yemmly

Yes, and we’re in denial about it.

Every time I hear someone talking up prompt engineering, I feel like I should say something. But I don’t.

Thank you for your cooperation.

I like that someone in a position of authority is talking about this.

And I don’t mean to denigrate data science. It is important and powerful. And real machine intelligence may one day emerge from it (or data science may one day point the way). But data science just isn’t AI.

This is because the AI of today is a shit sandwich that we’re being told is peanut butter and jelly.

For those who like to party: All the current “AI” technologies use statistics to approximate semantics. They can’t just be semantic, because we don’t know how meaning works or what gives rise to it. So the public is put off because they have an intuitive sense of the ruse.

As long as the mechanics of meaning remain a mystery, “AI” will be parlor tricks.

🤯

I’m going to need to see your passport to prove you’re not American. Otherwise fines may be assessed.

Yet another thing I remember from the 90s Internet was Church of the Subgenius. It was one of the first viral memes and when you read about it, you might just discover a thing or two about a thing or two.

Another thing I remember from the early 90s was internets with a little ‘i’. I could call a number with my modem and connect to a private system that wasn’t interconnected with the big Internet. These were typically bulletin board systems (BBS). An extension of the BBS concept was the online service, like CompuServe and AOL. Eventually these online services started functioning as internet gateways and that is when the real fun started. Prior to that the Internet was only available to government and academic users.

As a Windows user in the 90s, I remember downloading Slackware. It took a long time for me to understand what it was and how to install it. The idea of a different OS that I could install on my PC was bizarre and not at all intuitive at the time to a computer novice.

I remember the first time I connected to the Internet and browsed Usenet back in the early 90s. I’m a soccer fan and it amazed me that I could read about soccer match results and news and opinions from all around the world.

Back then it was pretty uncommon for people to be assholes to each other online. We were all just amazed at how much information we could share and consume.

It’s important to understand that prior to the Internet the only comparable experience that even came close was going to a library and browsing the magazine rack. And that was neither interactive, nor timely in the way we have grown to expect in the Internet age.