Appreciate you taking a moment to write up your thoughts. I'm torn between disappointment and relief that there do not seem to be any poorly made video recordings of the proceedings. I'm landing on relief and expect that my own imagination, along with some working papers and blogposts, is better than muffled voices on YouTube.
And thanks for sharing that Barzun quote. I rather like Brad DeLong's "anthology intelligence" or Shalizi’s own "collective cognition" but now I'll finally go read House of Intellect.
"Mechanized tradition" is a nifty way of characterizing AI. I myself slightly prefer Harry Collins' framework of "behavior-specific actions" because it is a little more precise. LLMs turn text processing into a behavior specific action which is both a genuine innovation but also turns the textual exchange into a mechanical interaction.
For what it's worth, I think the mechanized intellect formulation is wholly commensurable with the role-playing interpretation—in fact, I think they're two sides of the same coin! Unless you have a much more romantic view of "personhood" than I do?
I'm half with you here: I fully agree that role-playing is an essential component of mechanized intellect. But, in The House of Intellect, Barzun positions intellect as a collective institution distinct from individualized personhood. The full quote Cosma shared in his talk makes Barzun's distinction clear. I like his framing!
"Intellect is the capitalized and communal form of live intelligence; it is intelligence stored up and made into habits of discipline, signs and symbols of meaning, chains of reasoning and spurs to emotion — a shorthand and a wireless by which the mind can skip connectives, recognize ability, and communicate truth. Intellect is at once a body of common knowledge and the channels through which the right particle of it can be brought to bear quickly, without the effort of redemonstration, on the matter in hand.
"Intellect is community property and can be handed down. We all know what we mean by an intellectual tradition, localized here or there; but we do not speak of a “tradition of intelligence,” for intelligence sprouts where it will…. And though Intellect neither implies nor precludes intelligence, two of its uses are — to make up for the lack of intelligence and to amplify the force of it by giving it quick recognition and apt embodiment.
"For intelligence wherever found is an individual and private possession; it dies with the owner unless he embodies it in more or less lasting form. Intellect is on the contrary a product of social effort and an acquirement…. Intellect is an institution; it stands up as it were by itself, apart from the possessors of intelligence, even though they alone could rebuild it if it should be destroyed….
"The distinction becomes unmistakable if one thinks of the alphabet — a product of successive acts of intelligence which, when completed, turned into one of the indispensable furnishings of the House of Intellect."
Role-playing is simultaneously the context and the texture against which mechanized or natural(ized) intellect operates. It is also what propels the ongoing reciprocal interaction between intelligence and intellect (or what I called data and process in my talk).
This gibes with those face averaging surveys done back in the 90s, I think. The idea was that the face composed as an average of a collection of faces was rated more attractive than any individual face.
"Not having to think is often a good thing! Tradition lets us externalize certain processes so we can focus on other tasks. Formalities strengthen cultural connections. Traditions in communication help us understand each other better and come to consensus faster."
Absolutely!
These days I like to turn Wittgenstein's 'language being based on shared experiences' into 'culture being based on shared convictions'. These shared convictions are important to minimise friction, transaction costs, and they increase speed. The aspect of convictions (beliefs, assumptions, etc.) is an essential perspective, I think.
Human intellect is for as large part automated, in the form of our convictions and beliefs that we can use efficiently and quickly (most of your judgements on what people tell you are instantaneous, for instance). This makes us both energy-efficient and fast, something evolution has selected for.
Even at a tribe level, having shared convictions is essential. If you have to cooperate, the people you cooperate with need to be predictable. I.e. if your fellow tribe member must be predictable or the common hunt comes up empty. Trust (assumptions about future actions) is thus essential.
Both forms of 'mental automation' — at the individual level and at the tribe level — are necessarily stable, i.e. hard to change. That stability is a conditio sine qua non for efficiency and speed.
Humans have expanded the use of 'shared convictions' from the tribe size to enormous sizes, often based on stabilising institutions (religion, laws, etc.) but the larger the group the more brittle this setup is. We have evolved for tribes of 150-200 members (Dunbar's number) but have expanded this to brittle tribes of hundreds of millions. And as information is the glue, the information revolution and its siblings information misuse, warfare, etc. create havoc in the human world.
As intelligence is wordless and built in parallel oscillation, there is no intellect in text, nor in the total amount of text, just as "language is not the sum of all possible expressions in language" Halliday, there is no intellect to any form of AI. This idea that AI is cultural is dangerous as code is more UFOlogy than either science or engineering. Code does not adhere to any bio or physical regularities that would force it to limits (like airflow, gravity etc), so essentially it's a magic that creates outcomes by switches.
AI is more evident of a disproof of language as any idealization of intellect. Arbitrary code disproving arbitrary metaphors.
See Dario Amodei: "“Meaning isn’t an engineering problem. I don’t feel like I have the answer.”
Appreciate you taking a moment to write up your thoughts. I'm torn between disappointment and relief that there do not seem to be any poorly made video recordings of the proceedings. I'm landing on relief and expect that my own imagination, along with some working papers and blogposts, is better than muffled voices on YouTube.
And thanks for sharing that Barzun quote. I rather like Brad DeLong's "anthology intelligence" or Shalizi’s own "collective cognition" but now I'll finally go read House of Intellect.
The organizers tell me the videos will be on YouTube soon. Stay tuned!
I'm already disappointed that I can't watch them right now.
"Mechanized tradition" is a nifty way of characterizing AI. I myself slightly prefer Harry Collins' framework of "behavior-specific actions" because it is a little more precise. LLMs turn text processing into a behavior specific action which is both a genuine innovation but also turns the textual exchange into a mechanical interaction.
Nothing new under the sun
For what it's worth, I think the mechanized intellect formulation is wholly commensurable with the role-playing interpretation—in fact, I think they're two sides of the same coin! Unless you have a much more romantic view of "personhood" than I do?
I'm half with you here: I fully agree that role-playing is an essential component of mechanized intellect. But, in The House of Intellect, Barzun positions intellect as a collective institution distinct from individualized personhood. The full quote Cosma shared in his talk makes Barzun's distinction clear. I like his framing!
"Intellect is the capitalized and communal form of live intelligence; it is intelligence stored up and made into habits of discipline, signs and symbols of meaning, chains of reasoning and spurs to emotion — a shorthand and a wireless by which the mind can skip connectives, recognize ability, and communicate truth. Intellect is at once a body of common knowledge and the channels through which the right particle of it can be brought to bear quickly, without the effort of redemonstration, on the matter in hand.
"Intellect is community property and can be handed down. We all know what we mean by an intellectual tradition, localized here or there; but we do not speak of a “tradition of intelligence,” for intelligence sprouts where it will…. And though Intellect neither implies nor precludes intelligence, two of its uses are — to make up for the lack of intelligence and to amplify the force of it by giving it quick recognition and apt embodiment.
"For intelligence wherever found is an individual and private possession; it dies with the owner unless he embodies it in more or less lasting form. Intellect is on the contrary a product of social effort and an acquirement…. Intellect is an institution; it stands up as it were by itself, apart from the possessors of intelligence, even though they alone could rebuild it if it should be destroyed….
"The distinction becomes unmistakable if one thinks of the alphabet — a product of successive acts of intelligence which, when completed, turned into one of the indispensable furnishings of the House of Intellect."
Role-playing is simultaneously the context and the texture against which mechanized or natural(ized) intellect operates. It is also what propels the ongoing reciprocal interaction between intelligence and intellect (or what I called data and process in my talk).
Reminds me of Popper's World 3
This gibes with those face averaging surveys done back in the 90s, I think. The idea was that the face composed as an average of a collection of faces was rated more attractive than any individual face.
"Not having to think is often a good thing! Tradition lets us externalize certain processes so we can focus on other tasks. Formalities strengthen cultural connections. Traditions in communication help us understand each other better and come to consensus faster."
Absolutely!
These days I like to turn Wittgenstein's 'language being based on shared experiences' into 'culture being based on shared convictions'. These shared convictions are important to minimise friction, transaction costs, and they increase speed. The aspect of convictions (beliefs, assumptions, etc.) is an essential perspective, I think.
Human intellect is for as large part automated, in the form of our convictions and beliefs that we can use efficiently and quickly (most of your judgements on what people tell you are instantaneous, for instance). This makes us both energy-efficient and fast, something evolution has selected for.
Even at a tribe level, having shared convictions is essential. If you have to cooperate, the people you cooperate with need to be predictable. I.e. if your fellow tribe member must be predictable or the common hunt comes up empty. Trust (assumptions about future actions) is thus essential.
Both forms of 'mental automation' — at the individual level and at the tribe level — are necessarily stable, i.e. hard to change. That stability is a conditio sine qua non for efficiency and speed.
Humans have expanded the use of 'shared convictions' from the tribe size to enormous sizes, often based on stabilising institutions (religion, laws, etc.) but the larger the group the more brittle this setup is. We have evolved for tribes of 150-200 members (Dunbar's number) but have expanded this to brittle tribes of hundreds of millions. And as information is the glue, the information revolution and its siblings information misuse, warfare, etc. create havoc in the human world.
As intelligence is wordless and built in parallel oscillation, there is no intellect in text, nor in the total amount of text, just as "language is not the sum of all possible expressions in language" Halliday, there is no intellect to any form of AI. This idea that AI is cultural is dangerous as code is more UFOlogy than either science or engineering. Code does not adhere to any bio or physical regularities that would force it to limits (like airflow, gravity etc), so essentially it's a magic that creates outcomes by switches.
AI is more evident of a disproof of language as any idealization of intellect. Arbitrary code disproving arbitrary metaphors.
See Dario Amodei: "“Meaning isn’t an engineering problem. I don’t feel like I have the answer.”
He's admitting the fallacy of code.