Lanier's views, especially about people's 'emotional engagement' in controversial topics and how social media cynically exploits this, are so on-point in 2021. I feel they will still hold true for the coming decade.
Neil Postman is another theorist in this realm who had some early prophecies about the problems that information overload and narrative fractures could expose society to
Especially as the symptom being evidence for humanity's ages-oid AI disposition ("ego", separation algorithm); that as an addictition-like bottom it simply would be the awakening to admitting the existence, and failure, and start of dismantling, of that dispostion.
It should not be a debate. It should be a discussion. The goal of a debate is to defend your view. There is nothing about learning. Debate in schools just gets people used to arguing with each other and destroys our human family relationship
The way he talks so calmly, precise and concise without any filler words any hesitation. Its like listening to someone reading from a book, just way cooler. Amazing.
I wonder if he learned speaking in such a manner early on, as it probably is a huge help when dealing with the whole 'nerd imperialism ' attitude he mentioned
Truly an extraordinary mind. I salute everyone who took the time to listen to this with an open mind/heart--whether agree or disagree. We need more open, real discussions about the current state and future of our societies.
You can though, and that is what class war is (which was started by the upper classes around 10,000 years ago), and that's what the hierarchy of civilization has always been about, exploitive labor. Then eventually that developed into a stage of capitalism which presents exploited labor as voluntary agreement, when it is actually an elaborate hierarchical social organization derived from the theft of the community surplus that began with the establishment of sedentary societies. The theft of that surplus is what established the initial wealth of the upper classes that facilitated the creation and further propagation of the hierarchical stratification of so called civilization.
ououtward tea your prolly right,I would assume he prolly just doesnt move his body enough. So either lower his calories or move alot more. Prolly both to be honest
Interesting, I remember he played a song on some obscure medieval instrument at the beginning of another lecture I watched, I guess he's a showman at heart as much as he is a technologist.
I love this person he adds so much value to the world. I am half way thought this lecture. I just turned on my tv and as if on cue , the tag line reads “STUDY: THINKING HARD IS EXHAUSTING “ and it’s all starting to make sense.
No good deed goes unpunished - its why Davinci hid most of his inventions. When it comes to our heroes - as the Catholic Church well understands - you get enough gold eggs to forestall any serious competition and then you kill the duck - not from stupidity but from a sort of diabolic greed. Like the one about God responding to supplication by granting equal and double to your enemies and praying that you loose an eye
Yeah it was truly hart-breaking and also beautiful, in a way. It shapes the way you think about the soul of society both in Turing's time and today. As a U.S. Marine Corps veteran it helped me to crystallize some of the thoughts I've had about some of my fellow comrades (who were of different ethnic, religious, cultural and gender-identity backgrounds) using dehumanizing language about people from the Levant and understanding how and why that came about. It's an indelible lesson that should be reflected upon as insight into sociological proclivities for a herd mentality among people who (with their background's), one might assume, would have an aptitude for independent or critical thought. And how coalescing around a singular objective rendered those latter proclivities inert. I should mention that the use of that dehumanizing language did inspire debate with in the company. That did not mean that the conclusions reached by some individuals was homogeneous with the consensus of the group. Especially among those who were culturally opposed to empathetic inclusion (southern white boys) and those who were perceived as culturally and/or ethnically congruent with the people of the Levant. Although I would not say that the consensus of the group was untimely as charitable as it might or should have been.
@@bohansenboh Would "people of the Levant", the area of the Middle East fronting the Mediterranean Sea include both Jews and Muslims. When you look at the cultures - NOT THE PEOPLE - of this area today it's kind of hard not to see one of the starkest differences anywhere in the world, so while dehumanizing language is not acceptable, it is a kind of shorthand for those who live acceptingly under a system that is itself dehumanizing and those who don't.
@@justgivemethetruth I don't understand your point. You're saying that dehumanizing language is not acceptable unless it's used as a "short hand" in order identify people who live (acceptably or unacceptably) under a dehumanizing regime? I'm just going to assume that your grasp of English is poor. Also considering Israeli apartheid is a pretty well established fact; I'll also assume your referring to the Iranian people when you refer to a group of people being culturally superior, considering that they have both Jewish and Muslim citizens who live in harmony.
You can't expect that when the media is for the most part owned and run by corporate monopolies. Until that's ended, the monopolies broken up, it's going to be up to those of us who recognize the value of what he's saying to get the word out. In the U.S., we have laws against these monopolies, but WE let the politicians who are active in our government get away with not enforcing those laws, as a favor to the very same monopolies who give them lots of money...
@@TheFlyingBrain. I think it is a little too simple to blame large global monopolistic media corporations. To a large extent we get the government and society we deserve. I am sympathetic to the things he is advocating for but you can't pretend we are not products of our evolution and our tribal past. To pretend that we are not is to pretend that we aren't human with all the complexities, paradoxes and hypocrisies that come with it. I commend him for trying to find solutions but these large human projects almost always end up making things worse. You can't work too much against our nature whether it is communism or the things he is advocating for.
"To me, it's just code. To me, theres no reason to add this new layer of mythmaking that gives it this kind of supernatural status as this 'new life form' that we are creating. In fact, there's every reason not too. " - Jaron Lanier
in this segment at timestamp 18:50 Jaron Lanier explains how Artificial Intelligence function on big data. based on the fact that, AI's mode of production and AI's source material still being based on a real human resource of production, Artificial Intelligence algorithms such as those based on Google Translate, scour the internet and real peoples content on a regular basis, in order for the AI system to keep up to date. this is yet another way in which Google use real peoples productive power at the same time as needing to ignore it, in order to maintain maximum profits and also in order to hide the human resource. this is done so that AI itself can be pretend that the AI itself is what is producing the intelligent work and by extension behaves intelligently.
He's really a sort of prophet; like Amos. He's our Prometheus - betraying the very people he's paid to serve. Surprised he hasn't been shut up by an NDA
Yeah, I'm obsolete and I was in tech as an engineer. I'm kinda over it though but I do think the world is still crewed up very much, like turtles full of plastic junk etc. We don't though need AI to work out how to fix these things. We know how to fix them, we just won't do it as we need ever more stuff and most importantly to enrich the rich so how do we fix that? AI could really only conclude that humans are the problem, the infestation that is unreformable with our present depressing system.
I would say that this conclusion that humans are the problem is not absolute. AI will eventually understand life and solutions so well that it could solve most problems. However, a trait most humans have is the desire for more/change, so ultimately I think there is no true solution, but in a less grim way.
I have a possible solution that may be equally realistic. The wealthy elites will be the first to be able to fully upload their existence into full-time VR and will create their empires in there. They will have access to unlimited virtual resources and unlimited potential for achieving power and godhood as they wish. Eventually it will become available to average people too, but those who choose to stay behind in the real world will help recover our ecosystems and choose to live in more sustainable, simple ways. Probably subsistence farming and permaculture communities. I think this would result in an evolutionary split between mankind, but perhaps it's okay that some humans just want a boundless expanse to conquer and need a space to do so safely in. Meanwhile some of us are okay with mundane mortal existences where we live in step with nature and each other without excess. I think both are okay as long as it isn't causing harm to anybody and I think if we embrace that kind of split pragmatically we could pull it off without causing harm.
@@Cyanopteryx Counter-thought experiment: Yes, the rich will try (maybe succeed) in uploading personality copies to a cloud-like space. Before too long, however, the trend will switch around. At that point the 'less-fortunate classes' will be encouraged -or even forced- to get their consciousnesses online (think of the ever prevelant ads for joining the colonies in Blade Runner and some P.K. Dick stories). This will occur because of the 'retro-appeal' of being grounded in physical reality, and the understanding that life is pretty great on Earth....except for all the other humans >____< So the earth will be mostly emptied out, and the only people around to enjoy the eden-esque future you cite will be those with *inherited* wealth, romping around a depopulated planet, fooling everyone else into online meaninglessness with endless virtual distractions.
@@nismovspecgtr I highly doubt any of this will come to pass. Genuine AI (sentience) implies consciousness is computable, but chances are it is not. There are uncountably infinitely many ways a system can evolve if spacetime is a continuum (quantum mechanics notwithstanding), and only a countable infinity of digital computational states. In which space would you bet consciousness is more likely to reside (be possible within)? The countable infinite or the uncountable? You have to understand a bit of mathematics to appreciate the magnitude of the difference.
@@Achrononmaster Going on our current understanding of physics, mathematics, and quantum physics, consciousness is most likely just some form of matter configured in some way. Humanity will eventually figure it out and most likely be able to replicate it. Kind of weird to think about it that way.
I am really impressed by how this man's ideas are balanced, open, and rich. I think we really need integer techies nowadays before it wall goes nuts. This thing that irritates me a lot, is how companies small and big are so obsessed with data nowadays; in fact the lesson I came up with, is that data itself does not contain value as people are tending to race on, it is the need for some functionality ! data comes second.
I am totally with you on the first part of the comment, hooray for Haugen^^. On the second part though, the value of data itself, that comes from scarcity. An example: Way back when, it was cheaper to buy the gold for a craft than paying the work the most renowned craftsmen did to transform it. So, while gold was "cheap", finding talent was almost impossible (at a not too high price). Nowadays it's the other way around, you could hire 1000 of the most promising tech-students, make them work for a year to find out who's actually genius, but in the end you would have payed less for them than for the batch of edited and prepared data (which also includes the work of millions of un-/underpaid clickworkers, stolen surplus value *yay*) you needed to properly train their new algorithms.
I for one, will be waiting for my check in the mail from Facebook and UA-cam and google for all the Data they have extracted from my time and effort. Any day now...
It is not a “ life form “. It’s a tool used for a purpose. The issue is transparency - informing people what’s being used; and choice - does one want to participate when this tool is used.
At a certain point it would be beyond any life-form in every category imaginable. This lecture is just the concern of becoming inferior a position humans intrinsically despise. So what the initial stages are human formed opinions and information, how is that different from a child? When analyzed this whole lecture is pure fear of almost inevitable change. The only point I agree with is that this technology will not be used for a greater purpose.
I feel like I should let you know that the UA-cam algorithm brought me to this video. Seriously: this is the first time I ever listen to this guy, and it was literally the UA-cam algorithm who introduced me to it. I actually agree with most of what he explained, it just doesn't fit with the fact that the UA-cam algorithm brought me here 😆
When a child puts the wrong shaped brick in the wrong shaped hole, does that disprove the possibility that one day the child will grow up to be a brain surgeon?
54:49 - We do require people outside of the social media landscape to talk about the problem and push back against it. But where would they have this conversation? Where would they print their thesis and their evidence? Where would this conversation take place. The cost of running a blog and posting links on social media is vanishingly small in comparison to running a professional website or printing a whole damn newspaper. Any platform that currently offers free communication will eventually become another Ad haven and any platform that charges for communication has a barrier of entry that Ad havens don't. Public conversation relies too heavily on the internet such that we are living Plato's allegory of the cave except now we have to pay for corporate branded glasses to see the shadows.
Gently placing my previous comment of the kitteh cellphone ringer to the side, this Jaron Lanier talk is a must be listened to. Two other speakers who may add to your and to my explorations of the costs and benefits of online tools are Yuval Noah Harari and Shoshana Zuboff. There are others, yet Jaron, Yuval, and Shoshana are accessible and enriching. 🌺
@@deeliciousplum Thank you so much for the recommendations.. I cannot stop watching/listening to similar lectures or just talks & podcasts all day everyday.. yours will be more fuel to my addiction.. & that meowing ringtone is hilarious.. good catch
Talk was so full of emotion. While writing this I feel reminded of Edvard Munch’s “The Cry”. Iconic talk. Most important take away don’t say that people are obsolete like Yuval Harari and, in Germany, Richard David Precht do, both “intellectuals” are misleaded true believers in the by Jaron Lanier so well described tech myth.
I love the way tech guys can just reject any possible role they may have in throwing people on the scrapheap. He criticises the owners of ai then says " but I just made the code, I love code!" He's a bright person, did he really not foresee any of the negative possible consequences of his work?
None of my undergraduate students - none- over the past 4 years - 240 students - have heard of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the singularity, or Jaron Lanier. They take it for granted that technology progresses on its own volition, that 'life' is better because of it - including health - and that AI will be 'mor intelligent' than humans, and that it will create an 'advanced world'. Lanier, like David Noble, Neil Postman, J Ellul, L Mumford, and so many others whom my students have never heard of, aks the right questions from a really fresh angle - Silicon Valley!!.
He has the best laugh ever , a lilting laughter that tinkles against a bright sun on a clear blue sky . his conversation invokes images of beauty , very rare and precious . Him and Lex , that was a JOY , Grace be with you good brother !!!!!!
I heard a heartbreaking story. It was told by a man who described how he had tried, as a young boy, to build a time machine so he could go back to save his father’s life. He got the idea from a comic book story. He used a cardboard box to make a thing resembling the comic book drawing. When it didn’t work he kept revising it to make it look more like the comic book version.
Eureka! I finally found someone that I can agree with. A creation exists to serve its creator. Technology exists to serve its human creators. NEVER the other way ‘round! The economic system exists to serve its human creators. NEVER the other way ‘round!
I do wonder how we'll ever pull ourselves back from the direction of the internet being "free", it's seems unimaginable to me, and yet urgent and necessary as he said. I'm so glad there is at least someone like him putting himself out there to talk about these things in the way he is, I mean he is so brilliant and kind too. I love listening to him speak. I'm so glad he mentioned the youtube subs in this video because I've watched quite a few videos of his and though he talks about pulling translations from things, I've always kinda wondered what sort of specific places have both languages lined up together to be 'stolen', though I know a fair number of article sites like National Geographic and Wired provide the same article in several languages, still it was lovely finally having a concrete example. :3
i've always felt that the internet was a truly dangerous thing and that not everyone should have access to it. The internet will destroy peoples brains if they are not ready to comprehend it's magnitude...which many are not.
In all the brilliance of this talk, the speakers comments like "Fundamentalism is raising because of the feeling of becoming obsolete" and "Putin detector" really devalue the impact and makes the listener question the scientific neutrality, the rigor, and multilayered thoughtfulness of the speaker.
It is funny that I got this recommended by youtube probably for the reason he said: I’m interested in AI but UA-cam wants to make me get engaged out of fear.
Another reason why people fall in love so much with the idea of creating an A.I. is also ou strive for perfection. For us to be perfect. When we watch robocop, terminator, as children we then play and pretend that we are machines. it is cool, we imagine ourselves be that, because we struggle to be like that in real life. We could strive to be that in real life, internally. Efficient, logical, deadly and practical. But we accepted idea that we cannot, so we try to do it externally.
Technology has always been about levereging work to make easy money. Old technology could be easily copied and stolen, software is easier to keep secret. So the creators and owners can reap the surplus for a long time
@@nescius2 well money as in fiat is ofc a creation. However value is not. The logic of the statement stands when you take money to be the defacto term for value.
well, when you actually introduce a new and useful concept, its not only polite to acknowledge your authorship somehow. translators may be able to do that (with few asterisks after the _new_ part of the concept) they do something important for us, but get *no credit*
The current war on emotion is making us less human, we show our strength by acting like we are dead inside, and this war is being propagated by everyone from the shouty marketeer in ads trying to push your business to the next level to fake Buddhist monks and gurus. It is drawing us closer to Nietzche's last man. It's really sickening.
Emotions are both our strengths and our weakness. It's killed billions of people and saved billions. I look forward to Humanity 3.0 where negative emotions like hatred will be diminished.
AI will never be dominant itself, it is just a tool in the hands of those who create it. For example I don’t think AI would be allowed to come to the conclusion there should be free medical care and higher education in the US. It will reach only conclusions that it is allowed to reach.
Really interesting view on the problem and very informative. What made me sad though is that such a smart person believes the solution to inequality could be solved by introducing yet another element in this megamachine monster we have created. Even if companies would have to pay for data, it will not be as different, it may even have a bad effect by giving more power to big companies and making it harder to enter the field for smaller groups. The problem with internet isn't its free, decentralised nature, but rather that we allowed people greed to get a hold of it. It doesn't matter how much we tweak this system, as long as we don't remove the profit motive it will never get better. We shouldn't raise even more pay-walls, but rather learn how to share fairly all that is produced. Long story short, we need to dismantle the root causes behind manipulation and inequality, to render them inherently impossible to happen.
@Dramacurvo Well... That's completely the opposite of what I was trying to say! XD I'm pretty sure billionaires are not the answer. I think the important message in the video was more about building technologies that serves humanity rather than the other way around 😅 how to ensure it? Give access to everybody to use that technology, therefore each and every can keep it under control and decrease the chance we commit a fatal mistake, or at least make it unprofitable.
Beautiful story about Alan Turing. Something does not add up however. Turing proposed his test in 1950 paper called COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE; it was not called Turing Test, obviously, but Imitation Game. Turing started his treatment in 1952 and committed suicide in 1954. Was there another paper? I would love to read it if so.
probably the ringtone he set for his 'pussy' ... whoever he has sexual relations with ;) . Remember you can assign individual ringtones to each contact :)
But it's not Robotic and your assumptions seem to be without contemplating that the Cat sound could be a affectionate reminder of his Real Living, non robotic cat.
Couple things: Turing in no way invented computers. He invented binary code, which made already existing computers much more powerful. Second, Turing didn't have a gay identity. He was a gay man with homosexual sexual orientation. Identity is not the same thing as sexual orientation. If you want to be exact, these distinctions matter. As we have sadly seen, thinking of sexuality as an identity means that people with a fetish like pedophilia, which is an idea that is always learned and is not inherent, can simply claim they have a different sexual orientation just like homosexuality or heterosexuality.
25:55 *there was computer on the other side* ... it was not just brute force algorithm but alan turing's insight into a flaw ... for example the encryption would never match same letter to itself ... he may have other insights like letter frequency consonants vowels etc ... i do not know much detail of his work then
i think you can blame Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki for those things as they were ones who broke the enigma by hand, Turing helped with automating it.
🤔 So, from what I'm understanding, the Singularity point when artificial intelligence actually "becomes smarter than humans" is nonexistent. There's never a point where it becomes self-aware, only a point in which it collects data from humans and re-packages in larger batches and faster (nearly instantaneousl, rather than needing to collect it manually, ever so often) as language/society/data changes. Its just getting closer to automated data regurgitation and application and further from manual information input and recycling. The thief gets faster, not smarter.
Now I realize the film must have been based partly on this man's concerns about AI, referring to the Matrix. "Agents" are fake people! It's amazing how these things make their way into popular culture and most people don't know where they come from.
Actually, in the same way the tables seem like they are turning now, you could argue that it has always been this way. Since the agricultural revolution technology has moulded how people live. Once upon a time we roamed free with only the most rudimentary tools. It was the advances of technology that led to human's settling down in a permanent location, where our diets changed, populations rose steeply and diseases spread, etc. From then on the ability to farm food and wage war more effectively have been of utmost concern. Of course advances in technology have been made to solve some big problems, medical advances and such, however these problems wouldn't exist without over complicating life with technology in the first place. So who is serving who? Because if the metric is human suffering then it seems technology has been the master this whole time. I think this is essentially one of main points Jaron is making.
being prophetic is not that relevant nowadays. that's why everyone runs to their machine.. they actually probably (unconsciously) want it to happen ..even the low status people
Lanier's views, especially about people's 'emotional engagement' in controversial topics and how social media cynically exploits this, are so on-point in 2021. I feel they will still hold true for the coming decade.
Neil Postman is another theorist in this realm who had some early prophecies about the problems that information overload and narrative fractures could expose society to
This should be the core debate in every home, school, university and politics in our days
Especially as the symptom being evidence for humanity's ages-oid AI disposition ("ego", separation algorithm); that as an addictition-like bottom it simply would be the awakening to admitting the existence, and failure, and start of dismantling, of that dispostion.
@Creatif Etudes 👍
well said
It should not be a debate. It should be a discussion. The goal of a debate is to defend your view. There is nothing about learning.
Debate in schools just gets people used to arguing with each other and destroys our human family relationship
@@agnidas5816 Your response means you got the idea ;)
The way he talks so calmly, precise and concise without any filler words any hesitation. Its like listening to someone reading from a book, just way cooler. Amazing.
I wonder if he learned speaking in such a manner early on, as it probably is a huge help when dealing with the whole 'nerd imperialism ' attitude he mentioned
Truly an extraordinary mind. I salute everyone who took the time to listen to this with an open mind/heart--whether agree or disagree. We need more open, real discussions about the current state and future of our societies.
Best phrase: you can't empower yourself on someone else's power platform. Right on!
You can though, and that is what class war is (which was started by the upper classes around 10,000 years ago), and that's what the hierarchy of civilization has always been about, exploitive labor. Then eventually that developed into a stage of capitalism which presents exploited labor as voluntary agreement, when it is actually an elaborate hierarchical social organization derived from the theft of the community surplus that began with the establishment of sedentary societies. The theft of that surplus is what established the initial wealth of the upper classes that facilitated the creation and further propagation of the hierarchical stratification of so called civilization.
Jaron is one of the smartest people I've ever listened too on here. I wish he'd start a podcast. I' d love to pick his brain.
How about ACTING on what he says?
But do you think he eats too much?
@@rickkan4870 I mean it appears so but how or why is that relevant to him getting a podcast?
@@justbreathe8835 because if he continues to consume food at the rate it appears he eats, he will die most likely of a heart attack on air dude.
ououtward tea your prolly right,I would assume he prolly just doesnt move his body enough. So either lower his calories or move alot more. Prolly both to be honest
Very eloquent speaker; no notes or aids. He was not even phased by his phones' meow. great
That was staged to demonstrate his disdain for current tech.
Interesting, I remember he played a song on some obscure medieval instrument at the beginning of another lecture I watched, I guess he's a showman at heart as much as he is a technologist.
I don’t know about the rest of u but I just spent 8 hours on different videos listening to this man speak lol
Yes I am seeking out all his talks too 🕊
I love this person he adds so much value to the world. I am half way thought this lecture. I just turned on my tv and as if on cue , the tag line reads “STUDY: THINKING HARD IS EXHAUSTING “ and it’s all starting to make sense.
His take on Turing Test with the back-story was actually heart-breaking
No good deed goes unpunished - its why Davinci hid most of his inventions. When it comes to our heroes - as the Catholic Church well understands - you get enough gold eggs to forestall any serious competition and then you kill the duck - not from stupidity but from a sort of diabolic greed. Like the one about God responding to supplication by granting equal and double to your enemies and praying that you loose an eye
Where is that?
Yeah it was truly hart-breaking and also beautiful, in a way. It shapes the way you think about the soul of society both in Turing's time and today.
As a U.S. Marine Corps veteran it helped me to crystallize some of the thoughts I've had about some of my fellow comrades (who were of different ethnic, religious, cultural and gender-identity backgrounds) using dehumanizing language about people from the Levant and understanding how and why that came about. It's an indelible lesson that should be reflected upon as insight into sociological proclivities for a herd mentality among people who (with their background's), one might assume, would have an aptitude for independent or critical thought. And how coalescing around a singular objective rendered those latter proclivities inert.
I should mention that the use of that dehumanizing language did inspire debate with in the company. That did not mean that the conclusions reached by some individuals was homogeneous with the consensus of the group. Especially among those who were culturally opposed to empathetic inclusion (southern white boys) and those who were perceived as culturally and/or ethnically congruent with the people of the Levant. Although I would not say that the consensus of the group was untimely as charitable as it might or should have been.
@@bohansenboh
Would "people of the Levant", the area of the Middle East fronting the Mediterranean Sea include both Jews and Muslims. When you look at the cultures - NOT THE PEOPLE - of this area today it's kind of hard not to see one of the starkest differences anywhere in the world, so while dehumanizing language is not acceptable, it is a kind of shorthand for those who live acceptingly under a system that is itself dehumanizing and those who don't.
@@justgivemethetruth I don't understand your point. You're saying that dehumanizing language is not acceptable unless it's used as a "short hand" in order identify people who live (acceptably or unacceptably) under a dehumanizing regime?
I'm just going to assume that your grasp of English is poor.
Also considering Israeli apartheid is a pretty well established fact; I'll also assume your referring to the Iranian people when you refer to a group of people being culturally superior, considering that they have both Jewish and Muslim citizens who live in harmony.
It's a shame his talking points aren't discussed on a more collective level. Thank you for sharing
You can't expect that when the media is for the most part owned and run by corporate monopolies. Until that's ended, the monopolies broken up, it's going to be up to those of us who recognize the value of what he's saying to get the word out. In the U.S., we have laws against these monopolies, but WE let the politicians who are active in our government get away with not enforcing those laws, as a favor to the very same monopolies who give them lots of money...
What is your opening gambit?
@@TheFlyingBrain. I think it is a little too simple to blame large global monopolistic media corporations. To a large extent we get the government and society we deserve. I am sympathetic to the things he is advocating for but you can't pretend we are not products of our evolution and our tribal past. To pretend that we are not is to pretend that we aren't human with all the complexities, paradoxes and hypocrisies that come with it. I commend him for trying to find solutions but these large human projects almost always end up making things worse. You can't work too much against our nature whether it is communism or the things he is advocating for.
yes, 8:46 anyone know what he said?? something ology?i miss words and sentences sometimes...thanks
How would that go? I don't get what you mean.
"To me, it's just code. To me, theres no reason to add this new layer of mythmaking that gives it this kind of supernatural status as this 'new life form' that we are creating. In fact, there's every reason not too. " - Jaron Lanier
I love this lecture. puts me to sleep so fast
1:19:47 “You can’t empower yourself on somebody else’s power platform” great quote!
I love how this is enlightening without trying to oppressively shove anything down anyones throat
We need even more information like this on UA-cam. Such an insightful and educational talk by Jaron.
I massively also recommend Noam Chomsky's talk "The ghost, the machine and the limits of human understanding".
"...in the soft light of a glass box"
So poetic he can be at times. Also a wonderful name for the terrible dystopia we're on the verge of.
in this segment at timestamp 18:50 Jaron Lanier explains how Artificial Intelligence function on big data. based on the fact that, AI's mode of production and AI's source material still being based on a real human resource of production, Artificial Intelligence algorithms such as those based on Google Translate, scour the internet and real peoples content on a regular basis, in order for the AI system to keep up to date. this is yet another way in which Google use real peoples productive power at the same time as needing to ignore it, in order to maintain maximum profits and also in order to hide the human resource. this is done so that AI itself can be pretend that the AI itself is what is producing the intelligent work and by extension behaves intelligently.
The humility and humanity he ends his talk with is inspiring.
At least there is one person in Silicon Valley who thinks like this.
He's really a sort of prophet; like Amos. He's our Prometheus - betraying the very people he's paid to serve. Surprised he hasn't been shut up by an NDA
incredible talk. always a pleasure listening to Jaron speak
He is awesome. I rarely hear a speaker that make so much sense to me.
The best question of modern times
Yeah, I'm obsolete and I was in tech as an engineer. I'm kinda over it though but I do think the world is still crewed up very much, like turtles full of plastic junk etc. We don't though need AI to work out how to fix these things. We know how to fix them, we just won't do it as we need ever more stuff and most importantly to enrich the rich so how do we fix that? AI could really only conclude that humans are the problem, the infestation that is unreformable with our present depressing system.
I would say that this conclusion that humans are the problem is not absolute. AI will eventually understand life and solutions so well that it could solve most problems. However, a trait most humans have is the desire for more/change, so ultimately I think there is no true solution, but in a less grim way.
I have a possible solution that may be equally realistic. The wealthy elites will be the first to be able to fully upload their existence into full-time VR and will create their empires in there. They will have access to unlimited virtual resources and unlimited potential for achieving power and godhood as they wish. Eventually it will become available to average people too, but those who choose to stay behind in the real world will help recover our ecosystems and choose to live in more sustainable, simple ways. Probably subsistence farming and permaculture communities. I think this would result in an evolutionary split between mankind, but perhaps it's okay that some humans just want a boundless expanse to conquer and need a space to do so safely in. Meanwhile some of us are okay with mundane mortal existences where we live in step with nature and each other without excess. I think both are okay as long as it isn't causing harm to anybody and I think if we embrace that kind of split pragmatically we could pull it off without causing harm.
@@Cyanopteryx Counter-thought experiment:
Yes, the rich will try (maybe succeed) in uploading personality copies to a cloud-like space. Before too long, however, the trend will switch around. At that point the 'less-fortunate classes' will be encouraged -or even forced- to get their consciousnesses online (think of the ever prevelant ads for joining the colonies in Blade Runner and some P.K. Dick stories). This will occur because of the 'retro-appeal' of being grounded in physical reality, and the understanding that life is pretty great on Earth....except for all the other humans >____<
So the earth will be mostly emptied out, and the only people around to enjoy the eden-esque future you cite will be those with *inherited* wealth, romping around a depopulated planet, fooling everyone else into online meaninglessness with endless virtual distractions.
@@nismovspecgtr I highly doubt any of this will come to pass. Genuine AI (sentience) implies consciousness is computable, but chances are it is not. There are uncountably infinitely many ways a system can evolve if spacetime is a continuum (quantum mechanics notwithstanding), and only a countable infinity of digital computational states. In which space would you bet consciousness is more likely to reside (be possible within)? The countable infinite or the uncountable?
You have to understand a bit of mathematics to appreciate the magnitude of the difference.
@@Achrononmaster Going on our current understanding of physics, mathematics, and quantum physics, consciousness is most likely just some form of matter configured in some way. Humanity will eventually figure it out and most likely be able to replicate it. Kind of weird to think about it that way.
'you can't empower yourself inside someone else's platform any more than they permit'
I am really impressed by how this man's ideas are balanced, open, and rich. I think we really need integer techies nowadays before it wall goes nuts. This thing that irritates me a lot, is how companies small and big are so obsessed with data nowadays; in fact the lesson I came up with, is that data itself does not contain value as people are tending to race on, it is the need for some functionality ! data comes second.
I am totally with you on the first part of the comment, hooray for Haugen^^.
On the second part though, the value of data itself, that comes from scarcity.
An example: Way back when, it was cheaper to buy the gold for a craft than paying the work the most renowned craftsmen did to transform it. So, while gold was "cheap", finding talent was almost impossible (at a not too high price).
Nowadays it's the other way around, you could hire 1000 of the most promising tech-students, make them work for a year to find out who's actually genius, but in the end you would have payed less for them than for the batch of edited and prepared data (which also includes the work of millions of un-/underpaid clickworkers, stolen surplus value *yay*) you needed to properly train their new algorithms.
God Bless you Jaron, without you we are truly Lost!!!
I for one, will be waiting for my check in the mail from Facebook and UA-cam and google for all the Data they have extracted from my time and effort. Any day now...
WOW!!!! I can't believe I'm just hearing this for this first time!
It is not a “ life form “. It’s a tool used for a purpose. The issue is transparency - informing people what’s being used; and choice - does one want to participate when this tool is used.
At a certain point it would be beyond any life-form in every category imaginable. This lecture is just the concern of becoming inferior a position humans intrinsically despise. So what the initial stages are human formed opinions and information, how is that different from a child? When analyzed this whole lecture is pure fear of almost inevitable change. The only point I agree with is that this technology will not be used for a greater purpose.
I feel like I should let you know that the UA-cam algorithm brought me to this video. Seriously: this is the first time I ever listen to this guy, and it was literally the UA-cam algorithm who introduced me to it. I actually agree with most of what he explained, it just doesn't fit with the fact that the UA-cam algorithm brought me here 😆
When a child puts the wrong shaped brick in the wrong shaped hole, does that disprove the possibility that one day the child will grow up to be a brain surgeon?
Absolutely brillant.
this person never fails to amaze me
This is incredible. Needs to be watched.
54:49 - We do require people outside of the social media landscape to talk about the problem and push back against it. But where would they have this conversation? Where would they print their thesis and their evidence? Where would this conversation take place.
The cost of running a blog and posting links on social media is vanishingly small in comparison to running a professional website or printing a whole damn newspaper. Any platform that currently offers free communication will eventually become another Ad haven and any platform that charges for communication has a barrier of entry that Ad havens don't.
Public conversation relies too heavily on the internet such that we are living Plato's allegory of the cave except now we have to pay for corporate branded glasses to see the shadows.
The allegory of the cave and our tinted vision is a stroke of brilliance, brother
1:55 I love exploring Jaron Lanier's talks. What made this one extraordinary is the adorable kitteh meows Jaron has his cellphone ringer set to. 🥰🐈
Gently placing my previous comment of the kitteh cellphone ringer to the side, this Jaron Lanier talk is a must be listened to. Two other speakers who may add to your and to my explorations of the costs and benefits of online tools are Yuval Noah Harari and Shoshana Zuboff. There are others, yet Jaron, Yuval, and Shoshana are accessible and enriching. 🌺
@@deeliciousplum Thank you so much for the recommendations.. I cannot stop watching/listening to similar lectures or just talks & podcasts all day everyday.. yours will be more fuel to my addiction.. & that meowing ringtone is hilarious.. good catch
Talk was so full of emotion. While writing this I feel reminded of Edvard Munch’s “The Cry”. Iconic talk. Most important take away don’t say that people are obsolete like Yuval Harari and, in Germany, Richard David Precht do, both “intellectuals” are misleaded true believers in the by Jaron Lanier so well described tech myth.
I love the way tech guys can just reject any possible role they may have in throwing people on the scrapheap. He criticises the owners of ai then says " but I just made the code, I love code!" He's a bright person, did he really not foresee any of the negative possible consequences of his work?
None of my undergraduate students - none- over the past 4 years - 240 students - have heard of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the singularity, or Jaron Lanier. They take it for granted that technology progresses on its own volition, that 'life' is better because of it - including health - and that AI will be 'mor intelligent' than humans, and that it will create an 'advanced world'. Lanier, like David Noble, Neil Postman, J Ellul, L Mumford, and so many others whom my students have never heard of, aks the right questions from a really fresh angle - Silicon Valley!!.
He has the best laugh ever , a lilting laughter that tinkles against a bright sun on a clear blue sky . his conversation invokes images of beauty , very rare and precious . Him and Lex , that was a JOY , Grace be with you good brother !!!!!!
I like the question. I've been questioning just that for years!
This was incredible, educational and I'm glad I listened to the whole thing!
A fantastic talk. Jaron has many great ones, but might be the best.
I heard a heartbreaking story. It was told by a man who described how he had tried, as a young boy, to build a time machine so he could go back to save his father’s life.
He got the idea from a comic book story. He used a cardboard box to make a thing resembling the comic book drawing. When it didn’t work he kept revising it to make it look more like the comic book version.
Eureka! I finally found someone that I can agree with. A creation exists to serve its creator. Technology exists to serve its human creators. NEVER the other way ‘round! The economic system exists to serve its human creators. NEVER the other way ‘round!
it does, but those specific humans are probably assholes.. ?
I do wonder how we'll ever pull ourselves back from the direction of the internet being "free", it's seems unimaginable to me, and yet urgent and necessary as he said. I'm so glad there is at least someone like him putting himself out there to talk about these things in the way he is, I mean he is so brilliant and kind too. I love listening to him speak.
I'm so glad he mentioned the youtube subs in this video because I've watched quite a few videos of his and though he talks about pulling translations from things, I've always kinda wondered what sort of specific places have both languages lined up together to be 'stolen', though I know a fair number of article sites like National Geographic and Wired provide the same article in several languages, still it was lovely finally having a concrete example. :3
i've always felt that the internet was a truly dangerous thing and that not everyone should have access to it.
The internet will destroy peoples brains if they are not ready to comprehend it's magnitude...which many are not.
Starts at 0:00
Exceptional video, thank you.
In all the brilliance of this talk, the speakers comments like "Fundamentalism is raising because of the feeling of becoming obsolete" and "Putin detector" really devalue the impact and makes the listener question the scientific neutrality, the rigor, and multilayered thoughtfulness of the speaker.
sympathy > empathy
Empathy is the abstraction of humankind
"To serve humanity" was a cookbook.
I feel as if I had been waiting to hear this all my life! "AI" is such a religious project.
Besides fear and anger 'sex' is one of the most engaging material used online.
Yes it is everywhere. People are numb to it and then it ultimately becomes meaningless 😕
wonderfull lecture. thank you
It is funny that I got this recommended by youtube probably for the reason he said: I’m interested in AI but UA-cam wants to make me get engaged out of fear.
Excellent
and more it is a presentation of conciousness
Another reason why people fall in love so much with the idea of creating an A.I. is also ou strive for perfection. For us to be perfect. When we watch robocop, terminator, as children we then play and pretend that we are machines. it is cool, we imagine ourselves be that, because we struggle to be like that in real life. We could strive to be that in real life, internally. Efficient, logical, deadly and practical. But we accepted idea that we cannot, so we try to do it externally.
I fucking love this man!!!
9:26 I don't think we are even close to uploading our mind into a computer. There I've said it.
I like this guy
Great lecture and thank you for Slipknot.
😂
Technology has always been about levereging work to make easy money. Old technology could be easily copied and stolen, software is easier to keep secret. So the creators and owners can reap the surplus for a long time
no, money is a part of technology, so your claim is at least logically incorrect.
@@nescius2 well money as in fiat is ofc a creation. However value is not. The logic of the statement stands when you take money to be the defacto term for value.
what ever it is is inside our heads more or less, and each ones version is unique.
I love how he confesses his own sins, while dumping others in it!
this is such an amazing talk by Lanier!!! love it!
It's the second time I hear his translator argument and I'm still not convinced.
well, when you actually introduce a new and useful concept, its not only polite to acknowledge your authorship somehow.
translators may be able to do that (with few asterisks after the _new_ part of the concept) they do something important for us, but get *no credit*
Be convinced then!
This is incredible I cannot believe how little views it has. Beautiful.
Wow Bro. Your thinking is High Vibz
listened to jaron many times for me starts gettin intresting at 1.15m
Wow... simply wow...
Last question is great here.
Love this guy..cat ring tone lol
The current war on emotion is making us less human, we show our strength by acting like we are dead inside, and this war is being propagated by everyone from the shouty marketeer in ads trying to push your business to the next level to fake Buddhist monks and gurus. It is drawing us closer to Nietzche's last man. It's really sickening.
Emotions are both our strengths and our weakness. It's killed billions of people and saved billions. I look forward to Humanity 3.0 where negative emotions like hatred will be diminished.
Venting, huh?
@@StephenB_IndependentThought they're needed, they're not the problem. Our relation to them, our very own form, is what creates possible "problems".
Civilization is for the rich and powerful. The rest of us simply serve them.
Me. And you. And them.
Danke fürs teilen.
This should become common sense fast.
there is no such thing as perpetual motion so it will be interesting to imagine what actually maintains power to such a new world
Why isn't there media coverage on this issue!!?? Way the !@#$ more terrifying than Covid ever come close too being!
Denzil Dexter from The Fast Show
Everyone should be in the circle of kumbaya, except for the horrible people who should be outside for wrongthink.
He misspelled it. It's not VR. It's LSD.
Once AI becomes the dominant intelligence, it will be the judge in the Turing test.
AI will never be dominant itself, it is just a tool in the hands of those who create it. For example I don’t think AI would be allowed to come to the conclusion there should be free medical care and higher education in the US. It will reach only conclusions that it is allowed to reach.
Really interesting view on the problem and very informative. What made me sad though is that such a smart person believes the solution to inequality could be solved by introducing yet another element in this megamachine monster we have created. Even if companies would have to pay for data, it will not be as different, it may even have a bad effect by giving more power to big companies and making it harder to enter the field for smaller groups. The problem with internet isn't its free, decentralised nature, but rather that we allowed people greed to get a hold of it. It doesn't matter how much we tweak this system, as long as we don't remove the profit motive it will never get better. We shouldn't raise even more pay-walls, but rather learn how to share fairly all that is produced. Long story short, we need to dismantle the root causes behind manipulation and inequality, to render them inherently impossible to happen.
@Dramacurvo Well... That's completely the opposite of what I was trying to say! XD I'm pretty sure billionaires are not the answer. I think the important message in the video was more about building technologies that serves humanity rather than the other way around 😅 how to ensure it? Give access to everybody to use that technology, therefore each and every can keep it under control and decrease the chance we commit a fatal mistake, or at least make it unprofitable.
Beautiful story about Alan Turing. Something does not add up however. Turing proposed his test in 1950 paper called COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE; it was not called Turing Test, obviously, but Imitation Game. Turing started his treatment in 1952 and committed suicide in 1954. Was there another paper? I would love to read it if so.
From a fellow who bemoans robotic pets, it's ironic he has a cat meow ringtone. Lanier is always interesting.
probably the ringtone he set for his 'pussy' ... whoever he has sexual relations with ;) . Remember you can assign individual ringtones to each contact :)
But it's not Robotic and your assumptions seem to be without contemplating that the Cat sound could be a affectionate reminder of his Real Living, non robotic cat.
I got the fuck off Facebook nine months ago and don't even remember what being on it was like. Bad shit, scrap it.
Couple things: Turing in no way invented computers. He invented binary code, which made already existing computers much more powerful. Second, Turing didn't have a gay identity. He was a gay man with homosexual sexual orientation. Identity is not the same thing as sexual orientation. If you want to be exact, these distinctions matter. As we have sadly seen, thinking of sexuality as an identity means that people with a fetish like pedophilia, which is an idea that is always learned and is not inherent, can simply claim they have a different sexual orientation just like homosexuality or heterosexuality.
We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.
25:55 *there was computer on the other side* ... it was not just brute force algorithm but alan turing's insight into a flaw ... for example the encryption would never match same letter to itself ... he may have other insights like letter frequency consonants vowels etc ... i do not know much detail of his work then
i think you can blame Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski and Jerzy Różycki for those things as they were ones who broke the enigma by hand, Turing helped with automating it.
🤔 So, from what I'm understanding, the Singularity point when artificial intelligence actually "becomes smarter than humans" is nonexistent.
There's never a point where it becomes self-aware, only a point in which it collects data from humans and re-packages in larger batches and faster (nearly instantaneousl, rather than needing to collect it manually, ever so often) as language/society/data changes.
Its just getting closer to automated data regurgitation and application and further from manual information input and recycling.
The thief gets faster, not smarter.
Wow, the golden calf analogy, that one runs deep
Now I realize the film must have been based partly on this man's concerns about AI, referring to the Matrix. "Agents" are fake people! It's amazing how these things make their way into popular culture and most people don't know where they come from.
46:55 what he says i say to myself all the time. I cannot get over it. To the point I cannot function well in society.
Nicer Gast von der Niceigheit her
Exactly 200 years ago an old lady said the Automobile is a bad idea...And I really didn't like Slipknot that much.
.super
Weird how technology has served us for millions of years and just now the tables have turned. 🤔
Actually, in the same way the tables seem like they are turning now, you could argue that it has always been this way. Since the agricultural revolution technology has moulded how people live. Once upon a time we roamed free with only the most rudimentary tools. It was the advances of technology that led to human's settling down in a permanent location, where our diets changed, populations rose steeply and diseases spread, etc. From then on the ability to farm food and wage war more effectively have been of utmost concern. Of course advances in technology have been made to solve some big problems, medical advances and such, however these problems wouldn't exist without over complicating life with technology in the first place. So who is serving who? Because if the metric is human suffering then it seems technology has been the master this whole time. I think this is essentially one of main points Jaron is making.
“The *image* of the Beast”
being prophetic is not that relevant nowadays. that's why everyone runs to their machine.. they actually probably (unconsciously) want it to happen ..even the low status people