Generative Artificial Intelligence -- August 28, 2023

Locator: 45496GENAI. 

Overview posts.

• ChatAI.

Updates

September 10, 2023: the fourth industrial revolution.

August 29, 2023: Nvidia and Google will partner on generative AI.

Original Post

Before we get started, "everybody" seems to be talking about "AI," or artificial intelligence." In fact, it's not a two-word phrase but rather a three-word phrase about which we are talking. The first word is the most important of the three and it is seldom used. The full three-word phrase is "generative artificial intelligence."

What do quantum mechanics and generative artificial intelligence have in common.

No one understands either.

Richard Feynman, from the NY Times, September 7, 2019:

“I think I can safely say that nobody really understands quantum mechanics,” observed the physicist and Nobel laureate Richard Feynman. That’s not surprising, as far as it goes. Science makes progress by confronting our lack of understanding, and quantum mechanics has a reputation for being especially mysterious.

What’s surprising is that physicists seem to be O.K. with not understanding the most important theory they have.

Quantum mechanics, assembled gradually by a group of brilliant minds over the first decades of the 20th century, is an incredibly successful theory. We need it to account for how atoms decay, why stars shine, how transistors and lasers work and, for that matter, why tables and chairs are solid rather than immediately collapsing onto the floor.

It seems I've read a gazillion articles on "AI" and it's immediately obvious that the writers have no idea what they are writing about when they're writing about the "application" that Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Greg Brockman, et al, developed. That's not a "ding" on the writers. It's simply that incredible what Sam Altman and the others did.

This blog is IN PROGRESS and I may or may not ever finish it. We'll see. But if you want to skip ahead and see where I'm headed, google generative linguistics Chomsky Bertrand Russell Turing.

Technically, all you really need to do is google generative linguistics Chomsky.

Where do we start? We start with the definition off generative. Below, the second definition:

Now it gets fun.

The linguists.

Norm Chomsky: wiki.

Bertrand Russell: wiki.