‘Superintelligence,’ Ten Years On
AI catastrophe is easy to imagine, but a lot has to go consistently and infallibly wrong for the doom theory to pan out.
AI
60 articles
The Digital Mirror of Narcissus
Technology steers my life along tracks chosen for my digital double, not for me. But this proxy personalisation wouldn’t work at all if I didn’t play my part.
ChatGPT’s Moral Compass
We hear much talk of “aligning AI with human values” but relatively little delineation of what these values are.
One Year Since the AI Pause Petition
Just because we can imagine something terrible happening, that does not mean it will happen.
Google and the Gemini Debacle
This cock-up was not caused by a bug that went unnoticed; it was deliberately engineered.
To Accelerate or Decelerate AI: That is the Question
Explaining the “accel/decel” split at the heart of the OpenAI power struggle.
Robots, Rats and Hoverchairs: Three Dystopian AI Fantasies
Human beings need meaning, and a life in which all one’s needs were met by external agents would fail to provide it.
Faking Hope: AI Art as Propaganda
There is a new contender for the most effective weapon in the propaganda wars: photorealistic, generative AI art.
The Unexpected Benefits of Artificial Intimacy: Quillette Cetera Episode 21
An interview with evolutionary biologist Rob Brooks about the positive aspects of AI lovers.
Old Model, New Tricks
On the 85th anniversary of his death, a look back at the legacy of Nikolai Kondratiev and its implications for the coming age of GenAI.
AIs Will Be Our Mind Children
We must free our artificial descendants to adapt to their new worlds and choose what they will become.
AI: Let’s Worry About the Right Things
There are valid concerns and there are unfounded fears. Let us separate the two.