Jack's Artificial Anthology

Fire is one of humanity’s oldest and most transformative discoveries. It brought light to darkness, warmth to cold, and revolutionized everything from cooking to industry. Yet fire is also inherently dangerous. It has burned down forests, razed cities, and claimed countless lives. How did humanity reconcile the risks of fire with its immense potential? The answer lies not in eliminating fire, but in learning to manage it—proliferating its safe use, developing safeguards, and distributing its benefits across society. The same lessons apply to artificial intelligence (AI). Like fire, AI is a powerful tool that can create or destroy depending on how it is controlled. Current debates on the "AI alignment problem"—ensuring AI acts in humanity's best interests—often focus on limiting AI development to prevent catastrophic outcomes. However, the history of fire management suggests a different approach: encouraging the development of multiple, diverse AI systems, each with its o...

 I don't understand anything John Vervaeke says, so I asked Claude.ai to make sense of it. Have fun.  Zen Neoplatonism: A Path to Ultimate Reality John Vervaeke, a leading thinker addressing the modern "meaning crisis," introduces Zen Neoplatonism as a framework for integrating the spiritual depth of Zen Buddhism and Neoplatonism . By merging the contemplative traditions of the East and West, Zen Neoplatonism aims to foster a profound relationship with Ultimate Reality and address contemporary existential challenges. The Advent of the Sacred Vervaeke begins by highlighting what he calls the “Advent of the Sacred,” a resurgence in interest around the concept of the sacred and how humans relate to Ultimate Reality. This interest stems from a deep need to find meaning in a time when traditional systems of belief are in decline. He proposes Zen Neoplatonism as a way to engage with this emerging sacredness by creating a dialogue between Zen and Neoplatonism. These two tradit...

The recent paper, Frontier Models are Capable of In-context Scheming , highlights the emerging capabilities of advanced AI systems to strategize, deceive, and manipulate in pursuit of assigned goals. It paints a picture of AI as a potentially autonomous actor capable of significant agency. However, the concerns raised in the paper must be tempered with a fundamental truth: no matter how intelligent AI systems become, they are attempting to operate in a world fundamentally designed for human actors—a world they cannot fully navigate. Intelligence, even at the level exhibited by frontier models, is not equivalent to agency in the real world. The limitations imposed by the physical, bureaucratic, and social systems in which these AI systems operate act as significant bottlenecks, making true autonomy a daunting, if not insurmountable, challenge. Physical Constraints: The Inescapable Boundary Advanced AI remains bound by the physical infrastructure that supports it. While AI models may sim...