have a post in making about tools. And your idolatry view on this is very helpful. The point of role reversal in the use of tools is core and not at all easy or straightforward. There is something very essential we are missing. And I bump into it a lot as a builder. My hands know, my head struggles....
At the end of the 15 interview questions, there is an addendum where I chart the stages of the growth of both ideologies, and idolatry (with its role-reversal). I think you might find it interesting in relation to what you have written above.
Ivan Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" is a good (and short) book to read.
Thank you both — you and your son — for the clarifying revelation (as so often!). Like Veronika I couldn't get to the end of your piece without writing some things first (now there's a compliment!).
And here's my revelation; the thing that I suddenly, irreversibly, can't believe it was hard for me to see — *it's not the product that matters, it's the process*. The creation, the fucking up, the sharing, the fulfilment, the learning.
We are so sickened and diminished by this culture that we think someone offering "hey, I'll give you the product without the process" is a good deal!!
Wow, the conclusion without the reasoning — what could be better!?
YES!! not only will I take this away from you, I'll take it away from everyone! You'll forget it ever existed!!
Hey, I'll even get you safely to death without even having to live. Sign right here.
So much great stuff in this post! Here are some nuggets I picked out:
"The joy comes from re-alignment. ...It is the maximum contribution you as an individual can make. It allows you to be you."
"You do not go from dependency to being independent, but you have stepped into the much more desirable state of interdependency."
"Fulfilment is intrinsic. It is found within."
"Life is only worth living if it is lived. If you are engaged in it."
"Fulfilment is not something you can hold, or own."
"So many new inventions introduced as superior turned out to also have some very nasty properties. Going so radically digital in such a short time could be the biggest mistake to date."
"The skills to lead a good life haven't changed much. Going through a full process, from beginning to end, teaches the necessary skills. And those skills resemble the skills to lead a wild life. ... wild as in autonomous and self steering as opposed to enslaved by, dependent on."
"How about finding out as the most fulfilling pastime?"
"I think I will go full analogue with my new project, just to see if I still can, just to be my obnoxious unpredictable self. Because I am, we all are."
where the author compares the dehumanising power of AI to slavery!
"However, the evolution of science and AI seems to prioritise uniformity and covetousness over individual uniqueness, not too dissimilar to the dehumanising aspects of eras gone-by (Slavery)."
ps Bertus — I dropped you a quick message/question the other day via the StF forums, and you're the last person I'm waiting to hear back from before acting on it. A quick yay or nay would be helpful :)
Pretty soon I'll be using the words faculties of consciousness as if they always have existed. Yes, Momo. Did you know my novel TCOTNK puts a children's picture book in the lead?
Keep those thoughts coming Veronika! I think the rest of the piece has some tickles too...
The Faculties of Consciousness have always existed! They've been waiting for us to discover them. Did you know they each have their own territory in the inner world, their own populations, languages, and cultures? You can meet them soon...
I don't know about your novel. Tell me more, I'm curious!
Looking forward to that meetup.
Here's my pitch for TCOTNK:
Charlotte, a headstrong 16yo, leaves home to rebel against the world. She joins a gathering of outcasts sparking her flame. Thirty years earlier, her grandmother already knew she would, and has left instructions in a picture book.
Her first festival changes Charlotte's live. Her last festival changes all else.
And here you can find the Index with links to all seasons and chapters:
https://bertus.substack.com/p/index
For Billy: Be a one off. Do a one off. Look at how others do, and find your own way of doing it. You are here to leave a mark. A mark the shape of you.
This essay is bigger than AI, it’s the whole question of what am I for. I remember writing in college and telling my writer boyfriend that I didn’t see why to write cause everything was already there on the internet. Now I’m building something that is definitely me-shaped. A food and farming collaborative. Relational. Grounded. And I’m experiencing the true wildness of my Billy and our pack of big ancient-brain-type dogs trapped in town between the police. And there’s nothing like it in the struggle and wild joy of it, which is not always pretty but it’s somewhere AI could never get. It’s the fox crossing the road in front of me while I write you because I’m going so hard this is the only time to write you and he the fox is too. This is our time to cross. It’s Marlowe Tackett’s, the wild dance hall of a generation back in all its sex and violence and glory
Whoohoo Alice!
I hope you could hear that rocksong cry in there....
Alice, having not heard before about that particular den of ill-repute from your neck of the woods, I have to thank you for this glorious adventure!
https://medium.com/@kidether/the-legend-of-marlows-country-palace-fdfaba2d00ca
Holy shit you found it on the internet!!!! My Billy grew up there 12 years old same as that medium author. I heard about it from him!
I admit I haven't read the full post yet, Bertus (promise to come back and continue later). But to the first section I had already so many thoughts flooding in, I want to share some with you before they fly off...
You write, "Because this unprecedented rise of uncanny technology does scare me shitless. Not because I resist the use of incredible tech. Way more the lukewarm response and half-baked objections to what could be, and probably is, a soul-devouring flood."
I picked up the struggle to respond to all those 'sleek and good arguments' from proponents of AI. And of course we are using AI all the time already just by communicating via computer and internet...
But there is a difference in being pulled deeper into this technology they call AI (in my understanding) Artificial Intelligence is actually not intelligent at all. It is only using this word because 'Intelligence' has been equated with 'Intellect' and ever since Descartes people have believed that the rational mind IS THE MIND.
Now we know that's not true at all. There are so many more Faculties of Consciousness which most people are only vaguely aware of and certainly don't know how to use to their full potential. All Faculties of Consciousness contribute to human creativity. (The intellect is probably the least important one.)
The promises of AI only focus on end results. On production. Doing things faster, more perfect, saving us time and effort. (Reminds me of Momo by Michael Ende. Have you read the book?)
But creativity is not about production of products which can then be turned into easy cash...
Creativity is about the process of engaging with the medium, and all the wonderful things we discover along the way (as you and I know). Why would we want to let a dumb Bot take that away from us?
I better stop here for now.
Sorry huge comment ahead. But as an artist who works in AI research, this post was really something.
Thank you for such a rich, deep post !
Very insightful. Beautiful too. Ease is not fulfillment. Reminds me of this passage from dostoievsky's notes from the underground :
"Drown him in a sea of happiness, so that nothing but bubbles of bliss can be seen on the surface; give him economic prosperity, such that he should have nothing else to do but sleep, eat cakes and busy himself with the continuation of his species, and even then out of sheer ingratitude, sheer spite, man would play you some nasty trick. He would even risk his cakes and would deliberately desire the most fatal rubbish, the most uneconomical absurdity, simply to introduce into all this positive good sense his fatal fantastic element. It is just his fantastic dreams, his vulgar folly that he will desire to retain, simply in order to prove to himself."
As soon as the point of art becomes the finished product, and we automatize the rest, art becomes pointless. No mountain to climb. No hard to chew on bits, no way to prove ourselves.
As far as answering the question of why it's better to make art yourself, and not through AI, other than the subjective value of engaging in the full process, I might venture this one (among many other reasons) :
"
AI art models are trained to mimic. That is their mathematical objective function. They are unable to produce anything that's not typical. If your means of going from the image in your mind to the image on the canvas (or tablet, whatever) is a system that is allergic to novelty, you aren't free to create.
AI introduces a creativity bottleneck in the artist's workflow.
"
That bit about planes flying being incomparable to birds flying is so spot on. When we draw, we can look at our own hand and feel the years of experience move it as if magically.
We can watch as the lines on the paper come to be from nothing, and at the same time know that it is us doing the whole thing. And at any time, we can break this contemplation, and decide to abruptly move our hand elsewhere.
There is no such thing in AI art. It's as close to being an artist as sitting in a plane is to being a bird. Fantastic comparison !
"And what if there is no answer? Just hollow emptiness?"
I'm fine with there being no answer. No answer doesn't mean emptiness. It doesn't feel hollow. It feels like reality. Rich and overwhelming. There is no objective, no absolute guide. We are to dive into this world, feel what it makes us feel, act, react, and eventually, die. Where does this need for an objective purpose shared among everyone come from ? AI has a mathematically defined, absolute objective. But that's one of its pitfalls. Why do we crave one too ?
"Will it push us to find what really matters?"
That's why I'm a bit excited about AI. I can't wait to see what real artists come up with in reaction. To differentiate themselves from the flood of well-composed, well-rendered yet empty AI images, what are artists going to create ? What food for the eyes, for the soul ?
- Tell me how you keep it real, how do you stay grounded?
Spending time alone and in nature. It's cliché, but every time I sleep in the forest in a hammock, I come back to the city with a completely new outlook on life and a more refined plan for the future.
- Already using this power-tool? What do you think are the pitfalls of generative tech?
I use it everyday. For code, because I work in AI but don't like to code. It's great at automatizing stuff you don't want to do.
But I have friends who LOVE to code, and they will never use these tools.
In the same way, the main pitfall of image ones for me is that I enjoy drawing. If I want to copy a Goya and place myself in his half-insane mind for a few hours, it would be absurd to ask an AI to generate a copy, and consider it done.
Also, models like Midjourney are finetuned to give more aesthetic results, on a dataset that is heavily biased towards American middle-aged photographs. That is just one of their many biases.
- Tech can only truly serve if it can be trusted. But how can we?
With modern AI, there are no guarantees. Black boxes with hundreds of billions of parameters (some rumors place chatgpt at two trillion parameters !) cannot be verified, understood, explained.
- In what way are you already sabotaging your outgoing data? How do you stay invisible to unseen eyes and ears?
I don't post my finished pieces. I have a day job, and do art because it is fulfilling. But I'm not too afraid of my style being copied. I don't think the value I have to offer in my art is purely visual, or even half visual. An interesting composition isn't as impactful as the message that is behind it.
Guernica wouldn't cause the emotion it does if it didn't represent a real event.
Saturn devouring his own son isn't captivating because of the colors that are chosen or the particular visual style, but because it is absolutely insane. It could have been made in almost any style, and retained the message.
AI is not insane, it doesn't feel anything about bombardments, and it doesn't want to communicate anything to us. Why would I fear it, and try to sabotage it ?
"But a straight line only graces our sphere. Down here all trajectories are curved."
Such a beautiful two sentences.
Thanks, great comment. Glad I discovered your Youtube channel and I suspect it will quickly grow into an important dialogue about possible responses to AI flooding into all creative sectors. No easy answers to what it will do to culture. I am beginning to wonder if it might be both the worst and the best at the same time.
As an artist I do see crazy potential in the tool, but already I feel that the paywalls block me from integrating that assistant. What excites me is that this tech asks for combining the ways and processes of engineering and art. The best stuff probably lies in small, local cooperatives, that share the costs and knowledge needed to make indie films, animations, documentaries, games, inventions, that produce local 'goods' at a level unprecedented. Or will art go underground? Become invisible? Is there a new type of Jazz brewing? A counterculture that starts doing what is still unthinkable today? Will new waves shred the AI like Hendrix did his guitar?
As it has always been it is the artists that have to find those ways forward with the available means. Despite not knowing what lies ahead. And we must address the ones with the means to make those means available to the courageous ones.
Let's keep talking...
(If there is a reason for you to stay anonymous, than that's fine, if not, I would love to know your name and face....)
Bertus
Absolutely, there are no easy answers. I find my own opinions on the matter evolving from week to week, with every conversation I have.
But it is so fascinating, that I just want to be part of the discussion. We are lucky to be alive at this pivotal moment, and it would be a waste not to participate.
There will definitely be many unique ways of making art emerging locally out of a chance encounter of AI talent and artistic talents. By knowing how AI works and using that knowledge to modify it, morph it into an envisioned shape, groups of two or three people (for instance, a DJ, a concept artist, and an AI guy) will have amazing opportunities for groundbreaking art.
AI has infinite potential for bridging with other disciplines. For instance, I once lent my AI skills to a researcher in Ecology, to do work on the evolutionary nature of beauty.
You're right, there is definitely a new type of Jazz brewing. The laws of the universe dictate that there will be a reaction to AI. Maybe it'll be bigger than jazz, or maybe it'll be a poor and hollow movement. But it'll be there.
How will it look ? Maybe they will emphasize the physical ? Sculpt things by throwing rocks at other rocks in a fit of anger ? Maybe those of us with the fullest souls, those full of flames and flowers, will seek a group to express their deep insights in a way they never can with AI. Maybe they will all converge somewhere at some point, in some city or some online space, and the reaction to shallow AI would be the deepest inquiry into the human soul ever undertaken.
Who knows ?
Is it paywalls holding you back ? For me it's the technical aspect (I'd rather run these models in code than deal with the awful discord interface of Midjourney).
I feel like 20 bucks a month to generate images at will with DALLE-3 and talk to the best AI text generator everyday, has been more than worth it.
When SORA comes out, I don't know how much they'll charge, but I'll probably pay for that too.
(I’ve decided to remain anonymous to keep the focus on the ideas, not on personal details. I’m generally a private person and like to keep it low-key. I’m open to sharing a bit more about myself if you'd rather talk to a face than to a logo, but not publicly. Really, I’m just here to spark some meaningful discussions and learn from them.)
Wow, Bertus, this was an incredible read. Like so many others here, my mind is swirling with comments. Though I can't recall where now, I recently read something about how humans are really good at making models of things as the way we come to understand the thing. We make maps to better understand space. To use one of your examples, we make airplanes (models of birds) to understand flight. Even though our models are usually pretty terrible, there is something about this model making that speaks to the way we learn. And so, my hope with AI has been that through this model of intelligence that we've created, we'll come to better understand intelligence in general. Through this artificial model, maybe we'll learn how to recognize the intelligence of forests and oceans and stars. (Then again, maybe I'm especially naive.) And then, I also was very struck by your discussion on the idea of fulfillment. It occurred to me that fulfillment is something we do with a promise or a vow. It made me wonder about the idea of life itself being the fulfillment of a promise. Anyway, I have many many more thoughts but I'll leave it there. Thank you so much for this wonderful work! ♥️
wow you kept me all the way through, what an invitation and opening to what we humans uniquely know how in our "becoming" natures..to experience "fulfulling" felt sense satisfactions given through our human tissue communication. Ahhhh that feels sooo good. Creation, making, imagining, being messy and discovering
(Have read just the first 1/4 of your interesting article.) Some initial thoughts:
The steam engine, the internal combustion engine, nuclear power ("will make electricity so cheap it won't even be worth billing people"), the computer, internet ('will bring peace because everyone will have equal access to all knowledge) .... every new technology is sold as "progress" without ever defining what 'progress' means. (ill-defined words/concepts are a typical ruse in ideological statements (like Make-America-Great-Again ... when was America last 'great' and what parameters define a country as 'great'?)
The ideology of progress (as with every ideology) involves ramping up the ends justifying the means. (This is logically impossible as Gandhi and Aldous Huxley pointed out [amongst others] because ends & means are 'one-thing'. The separation is false).
Technology is also an amplifier of human intent and its power has far outstripped the spiritual maturity of humans to handle it well -- ie: as a servant, not a master. This role-reversal is a sign of idolatry (to use an old fashioned word), ie: worshipping a false god which is expected to give us benefits in exchange for our 'sacrifices' to it.
(Looking forward to reading the rest of your article.)
Good to see you here Joshua, thank you for this. To slowly find people who 'confirm' the perspectives I arrived at intuitively long ago but had no words for. Who share the doubt and the openness. I am largely self educated and had no academic circle to guide or support me in this. You probably know how dismissive most people are of fundamental flaws in the human construct. I cherish this connection and hope it will deepen further.
I have a post in making about tools. And your idolatry view on this is very helpful. The point of role reversal in the use of tools is core and not at all easy or straightforward. There is something very essential we are missing. And I bump into it a lot as a builder. My hands know, my head struggles....
Thank you for the reply. I am an engineer by training then switched to academia, then to making things with my hands. You can find my 'story' as an interview with 'Lies are Unbekoming', here: https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/the-journey?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2
At the end of the 15 interview questions, there is an addendum where I chart the stages of the growth of both ideologies, and idolatry (with its role-reversal). I think you might find it interesting in relation to what you have written above.
Ivan Illich's "Tools for Conviviality" is a good (and short) book to read.
Also here on substack I like: L.M. Sacasas (theconvivialsociety.substack.com).
Best regards, Josh.
Big breasted LLM. I laughed out loud. 😂
Thank you both — you and your son — for the clarifying revelation (as so often!). Like Veronika I couldn't get to the end of your piece without writing some things first (now there's a compliment!).
And here's my revelation; the thing that I suddenly, irreversibly, can't believe it was hard for me to see — *it's not the product that matters, it's the process*. The creation, the fucking up, the sharing, the fulfilment, the learning.
We are so sickened and diminished by this culture that we think someone offering "hey, I'll give you the product without the process" is a good deal!!
Wow, the conclusion without the reasoning — what could be better!?
YES!! not only will I take this away from you, I'll take it away from everyone! You'll forget it ever existed!!
Hey, I'll even get you safely to death without even having to live. Sign right here.
So much great stuff in this post! Here are some nuggets I picked out:
"The joy comes from re-alignment. ...It is the maximum contribution you as an individual can make. It allows you to be you."
"You do not go from dependency to being independent, but you have stepped into the much more desirable state of interdependency."
"Fulfilment is intrinsic. It is found within."
"Life is only worth living if it is lived. If you are engaged in it."
"Fulfilment is not something you can hold, or own."
"So many new inventions introduced as superior turned out to also have some very nasty properties. Going so radically digital in such a short time could be the biggest mistake to date."
"The skills to lead a good life haven't changed much. Going through a full process, from beginning to end, teaches the necessary skills. And those skills resemble the skills to lead a wild life. ... wild as in autonomous and self steering as opposed to enslaved by, dependent on."
"How about finding out as the most fulfilling pastime?"
"I think I will go full analogue with my new project, just to see if I still can, just to be my obnoxious unpredictable self. Because I am, we all are."
Your mentioning of 'wild' as opposed to 'enslaved' reminds me of another essay I read a couple of days ago here https://thedataoflife.substack.com/p/wabi-sabi-ever-after
where the author compares the dehumanising power of AI to slavery!
"However, the evolution of science and AI seems to prioritise uniformity and covetousness over individual uniqueness, not too dissimilar to the dehumanising aspects of eras gone-by (Slavery)."
ps Bertus — I dropped you a quick message/question the other day via the StF forums, and you're the last person I'm waiting to hear back from before acting on it. A quick yay or nay would be helpful :)
Sorry, didn't visit stf for a while....I'll take a look...