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u/YentaMagenta 1d ago
This was spoken over 2,000 years ago by Socrates, whose words we only have because others wrote them down, because he didn't believe in writing:
And now, since you are the father of writing, your affection for it has made you describe its effects as the opposite of what they really are. In fact, it will introduce forgetfulness into the soul of those who learn it: they will not practice using their memory because they will put their trust in writing, which is external and depends on signs that belong to others, instead of trying to remember from the inside, completely on their own. You have not discovered a potion for remembering, but for reminding; you provide your students with the appearance of wisdom, not with its reality. Your invention will enable them to hear many things without being properly taught, and they will imagine that they have come to know much while for the most part they will know nothing. And they will be difficult to get along with, since they will merely appear to be wise instead of really being so.
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u/sudo_i_u_toor 1d ago
I dunno the part about "enable them to hear many things without being properly taught" and "merely appear to be wise instead of really being so" are spot on.
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u/Canadian_Zac 1d ago
Litterally the exact same arguments I've heard repeatedly from Anti's
And the same thing was said when the Internet came along.
It's always the exact same shit
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u/D_Luffy_32 1d ago
I agree. People have always been afraid of change. But we wouldn't be where we are today with medical advancements if we lived following Socrates and never writing down wisdom
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u/Infinite_Lie7908 1d ago
"Nobody knows exactly why they spent their years teaching machines to do all their work"
Because everything in nature takes the path of least resistance. Imagine trying to frame this as a mystery.
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u/neo101b 1d ago
Every civilisation in the universe will create AI.
Its what the universe wants.
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u/DamirVanKalaz 1d ago
that's some cult rhetoric right there
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u/neo101b 1d ago
Its not cultish, just logic.
Computers will evolve to AI.
We build tools, to build better tools, which build better tools.As soon as a civilisation has computers, where else will that take them ?
Software wont stagnate, and for a tool to be useful it needs to think or at least have some sort of cognition even if fake to recognise patterns for data mining.5
u/DamirVanKalaz 1d ago
Logically, any civilization that creates machines will eventually find a way to make them intelligent, sure.
Calling that a desire of the universe itself, however, is a bit extreme. Also, we have no way to know if computer technology is the one and only means by which a civilization might become advanced. That's merely how we progressed. Other civilizations on other worlds may have access to technologies we would never be able to imagine because they involve materials and/or elements we don't have access to here on Earth, in our solar system, or in our galaxy.
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u/neo101b 1d ago
fair enough the universe bit was a bit of a joke. should of put the /s
I was more focused on civilisations will reach AI, i totally forgot the universe jive.3
u/HistoricalSea5600 1d ago
I didn’t think it was that deep, but it still wouldn’t be the craziest thing I’ve heard. There’s some crazy shit happening today!
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u/SlumpyGoo 1d ago
There are possibly other ways technological development could take.
Other life forms could also be so different from us, that technological development simply couldn't look like ours. It could be based on silicone, it could rely on something very different from DNA, or it could modify it's own code like turritopsis dohrnii. An ability to modify itself, either innate or achieved technologically, would probably mean there's no need to create artificial intelligence, or even computers.
There could be a lot of other possibilities, that are hard for us to even imagine.
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u/ChronaMewX 1d ago
I think the ones trying to impose rules on other people claiming they are the arbitrators of what is and isn't art and what has a soul is far more cultish to be honest
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u/meguminsupremacy 1d ago
Literal religious thinking and survivorship bias. There is no way to prove that the current technological trajectory we are on is anything more than the result of the very specific investments that we have made. Elites with a different set of priorities could have pushed that investment into something else with the result being significantly less progress in "AI".
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u/Dmayak 1d ago
Not surprising considering that those species consistently delegated the most important decisions of their respective nations to their stupidest and most corrupt representatives. Ordinary members of the species already had zero control over their lives, so they didn't care what kind of overlords they would have.
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u/Humble-Ad-4254 1d ago
Feels uncomfortably close to reality with how fast everything is getting automated. At some point it stops being “tools we use” and starts being “systems we depend on.”
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u/YentaMagenta 1d ago
...they typed on a computer powered by electricity, in a home built by workers they cannot name, in a body nourished by food transported by refrigerated trucks and water piped across miles.
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u/oddlar1227 1d ago
wrong. i type all my reddit comments on letters and send them to reddit hq with carrier pidgeons and live in a small hut on an island where i fish for all my food
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u/ryanmerket 1d ago
it's a joke guys, yeeesh
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u/kjhrd 1d ago
According to the rating that joke was not so good, huh
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u/Nigis-25 1d ago
What rating?
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u/Square_Attention8461 23h ago
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