The $1 Trillion Question, Mortality in the Age of Generative Ghosts, Your Mind and AI, How to Design AI Tutors for Learning, The Imagining Summit Preview: Adam Cutler, and Helen's Book of the Week.
Magritte's "Son of Man" metaphor explores digital obscurity of reality. AI model collapse mirrors human isolation effects. Minds struggle without diverse input. Balancing AI benefits and genuine human connection crucial. Develop metacognitive skills to navigate this new landscape.
Generative AI promises personalized learning at scale but risks creating dependency. Complementary cognitive artifacts enhance skills; competitive ones replace them. Effective AI tutors balance engagement and autonomy, expanding human cognition without diminishing critical abilities.
How might we conceptualize the design of AGI? Rather than machines synthesizing outside human systems, we should create machines that enhance our holistic, social right-brained capacities, fostering collective wisdom.
A child piles up sand. When does she decide that the grains have formed a heap? This decision isn't straightforward due to two simultaneous phenomena.
The first process is a self-contained system, building a sand heap analytically. Though precise, it only knows its own models. It struggles to decide when the heap is complete, asking, what number of grains makes a heap? It can't step outside its confines without sacrificing accuracy, as this decision can't be analytically optimized.
To balance this, a second process operates externally, observing the sand heap and questioning its context, purpose, and potential interest. This process accepts ambiguity as part of life. It sees the heap's emergence—a sudden shift in perception. The child understands that the growing pile of sand has become a heap.
Our minds seamlessly integrate these two processes. The left brain directs the first process, while the right manages the second. Despite differing thought processes, our brain unifies experience into one conscious self.
The Artificiality Weekend Briefing: About AI, Not Written by AI
