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The Camden Philosophical Society will over the coming months be delving into ethical and philosophical issues raised by the development of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). This series of discussions will start at our gathering on Tuesday, Aug. 20, with introductions both to the widely varying definitions applied to many of the terms used in discussing AI, and to the practical and ethical concerns raised by the different modes of advanced AI and their likely future combination.
The next meeting will take place on Tuesday, August 20, at 3:30 – 5:30 PM EDT. All are welcome to participate, in-person at the Picker Room of the Camden Public Library or by Zoom. That goes for summer visitors, as well as year-rounders in Maine, and friends of the society wherever you may be.
If you wish to participate via Zoom, please email sarahmiller@usa.net. You will receive a Zoom invitation on the morning of the meeting. Click on the “Join Zoom Meeting” link in that invitation at the time of the event.
The first core reading for this session will be an article from the New Yorker by Cal Newport, which discusses the skill sets and potentials of different modes of generative AI, including the large language models (LLM) used in ChatGPT and the more predictive modes used primarily, so far, in targeted programs such as that for playing chess and other complex games.
The article can be found at this link https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/can-an-ai-make-plans or at the bottom of this page.
We also encourage attendees to check out this “briefing” tool on AI from the World Economic Forum (Davos) in order to better understand the terminology used in this field. It allows you to drill down in various directions: https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/a1G0X000006DO7RUAW?utm_source=ed75b345-f6ec-4412-8191-31e01ec50155
On the impact side, our core reading is the transcript of a debate between Yann Le Cun, a director of AI research at Facebook and professor at NYU, and Yuval Noah Harari, author of best-sellers Sapiens and Homo Deus. It appeared in French magazine Le Point. Le Cun extols the potential for AI, even while conceding some of the concerns voiced by Harari, who is in the camp of commentators which warns of extreme danger to humanity from this technology: https://www.lepoint.fr/sciences-nature/yuval-harari-sapiens-versus-yann-le-cun-meta-on-artificial-intelligence-11-05-2023-2519782_1924.php#11
We encourage you to supplement that by reading a piece by Australian philosopher and Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI, Seth Lazar, on ”Frontier AI Ethics” https://aeon.co/essays/can-philosophy-help-us-get-a-grip-on-the-consequences-of-ai and/or listen to one or both of these recorded interviews with British/Canadian computer scientist, psychologist, and University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrvK_KuIeJk (13 minutes duration from “60 Minutes”); https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpoRO378qRY (More in-depth from CBS).