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Ben Tarnoff, in his book Internet for the People, argues that this is an achievable goal but it must begin with a process of “deprivatization”60—putting the tools that have become our public square into the public’s hands, under democratic control. “To build a better internet, we need to change how it is owned and organized,” Tarnoff writes, adding, “What is at stake is nothing less than the possibility of democracy—a possibility that an internet organized by the profit motive precludes.”
As predictive text-generators, Generative AI models do not assess whether the outputs they generate are true or not. Rather, they produce streams of text based on, albeit sophisticated, statistical probability. Thus, their outputs have been compared to Frankfurtian bullshitters—those who are indifferent to the truth (or falsity) of their statements.
The fastest cup-stacker on Earth (a young boy) competed with David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, on his show, The Brain, which ran on PBS in America in 2015. They are wired up to brain scanners. The neuroscientist’s brain is working overtime and he loses. The boy’s brain is hardly working at all. It’s as if he is a zombie. He isn’t intending to stack the cups and there isn’t a puppet master inside his head pulling the strings. Something else is happening. His ability to stack the cups is all in his ‘body’.
All Art Is Ecological
Timothy B. Morton
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