the lesson of AI

If there's a lesson to learn from LLMs, it's that humans don't think and aren't intelligent. 

Every time I hear "AI is intelligent!" I feel like Andersen's little boy in the Emperor's New Clothes. "Don't you see: just because AI can do what we do doesn't mean AI can think. It means we don't think, people!" 

It's not that AI means we're merely thinking meat machines. We already knew that. It's that what amounts to thinking in us is unintelligent, lame mimicry, just like AI.

I've written a lot on this blog about the computational character of language (respect to Chomsky) and the algorithmic nature of words and ideas (respect to Plato and Kant). But I don't really believe it. I write it because I wish to believe it. Because I wish to believe that we humans think intelligently, and because I want to believe that Wittgensteinian behaviorism just can't be so. Because it's just too vacuous. But the sad truth seems to be that we don't think intelligently. We "think" by picking up habits of thought and expectation, often causal stories that we don't bother to question. AI's reinforce, reinforce reinforce means for behavioral psych confirm, confirm, confirm, never think. 

Here's a few examples: 

When asked which is more likely, that San Francisco will be under water in 2035 or in 2035 a great earthquake will sift and shuffle the soil beneath San Francisco and the earthquake will send the mother of all tsunamis over the city and it will slip under water, people choose the latter as more likely than the former scenario. They don't think to themselves that the first scenario could have been the result of an earthquake and tsunami but also global warming's sea rise or North Korea lobbying a nuke nearby or a meteor -- you get the picture. Logically the more general story is less particular, so it's more likely. But people look for a familiar story with a familiar explanation. that's not thinking. That's mere mimicry, just like a neural network! (Now, the presentations of the two scenarios are loaded -- "It will be under water" implicates that it's under water for no reason, that we trust that what we're being told is the whole truth and nothing but. That just shows we prioritize trust more than our own thinking.)

I ask why do we hold a door open for others behind? Everyone I've ever asked this responds with a positive cause: it's polite, it's helpful (even though people open doors by themselves regularly and often the people behind feel compelled to hurry a bit so as not to inconvenience the door-holder -- that is to say, by holding the door you're actually inconveniencing them by compelling theme to hurry). Never has anyone thought, 'what if I didn't hold the door open? Then I'd be slamming the door in front of someone right behind me. They'd think I'm a dick. Ah, that must be why I hold the door open. It's to avoid being judged a dick. It's all virtue signaling.' And isn't that the essence of morality? In a social species, approval-seeking is the glue that keeps us all together. That's an important bit of self-understanding and species understanding. But no one thinks that one through. Because we don't think. We just mimic. Hold the door because ... polite? helpful? nice? We miss it all for the lack of a little thinking. 

Same with free speech. I ask what's the benefit of having freedom of speech if the market of ideas never persuades anyone? And everyone knows that the NYTimes reader is uninfluenced by Fox News, and vice versa, so what's the point? The response I get is never "What if we had no such freedom? How would it be enforced? Would we have to lie to each other on pain of punishment? Wouldn't we all know that we're all lying to each other? How could we ever trust anyone? The point of language would be utterly defeated. Why converse at all? How could a social species even survive without trust in shared information?" No one asks this. 

I see a long literature advising on how to overcome bias, especially confirmation bias (grasping for evidence in favor of one's beliefs or what one wants to believe) or myside bias (attacking evidence against what one already believes or wants to believe). Always top of the list is "be humble". But what does this mean more than "don't be attached to your beliefs"? It's question-begging. "Humble" is just another word for "don't be so biased in favor of your beliefs." If you're looking for a way to free yourself of your biases, how is "so free yourself of your biases, bro" thoughtful advice? It's nothing but a virtus dormitiva. That's monkeying, not thinking. And yet we set great value in such advice. "Be humble" -- what a useless, stupid piece of advice. It's just words, empty words. 

We don't think. We mimic with familiar narratives and habits, and monkey with metaphors and analogies. That's not thinking. That's repeating.