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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  2545 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: God in the machine: my strange journey into transhumanism

Peter Norvig likes to compare AI programs to magic tricks. Once you know how they work they're cool, but not at all magical.

The best cure for transhumanism is taking an Intro to AI class.





user-inactivated  ·  2545 days ago  ·  link  ·  
kleinbl00  ·  2545 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You either misunderstand the quote, misunderstand bfv or both.

Feynman was explaining the aesthetics of science, in that when you have a deeper understanding of something you appreciate it on a deeper level. His friend Jirayr initially stated, at a party he and Feynman were attending, that scientists could not truly understand aesthetics because they could only see the deeper level. It was this dispute that led to the wager between the two of them, to Feynman taking art lessons and for the two spending Sundays painting together for a number of years and, in no small way, reinforced Feynman's stance on the education of science because, from his perspective, Jirayr had been cheated by a liberal arts mentality that denigrated deeper understanding in favor of gestalt aesthetics.

Norvig is stating that the AI insider's appreciation of AI is the trickster's appreciation of the trick, not the scientist's appreciation of aesthetics. One cannot simultaneously think the girl is sawed in half and magically rejoined while also appreciating the cleverness of the double box with hidden compartments.

There is skill and mastery and aesthetic beauty in pulling coins from behind a kid's ear. There is not, however, any violation of the principles of thermodynamics. In order to appreciate the former you must reject the latter. Nature and art can be appreciated in whole or in part and the two approaches are additive. Magic and magic tricks, on the other hand, cannot for two are betrayals of each other.

user-inactivated  ·  2544 days ago  ·  link  ·  

You're right. I misunderstood the connection between the two things. bfv, apologies.