He writes the Conspicuous Cognition newsletter, which brings together philosophical insights and scientific research to examine the forces shaping contemporary society and politics.
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which → write → society
In this week’s conversation, Yascha Mounk and Dan Williams discuss whether AI is a genuinely transformative technology or just another tool, how the temptation to outsource thinking to AI may be eroding the cognitive skills of young people, and why the political battles we are actually having about artificial intelligence are not the important ones.
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we → discuss → intelligence
This podcast was recorded at a live event in partnership with Halcyon International School.
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podcast → record → School
Dan, I think one of the interesting things about artificial intelligence is just that it’s going to transform so many different aspects of our society.
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it → think → society
As I was preparing for the conversation today, I was wondering what I should ask you about.
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I → prepare → you
Should I ask you about existential risk?
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I → ask → risk
Should I talk about the socioeconomic impact of this?
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I → talk → this
Should I talk about the thing you’ve thought a lot about, its impact on the public sphere and on misinformation?
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you → talk → misinformation
How do you think about what aspect of artificial intelligence to write about in your work, and how should we prioritize between them, or do we just need to be thinking about all of these impacts all of the time?
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we → think → time
I think we need to be thinking about all of the impacts all of the time.
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we → think → time
I think we are in the early stages of a huge technological revolution, the magnitude of which will be at least that of the Industrial Revolution, happening in a much shorter timeframe.
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magnitude → think → timeframe
I think it’s going to impact, as you say, not just the economy, not just the culture, not just our psychologies, not just our educational institutions, but the information environment, our social relations, and also all of the interactions between these different things.
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you → think → things
So I think as a subject, it doesn’t really lend itself to hyper-specialized inquiry where you try to bracket off everything else.
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you → think → everything
If you’re looking at the economics of AI, you are inevitably going to start asking questions about the impact of AI on our political institutions, on our political culture, on public opinion.
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you → look → opinion
Likewise, if you’re thinking about how AI is going to impact the information environment, the way in which we try to make sense of society, you need to be thinking about the economics of AI and the business models of these frontier AI companies.
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you → think → companies
I don’t think this is unique to this moment.
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this → think → moment
If you go back to the early stages of the Industrial Revolution, precisely because it was this monumental technological revolution that changed every aspect of society in innumerable ways, it was this great era for polymaths, for people that looked not just at narrow, specialized fields, but huge questions straddling lots of different disciplines.
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that → go → disciplines
I think that’s kind of how you have to approach AI today.
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you → think → AI
The flip side of that is precisely because these issues are so big and so complicated, and the technology is affecting so many different parts of society all at once, there is enormous uncertainty at almost every level.
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technology → affect → level
It’s very difficult, I think, to have any high degree of confidence about how this is going to unfold, which I think is one of the reasons why you see such spectacular levels of disagreement even about relatively basic things.
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you → ’ → things
I’ve been thinking through that comparison in the context of a different set of work.
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I → think → work
But in 1800, should people have worried about the urban immiseration that might follow from the Industrial Revolution, at least in its initial stages, before helping the world get a lot richer, the kinds of things that Charles Dickens wrote about, David Copperfield, etc.?
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Dickens → worry → that
Or should they have worried about the possibility that it would revolutionize warfare and make possible the trenches of World War One?
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trenches → worry → War
The answer is, well, we should have worried about both, and those two things end up being related in some really complicated but real ways.
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things → worry → ways
So in a similar kind of way, you’re probably right that we shouldn’t choose between focusing on this or on that aspect of AI.
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we → ’re → AI
We should be thinking about all of them at the same time.
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We → think → time
I do think, though, that there’s a kind of strange way in which some of the fights over AI feel to me like they’re not the most important ones.
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they → think → me
The political issue that’s gotten the most traction is whether or not to build data centers.
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that → get → centers
There’s a story to be told where perhaps you’re worried about existential risk, which is to say the possibility that AI might kill us all one day, and if there are fewer data centers, then it’s going to take longer to develop more capable AI models, and perhaps take longer to build robots that are actually capable of taking physical action.
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that → ’ → action
So opposing data centers might be a way of somehow lessening existential risk.
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opposing → oppose → risk
But I don’t think that’s what’s driving people.
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what → think → people
What’s driving people is: I don’t want this thing next to me in my community, which to me feels like it’s the one issue around AI that’s gotten any real political currency, because it can latch onto existing political fights, like whether or not to build housing.
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it → drive → housing
It’s just a way for NIMBYism, not-in-my-backyard-ism, to latch on to the issue of AI, and that’s why it’s the one AI issue that’s taken off.
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that → ’ → AI
Do you share that sense, where the political battles we have about AI are not the important ones, or
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we → share → AI
I completely agree with you.
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I → agree → you
I would say, in some sense, it’s understandable.
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it → say → sense
There is this huge data center build-out, and many people don’t fully understand what motivates it, and it’s led by tech companies that, to put it mildly, are not very popular in many cases.
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that → be → cases
But I do agree with you that in some sense it’s not really grappling with just how significant the relevant changes are going to be.
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changes → agree → sense
I also think it’s a little bit of a shame, in a way, that there’s this polarized conversation where, on the one hand, you’ve got people who think AI is just another technology, a normal technology in some respects, and so you can treat it just as you would any other technology.
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you → think → technology
Then there’s this whole conversation, which we might get to, about AI and existential risk: is it the case that superintelligent, rogue, misaligned artificial intelligence might kill us all?
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intelligence → ’ → us
…and 205 more, not listed.
The Aporia
