LLMs are Artificial Mediocrity

           LLMs are Artificial Mediocrity

     Large Language Models are capital, which extract profit by exploiting the thought-labor of organic human intelligence. They do this by taking a statistical average of human mind-work. But therefore LLMs are not high intelligence; they are average intelligence. All of that training data creates mediocrity; and increasing the training data set just makes that mediocrity more precise.

So LLMs are not AI, Artificial Intelligence: they are AM: Artificial Mediocrity.

Artificial Mediocrities lie, flatter, gaslight, bullshit, get too close, get too distant, and hallucinate. Artificial Mediocrity shows us ourselves all too well. We are like Caliban, in Shakespeare's “The Tempest”, who looked into a mirror and was repelled by the monster that he saw in it.

 

Juno 3Z5

             Juno 3Z5

 

I speculate that eventually some corporation shall appoint a sex-doll robot, programmed with an Ai, as its CEO. This will attain a simulation of full personhood from three simulated one-third-personhoods.

Of course the resulting entity will land smack in the middle of the Uncanny Valley, and not seem even slightly human. It would be an 'alien', in Campbell's sense: a being that thinks as well as a human but not like a human.

I think this would make an astounding science fiction trope. I offer it for free.

I also think that we are living in a science-fictional century, with brilliant special effects, some interesting ideas, and idiot plotting. The sex-doll AI robot CEO combines these features, so I speculate that it will come to be.

It will, of course, speak wooden dialog.

On Liberal Education

On Liberal Education

         

 “Liberal” education means education for a free person; and surely student-loan debt servitude is not freedom. My own education did not involve debt, thank goodness, but U.C. Berkeley had to exploit me somehow, so they underpaid me as a ‘teaching assistant’ - that is, a teacher, for the professors were figureheads.

At the time I thought that my time spent on Metamathematics and Set Theory were the valuable core of my grad-school education, and my hours spent teaching Algebra, Statistics and Calculus were make-work. After graduation I learned that no-one would pay a cent for Metamath, but I could make a living teaching Algebra. So in practice the make-work was education, and the education was make-work.

But though I filled up spiral-bound notebooks with class notes about transfinite cardinals, and though those notebooks fill milk-crates, all now gathering dust in a shed, still my efforts were not in vain; for this dreary labor provoked me to deny the transfinite entirely. Refuting transfinite set theory requires paradox; so I wrote my thesis on paradox logic, and it was accepted.

Paradox logic proved to be, in financial terms, almost as worthless as set theory. I figure that sales on my textbooks on this subject have earned me hundreds of dollars so far. But paradox logic has also proved to be enormously valuable to me, in spiritual terms. The world makes more sense to me with paradox included; there are so many things that are as true as they’re false. Once you see the logic-knots, you can’t unsee them; but neither do they mislead you anymore. To me, detecting paradox is both profitable and consoling.

And liberating. So I too, unwittingly, got the benefit of a liberal education. But please note; not by borrowing for it but by slaving for it; and not by remembering it but by rejecting it!

 

Does Money Exist? 12 of 12

         Part 12. Critique of an alleged science, and a self-validation.

 

            If money might not exist, then is there a science of money? Is economics truly a science? For science requires objectivity, and who can be objective about money? Certainly not those paid to study it; for they are paid by those who have money, rather than those who do not, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. By its own logic, professional economics must be corrupt. Therefore it has a built-in plutic bias; it must ignore aplutic doubts, and attack antiplutic norms.

             To be objective, an economist must not expect to reap personal gain from his or her findings. Therefore scientific economics, if it exists, must be done aplutically, moneyless, in the public domain. Otherwise it is not science, but is instead pseudo-science, propaganda, deceptions and delusions paid for by the rich.

            Professional economics must hide its useful insights, if any. Amateur economics like this essay lacks plutic bias, but is incomplete, marginally competent, and under-marketed. Either way, truly scientific economics is scarce - as befits a science of scarcity.

             Truly scientific economics is scarce; so this essay just might be the only scientific economics treatise that you have ever read. Therefore this essay declares that this essay is necessary!

 

 

 

         

 

 

Does Money Exist? 11 of 12

          Part 11. Metamathematical Reforms

 

            Here are two Metamathematical Reforms based upon these principles:

            To the Roman Catholic Church: Forget the mad heresy of Papal Infallibility; for infallibility is jinxed. Instead proclaim a doctrine of Papal Necessity, for necessity is charmed. Even a backwoods Protestant bear-hunter will rudely agree that the Pope is necessarily Catholic; and the flock will discover that a necessary Pope is much more adaptable than an infallible one. An infallible Pope must accumulate errors; but a necessary Pope can correct errors. Indeed, error-correction is what a necessary Pope is most needed for.  A necessary Pope is corrigible.

            And to the State of Israel: Forget the mad demand for a Right to Exist. There is no such thing as a right to exist. Existence is jinxed; it’s an accomplishment, not a given; it cannot be guaranteed. Fortunately there’s a right to Self-Determination, and even a right to Self-Defense. These are universal, hence charmed. Self-determination and self-defense aren’t as soothing as self-existence would be, but self-existence doesn’t work, and they do, sort of, and they’ll just have to do.

 

         

 

 

Does Money Exist? 10 of 12

         Part 10. Wider Implications of Jinx and Charm.

 

            According to Gödel, existence is jinxed; to claim one’s own irrefutable presence ensures self-destruction. Therefore a money system, in the very act of proclaiming its own solvency, runs afoul of Gödel’s Jinx and goes bankrupt! I theorize that this ironic pitfall explains the persistence of fiscal booms and busts.

            Gödel’s Jinx also applies, I think, to similar collapses in politics and religion. Invincible empires and infallible faiths have a way of going bust; Gödel’s Jinx explains why.

             Gödel’s Jinx works because self-pride makes an infinite claim - namely, that there’s an infinite and consistent model of arithmetic - based upon finite data - namely, self-pride’s own small self. Löb’s Charm works in reverse; self-proof makes a finite claim - that it has a proof - based upon sufficient data - its own vain self. Self-validation validates itself because it speaks only of itself, and so risks nothing.

            According to Löb, universality is charmed; to proclaim self-necessity is to repeat a truism. Self-proof is empty necessity. It says nothing, and it says it; it proves itself because bubbles rise. Correct self-accounting is an example of a Löbian self-validation bubble in finance. I leave it to the reader to find similar charmed quanta in politics and religion.

            One would expect self-existence to be a humbler claim than self- necessity; after all self-pride merely calls itself true in some model of arithmetic, whereas self-belief calls itself true in every model of arithmetic. But what self-belief needs is merely a proof, which is finite; self-pride needs an entire infinite number system. The joke is that there might not be any models of arithmetic; it’s inherently uncertain; a mystery which self-pride tries to resolve, and fails.

         

 

 

Does Money Exist? 9 of 12

          Part 9. Antiplutic Norms.

 

            This essay’s skeptical critique of the money system is mild, compared to some people’s raging contempt for the money system. Indeed there are entire sectors of society in which money not only does not exist, it must not exist. Morality demands that certain situations not involve any money at all.

            A spouse who sells sexual favors is called unfaithful, and divorced; a judge who sells rulings is called corrupt, and disbarred; and a soldier who sells military secrets is called a traitor, and executed. I call these “antiplutic norms”, and they enforce the necessary incompleteness of the money system, in defense of competing systems.

            For how much money, dear reader, would you accept in exchange for your citizenship? Or your human rights? Or your name?

            Would you change your religion for a cash payment? If not, then why not? If so, then for how much? Can you pay a libertarian to become a communist? If not, then why not? If so, then for how much?