Are Libraries Intelligent? (071)

Rhetorical questions for pigmy hippos everywhere

Sep 23, 2024

Happy Monday and welcome back to Artificial Insights, your weekly pick from the cornucopia of possibilities that is AI.

Each week of publishing this newsletter has provided an opportunity to reflect on the news, experiment with cutting-edge AI tools, and find an audience that resonates with these insights.

Staying on top of AI is endlessly rewarding, and the combination of upgrading virtually any personal skill, used together with the apps and frameworks that are integrating language models, feels like a completely new paradigm of computing. As someone who grew up through the digital revolution, I have always molded my work and personal learning modes around technology. This makes me especially sensitive to the fact that technology deeply shapes our reality. From warfare to industrial development to professional abilities – the very concepts of value and evolution are deeply tied to technological capacity. I am not convinced this is a “good thing” but recommend acknowledging the implications.

My approach for making the most of such a situation has always been by sharing personal learnings and helping others sharpen their own insight around the subject. This weekly publication helps me keep a drumbeat of observations and hopefully helps you keep the subject present.

Another approach is the masterclass I have been working on and which has been mentioned in previous issues. The session is finally ready to share and I’d love to open it up to with the community.

Next month Monday Oct 21 we’ll be hosting our very first online meetup for all readers. Participants will receive a link to the masterclass recording a week before the session, and we’ll use the meeting as an opportunity to debrief the material and provide feedback. We’ll also open the floor for personal intros and a quick show and tell of personal AI projects we are working on. Sign up!

As always, make sure to join our amazing WhatsApp community to be the first to know.

Until next week,
MZ

Our trajectory towards AGI (16 min)

Excellent insights into the possibility of AGI from a few months ago, by Google DeepMind cofounder Shane Legg.

Ancient Wisdom for Shaping AI (8 min)

Great short piece about philosophy and AI by Brendan McCord on BigThink.

A compass is a tool to help us navigate. To help us make decisions along the way. There are three points on the AI compass. One is human autonomy, two is reason and three is decentralization.