devinhedge

devinhedge t1_j1pwur2 wrote

I find myself referencing this launch page a lot in these discussions. Transparency/Disclaimer: I work there. My opinions are mine, though.

Not meant to push my companies point of view. I just keep finding it to be a useful “map” for deconstructing the parts of the problem space of ethics, AI, and ESG.

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devinhedge t1_j1pvrsk wrote

This is an interesting problem. Most sarcasm and jokes revolve around calling out our humanness, our fallibility, and seek to make light of our limitations. Only, humor today seems to also involve putting someone down as inferior to the joke teller’s superior world view. And therein lies the challenge: historically all “tribes” of humans have had preferences for their tribe with a strong bias against all other tribes.

When we attempt to undo this bias, often a form of a subconscious bias… it tends to trend our interactions towards very neutral tones towards one another. That can be useful for being inclusive. It feels very unhuman and as you say “dull”, though.

I wonder if there is a lesson here waiting to emerge about neutral language, emotional safety, and human experience/emotion? 🤔

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devinhedge t1_j1pq7ix wrote

Only an opinion, so take this for what it’s worth.

Just answering your question: there is a fundamental flaw with thinking of our brain as a computer. It doesn’t really store memories the way we talk of it. There was a recent article in MSM that really deconstructed how terrible our current analogy is for conveying how little we know about how the brain works. So, I don’t think your idea would work until we actually figure out how human brains work, and can agree on a common definition of consciousness.

Let me see if I can find that article.

Edit: found it. The article is an OpEd, so usual disclaimers of bias apply. At the same time, the author really does a decent job of illustrating that be know that we know less now than we have ever known before about the mechanisms of the brain and consciousness, partly because we tend to desire a metaphor to explain the mechanizations to non-neuroscientists, which then becomes a reinforcing loop in a complex adaptive human system called “collective understanding”.

Then, adding on my own thoughts on top of a science based answer…

There is an arc to a person’s life. It’s not necessarily really linear, but has definite stages to it. This arc is largely developmental and psychological in natural. There comes a point in a person’s life where they are generally “done” with what they hoped to do, or have experienced/seen enough, or set up the legacy they intended such that they consider their life’s work done. I think the jury is out on how much physiology plays into this as a factor.

Finally, there is a food source challenge that would play into how many people can the earth sustain?

So, even if we could stop aging at some point, I’m not sure a lot of people would want to. Maybe a better approach to facing mortality is to stop being so bad at facing mortality? Our struggles with mortality seem to largely be a Western thing. IDKW Eastern cultures seem to be better at accepting the temporal nature of life. There may be a religious aspect.

This is just what comes to mind. Love reading many of the thoughtful responses.

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