Value Pluralism. Or, when bot habit becomes human instinct?
I adore poetry.
It expands my understanding of words, and the complexity of a context, by making words twist their meaning so my understanding of the world becomes richer. But poetry doesn’t pretend to present absolute truth. It feels its way to a fuzzy center, but it has a center none-the-less. Just like an atom with a cloud of electrons.
But Value Pluralism, used un-poetically and with the assistance of AI, is causing me to have a small freak-out. See this section of a short NYT clip (David Marchese interview with Yejin Choi on March 3, 2024)
Obviously, there are many conflicts in the world today, and those conflicts are from plural values confined by finite space.
Isreal/Palestine, Ukraine/Russia…
or within one nation - like mine - the right to life of
<1mm IVF eggs in -80* freezers, vs
actual bodies crossing national lines (Mexico, US, Canada), vs.
criminal sentenced to death, vs.
absence of harm reduction for drug addicts (likely to die v. soon), vs
denial of euthenasia, vs.
future generations of kids, like the ones suing the US govt for wreaking the climate of their future.
or the rights of nature… do humans really have the right to plunder landscapes to make their own lives ‘better’?
Who gets to live where, how, and when? Who gets to define Who, When, and Where that life can happen?
How do we even have a word like “refugee” say nothing of a logical or common sensical response to a crisis of refugees?
But training AI to be common sensible (NYT March 3, 2024)…
I get how computers can win chess, but to win at ‘common sense’? What does that even mean?
Of course - there is more to the interview, but as I’m not a paying subscriber to the NYT - you’ll have to tell me what transgression this interview posits…. Bc if alternatives to ‘binaries’ has to do with something looking bad or what half the country thinks…. I should quit science and become a hard-core poetry teacher.
I’m sticking to my fuzzy center.
And I’m putting George Orwell at the top of my reading list, again, lest AI habits become cultural instinct.
George Orwell, 1984
