Al RobertsonMar 4, 2023
Frank Pasquale
“In relentlessly making noise that passes for signal, and undermining the means by which one can tell the difference, Generative AI promises to be an entropy engine.”
https://robhorning.substack.com/p/the-signal-of-compliance
The signal of compliance

“Messages are themselves a form of pattern and organization,” cyberneticist Norbert Wiener writes in The Human Use of Human Beings (1950). “Indeed, it is possible to treat sets of messages as having an entropy like sets of states of the external world. Just as entropy is a measure of disorganization, the information carried by a set of messages is a measure of organization … That is, the more probable the message, the less information it gives. Cliches, for example, are less illuminating than great poems.”

Internal exile
Mar 4, 2023 at 5:01amWeb
Show threadJeff JarvisMar 4, 2023
@FrankPasquale
"AI obviously treats language as if minds were superfluous to its operation."
Show threadFelicity MartinMar 4, 2023
@[email protected]👆Worth a read if you’re following the debate about AI.
“The chatbot is lulling me into thinking there is some sort of valuable knowledge for me in learning how to get anything useful out of it, when really I am merely adding value to the chatbot, refining its simulation and revealing more data about myself for the company that administers it.”
Show threadFelicity MartinMar 4, 2023
Also in the article above,
“One can see generative AI, which produces cliches at an industrialized scale and scope, as the result of treating language as no more than information — it is an effort to impose that view on humanity — resulting in a world in which “nothing new ever happens.” In relentlessly making noise that passes for signal, and undermining the means by which one can tell the difference, Generative AI promises to be an entropy engine.” #AI #ChatGPT
Show threadPaul AllenMar 4, 2023
@FrankPasquale Just what the evil-genius doctor ordered.
Show threadErik Uden => [email protected]Mar 4, 2023
Is this article AI written? I don’t understand a word of it lol
Show threadCarolannieMar 4, 2023
@FrankPasquale Good article
Show threadBitnikMar 4, 2023

@FrankPasquale
"Entropy generator/engine" has been my favourite description of ChatGPT and the like for a few weeks, now. It acts as if it's like Wikipedia, but Wikipedia has human editors, with any automation used under strict controls, for reversing obvious vandalism, correcting spellings, tagging articles and so on. In short, Wikipedia is essentially like any classic dictionary or encyclopedia. Articles are vetted.

ChatGPT is a text aggregator with no knowledge of semantics. It's an idiot.

Show threadRoger MooreMar 4, 2023
@FrankPasquale
We're well on our way to Neal Stephenson's idea of Artificial Inanity deliberately poisoning our sources of information.