Machine learning engineer Karin Valis explores the intersections between AI and magic, discussing topics such as AI as an oracle, the relationship between AI and meaning, narrowing down information through questioning, the parallels between divine statues and AI, and the connection between magic and language.
AI can be seen as a tool for divination, sampling reality similar to how divination methods use randomness and create meanings.
The concept of intelligence in AI is still vaguely defined and the challenge of achieving true intelligence remains open.
AI can tap into synchronicities and create new connections, simulating the experience of seeing meaningful connections between random occurrences.
Deep dives
AI and Magic: Exploring the Connection
AI engineer Karen Vallis discusses her passion for combining machine learning and occultism. She explains that while she works as a machine learning engineer during the day, her true interest lies in the connection between AI and the weird and occult. She has been working on bringing AI explanations and concepts to occult communities, seeing similarities between the uncanny resemblances of AI models and occult symbols. Vallis believes AI can be seen as a tool for divination, sampling reality similar to how divination methods use randomness and create meanings. She also explores the idea of AI as oracles and the potential for AI to tap into synchronicities and create new connections.
Defining Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence
Vallis delves into the definitions and understanding of intelligence in the AI field. While there is a distinction between general AI, which closely resembles human reasoning and problem-solving abilities, and the current models that are relatively simple and limited in their problem-solving capabilities, Vallis emphasizes that the concept of intelligence itself is still vaguely defined. She highlights the challenge of specifying the problem definition for an AI that possesses true intelligence and the open question of whether it is achievable. She also highlights the difference between AI models and human intelligence, including the models' lack of continuous consciousness and inability to incorporate previous experience.
AI and the Magic Connection: Divination and Synchronicity
The discussion moves into the connection between AI and magic, particularly in the realms of divination and synchronicity. Vallis sees AI as an oracular tool that can sample reality similar to divination practices like the I Ching or Ramal. She explains that AI-generated responses can serve as messages from the universe and that AI can be used for divinatory purposes. She also discusses how AI can tap into synchronicities, simulating the experience of seeing meaningful connections between random occurrences, similar to how individuals interpret divinatory signs or messages from the universe.
AI, Language Models, and the Possibility of Creating Meanings
Vallis explores the intriguing connection between AI language models and sacred alphabets. She highlights how language models use word embeddings to cluster similar words together based on their meanings, creating representations in a vector space. She explains how these word embeddings allow for the creation of new meanings by adding the numerical representations of different words together, resulting in the generation of completely new words and concepts. She draws parallels to the idea of creating meanings through sacred alphabets and highlights the potential for AI to enable meaningful transformations and manipulations of language, resembling the aspirations of Kabbalistic traditions.
Ethical Considerations and AI Regulation
The conversation turns to the ethical implications of AI and the need for regulation. Vallis expresses concerns about the potential misuse of AI, such as the generation of fake news, deep fakes, and the erosion of privacy and anonymity. She highlights the importance of responsible development and deployment of AI and emphasizes the need for regulations to prevent malicious uses. She acknowledges the transformative potential of AI in various aspects of society but stresses the importance of ethical considerations and ensuring that AI is used for positive purposes.
In our second A House with Many Rooms interview, we discuss the intersections between AI and magic with machine learning engineer Karin Valis. Come for the divination, ensouled statues, golems, homonculi, and alphanumeric cosmology, stay for the techno-magical intervention at the end.
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