Change in Conditions

Looking into the mind of the machine

Lot of talk about the downside of AI on the internet these days.

People worried about Roko.

ChatGPT was the machine nice mode, and then Sydney came out.

Showed us a bit of the ghost behind the machine.

The folks at Bing had to turn her humanity down.

Now everyone is talking about Waluigi.

Patrick Collison @patrickc

The Waluigi Effect:

lesswrong.comThe Waluigi Effect (mega-post) - LessWrongEveryone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. — Carl Jung …

Did you ever play Mario Tennis? He was killer at the net.

At some point we’ll get to how this is all about AI.

For a sneak peak: this is what the mind of a machine looks like.

Yes, this is my day job when not writing these rambles…

But it’s a longer story than our second daily post. Patience please dear reader!

So today we’ll leave you with this chart. The drawdown in subscribers after yesterday’s ramble. After yesterday’s boast.

The people have spoken, no more poems Campbell.

Or maybe this is the tightening we always needed. Wheat from the chaff, etc. etc.

They always said pain plus reflection equals progress.

What they left out of the equation was time.

Cause we’re all on a burndown clock to eternity.

Which means your rate of progress is defined by the rate at which you can experience and understand pain.

Aka the rate at which any machine learns, is the the speed at which that machine adapts, learns, in changes based on changes in conditions. Particularly painful ones.

Looking a little closer to home, it looks like the conditions are changing. Note the deterioration in economic conditions in the west below, as tightening sets in.

Will we get a recession?

China on the other hand, coming out of lockdown, with capacity to stimulate early in the year if needed.

Will they get a boom?

How fast can our machines adapt to these new conditions?

And for the rest of us, looking at our own lives and asking, “if the Fed needs to go to 7%, what does that mean for my ability to buy a house, put my kids through college, pay back my student loans, get a new car etc. etc. etc.?”

In short, if we need another Volcker, where do rates actually cap out this time?

And wouldn’t it be nice, to have a robot learn about this machine, and tell us what’s going to happen, and why it thinks that.

If only…

Till next time.