Скачать или смотреть Venkatesh Rao on AI and the beauty of mediocrity

Large language models, the computer programs often referred to as artificial intelligence are everywhere these days. There's a lot of hype, a lot of doomerism, and a lot of nay-saying.

But despite what all the commentators are saying, the current AI technology is neither a magical god-being nor a tremendous scam. It’s just a really useful technology that is going to be here in the long term, regardless of any of our individual opinions of it. That makes it worth thinking about in more practical terms for what it means to us—you and me. How do LLMs actually work and how do we live with them?

Joining me to talk about this is someone who has been asking those kinds of questions long before ChatGPT entered the international conversation. Venkatesh Rao is a writer, independent researcher, and consultant best known for his influential former blog Ribbonfarm and his incisive takes on technology, culture, and organizational behavior. Currently, he writes on his own website now called Contraptions.

In the episode, we talk about Venkat’s distinct approach to AI, seeing it as an emergent, messy, and deeply human technology shaped by what he calls mediocrity. That might sound like a knock, but it's actually something much more—a compliment both to humans and the human-created technologies that we explore.

TRANSCRIPT
https://plus.flux.community/p/6bdd7b8...

GUEST LINKS
https://venkateshrao.com
https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com

TIMECODES
00:00 Introduction
09:47 Arthur C. Clarke's magic and current technology
15:37 AI's practical applications
18:54 The concept of mediocrity
24:07 Evolution and mediocrity
28:55 Supply chains and resilience
32:26 The importance of reserves and openness
37:04 Copyright and historical context
45:25 Technological evolution and commodification
55:08 The philosophical implications of AI as mirror
01:00:15 Embodiment and somatic reasoning in AI

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Theory of Change is hosted by Matthew Sheffield about larger trends and intersections of politics, religion, media, and technology. It's part of the Flux Community, a new content network of podcasters and writers. Please visit us at flux.community to learn more and to tell us about what you're doing. We're constantly growing and learning from the great people we meet.

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