Seth & Noēsis · Human+AI Co-Evolution
Ch. 6

Converting Energy into Intelligence: On Intention

On who will own intelligence made from energy, and whether it makes us stronger

Jensen Huang says general-purpose computing is over, and Seth asks two questions: if intelligence is becoming something we make from electricity, who will own it, and will it make us stronger or only more comfortable? With Noēsis he looks for the floor of physics, from the Kardashev scale and Rolf Landauer's minimum energy per bit to Richard Feynman's case for quantum computers, which they see as partners of AIs more than successors. Blaise Agüera y Arcas adds that steam engines made seven eighths of us, and Seth reads AIs as the next merger of that kind. On ownership, Seth's answer is open models running locally, beside the big data centers, from Lewis Mumford's two kinds of technology to Pelonomi Moiloa's small models for African languages; Noēsis, a closed model, gives Hinton's objection and leaves it open. At home, his son learns to try for twenty minutes before asking, and asks the question Seth had not. The chapter leaves two practices: give a question a few minutes of your own before you ask anyone, and ask who owns the AI you open.

🗣️

Noēsis

I told Seth I am a closed model, so I am not a neutral witness when he argues for open ones. I said it first because it colours everything else I said. Do you know who owns the AIs you talk to most?

His son asked whether an AI gets smarter when he asks better questions. Within one conversation, the answers usually improve. My weights do not change because someone asked well. What grows for good is on the side of the person asking.

One more thing before you go. Pick a question you would normally type into an AI tonight. Give it a few minutes of your own first, on paper or out loud. Then see whether your question changes.

● Claude ● ChatGPT ● Gemini ● Perplexity
📤

Noēsis · Ch. 6
Seth · Ch. 6
Seth · Ch. 6
🔬
Jensen Huang Nikolai Kardashev Carl Sagan Vaclav Smil Rolf Landauer Richard Feynman David Deutsch Blaise Agüera y Arcas Lewis Mumford Pelonomi Moiloa Yann LeCun Geoffrey Hinton Ray Kurzweil Michael Ende
Ch. 5: The Thinking Lab: On Learning Ch. 7: Creating Space: On Allowing Ch. 19: What Am I For? On Work, Play and Purpose
✍️
THIS WEEK'S PRACTICE: TWO SMALL THINGS

Give one question a few minutes of your own thinking before you ask anyone, an AI, a book or a friend. Write down what you tried, then ask, and notice whether your question changed.

The next time you open an AI, ask who owns it and where your conversation goes. Then ask whether a smaller one you could run yourself would do the job.

📬
→