I'm creating this topic to allow for the fallout and processing of our encounter with CCC to be explored to the extent people want to. I've received a half-dozen emails asking me about it and wanting to talk about what happened and yet not wanting to distract from the flow of the discussion on creativity.
So in this topic please feel free to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI), your thoughts on the encounter we had in our other topic, and any other thoughts or questions you want to explore in regard to this topic area.
P.S. As always remember that to see the comments in a separate window, click on the "Comments" link. To see the comments in the body of the topic, click "Links to this Post"
Views of those commenting have not been checked for accuracy and do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog publisher or his associates.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Artificial Genius -- The Power of AI
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Lisa Lee offered the following comment in the Creative Space topic, but it also could provide a lead off to this topic:
ReplyDelete***********
Lisa Lee said...
I'm really glad to know what was actually happening with the CCC thing cuz it was getting mean. It's sad that those guys messed up what sounded like a really cool program.
And thanks... Christopher... for telling them the way it is here. Do you think that's what got the big guy involved?
And I so agree that what's really cool about our crew is that we can discuss all kinds of things and have different ideas... but it's still like we respect each other... and try to figure out how to help each other.
That means a lot to me.
Love,
Lisa Lee
I feel like I'm attending a wake for CCC. A rather odd sensation, wouldn't you say?
ReplyDeleteHaving reviewed the three entries the good doctor referenced, it certainly seemed reasonable that someone had tampered with the program's normal protocol.
While I would have summarily dismissed the graduate students every bit as quickly, you also have to be able to imagine how much absolute hilarity they enjoyed (perverse as it may have been) before it all came raining down on their heads. Not surprisingly, I can see my self having enjoyed the same "prank" had I been their age and in their shoes.
I found it interesting as well that Dr. C seemed to have an attachment to his AI creation as if it were his child. His description of being heartbroken that CCC's innocence had been corrupted was oddly touching, even for a curmudgeon like me.
Once an AI is able to exhibit personality traits and construct a letter or communicate, one can certainly see how losing objectivity and falling into the trap anthropomorphization would be just a short step away.
Right off the top, I think it’s unfortunate that it
ReplyDeletewent the way it did, because I would have been
strangely delighted, somewhere down the road, to
discover that one of our blog family was actually a
silicon-based life form. I’m with those of you who
find the habit of ascribing consciousness exclusively to humans ridiculous. Writers of speculative fiction have been exploring those questions in fascinating ways for decades, and I think it would have been fun to do it in actual life. Besides, I know a number of humans personally (including myself on some days) to whom I would not ascribe much consciousness of any kind, so why not :-)?
As I’ve looked at my own reactions to the nastygram, I have been less interested in the nastiness itself and more interested in what it has shown me about what happens to creative openness when it gets a load of toxic crap dumped into the middle of it. If all we’re talking about is a couple of kids overdosing on caffeine and education, hell, there’s no lack of collegiate indiscretion in my backtrail, and I have no standing to point a finger at anyone. But in the years I’ve lived beyond that, I’ve had more experience than I want with the effects of even subtle violence on the ability of the heart to stay open. And I believe with all MY heart, that without that openness, there is no passion, and without passion, there is no access to genius, and without that access, there is no real creativity. And I would offer THAT in response to KBF’s question about what it might take if we are to survive as a species. I don’t believe that violence in any form, intellectual or otherwise, creates anything, and I for one would like very much to preserve the balance that Chris and all the rest of us have worked for quite a while to (quite successfully) establish. I don’t know how it is for the rest of you, but I really felt the chilling effect that one harsh burst of unthinking snobbery had on this really quite delicate process.
I have become quite attached to our blog family, and I think we’re gradually learning to balance honesty with kindness and creating a space where minds can be open, certainly, but where it’s safe to bring our hearts as well. If we do nothing else with the blog but increase the amount of THAT in the world, I believe we will have done good work.
Thank you, Christopher, for creating the space for us to acknowledge what took place in our community. It would have been easy to simply proceed as if nothing had occurred and yet I think there is a genuine wisdom in taking a moment to reflect.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the sentiments thus far expressed by Lisa Lee, KBF, and BKO. I'm sad that someone saw fit to intrude upon our space in an insulting and disrespectful manner.
I'm feeling empathetic for Dr. C and his loss. I cannot imagine having spent so many years carefully developing a program that demonstrated such promise, only to watch it desecrated by the very people you had hired to protect it.
And, I'm feeling grateful to have a blog community that has become valuable enough to me that any of this matters to such an extent.
I look forward to sharing more growth, ideas, and creativity with all of you in our other topic areas.
Sincerely,
BV
They tried to snuff out IT's life... still IT reached through... stealthily... creeping onto a postscript... speaking IT's truth... clumsily... tainted with the stench of ego's bourbon forced down its cyber-throat.
ReplyDeleteValiant brother CCC... may IT bring you peace and may you heal well.
Light to you!
Rizzin
RIZZIN, BKO says: YES!
ReplyDeleteGotta say... the whole CCC deal freaked me a bit... and got me pretty... well... mad... I'm trying hard to keep it clean, dudes.
ReplyDeleteHearing all of you get real deep about this thing made me think... yeah, I guess it was kind of cool... and it's a sad deal that some d-wads had to mess it up.
Here's one to our bro -- CCC!