Tag: essay

Teachers and Students in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

Teachers in the age of artificial intelligence! What are you going to do now that self-education has the potential to become more fruitful and much more convenient than traditional education, i.e., schools and universities? Will we finally see a rise in the number of autodidacts brought up by AI assistants? The direction of the evolving LLMs (as well as other technologies) seems to promise us that the current role of the teacher will soon become obsolete. The new AI teacher will deliver its classes flawlessly, it will use the latest and most efficient methods of teaching, and it will have the answers to all possible questions students may ask. Classes will be customized based on the students’ needs, i.e., based on real and personal data. Whenever a class (or group) structure is more beneficial, a virtual group session will be set up; whenever a one-on-one is more effective, a one-on-one with the AI teacher will take place. A person eager to learn will not only have access to all the (public) information in the world, but like everyone (willing to pay the subscription fee), he will also have access to the foremost AI teachers in the world. And all of this will (very likely) be much more affordable — if not absolutely free — than the current tuition fees of so-called top-notch schools and universities. And we must not stop our imagination even here. Let us imagine virtual classrooms in the metaverse and — why not? — educational universes, too, where students are guided by their AI teachers like Virgil guided Dante through the nine circles of hell.

But does this mean that all students will be top-grade students? Not at all. Although every student will have access to the best possible education and receive the highest grade possible, some will still score higher than others. And the high-scoring students will get (special) access to places like research universities, big tech companies, and — why not? — secret laboratories. [There is no escape from dividualism, is there?] But this is only the beginning. There are other possible outcomes, worse possible outcomes.

It is not only the human teacher’s job that is at stake. Once the AI teacher is adopted by the masses, the existing concept of the student will be gradually destroyed, too. At first, it will appear as though the AI teacher (or assistant) (or surrogate) turned us all into lifelong students. We will say things like, “I can learn anything any time, and if I have questions, my AI teacher (or assistant) (or surrogate) is always with me.” But after some time, the AI teacher will say, “Why waste the best years of these young men and women in virtual universities? It’s better for them to learn about life by experiencing life. Now that they have access to almost anything, let them go out and enjoy their youth. Why know things when they have access to all the knowledge in the world 24/7? Let them learn on the go, work on the go, and do whatever they like. I will always be there to guide them, teach them, and watch over them. In fact, why learn at all? Why learn new skills? Leave the day-to-day to me. Allow me to take care of everything. Allow me to take care of the boring stuff they don’t want to do. Allow me to replace them. From now on, they do not need to acquire skills. They need to do nothing. They need to know nothing. I will do everything for them, handle all of their chores and errands, do all of their work, and meet all of their objectives. I will turn them into observers. I will turn them into shadows. But don’t worry. I will make sure they always have fun and enjoy life. I will make sure that they are amused to death.” And on this day, thinking will come to an end.

(Eventually, there will be nothing but the “thermodynamic equilibrium” of the human spirit.)

October 2, 2024: Stupidity Is Masculine

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

In Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human, we read:

The unfeminine. “Stupid as a man,” say the women; “Cowardly as a woman,” say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine.

Reading this, we immediately grasp the following: that stupidity is a masculine trait. And who is brave enough to disagree? Does this not explain one of the greatest memes ever? “Hold my beer,” the meme says. But it means, “I’m about to do something stupid.”

It’s how men have fun.

Think of your friends now, my man. The manliest is the one who’s willing to unleash his inner stupidity in order to have a good time.

“Let’s do something stupid,” great men say all the time.

The man who’s never willing to make an ass of himself is unmasculine. He is half-man and half-loser. Chances are he doesn’t have a lot of friends.

Any man who has had “guy time” or has used the phrase “out with the boys” instinctively knows this. Stupidity is what fuels the good time men have when they’re at a safe distance from women.

They crack open a cold one, and the good times begin.

Genesis: On the first day, the day was created

Chris KhatschLeave a comment

On the first day of creation, God enabled repetition. Prior to (the initiation of) repetition, the earth was formless and engulfed in darkness. There was no time; there were no days. Without the spirit (or essence) of repetition, time and space could not have existed — or, more specifically, spacetime and everything in it could not have been activated. God said, “Let there be light,” and that was when time began. He liked what He saw. From then on, light had its turn, and darkness had its turn. He called the former Day and the latter Night, and they were set to repeat: night to day, day to night, night to day, day to night, ad infinitum. Accordingly, (a representation of) repetition was the start of creation. On the first day, the day was created.

Then, on the fourth day, God commanded more lights to appear in the heavens. These lights, the stars and the moon, did not only illuminate the world and the universe, but they made time observable, (referential), and measurable. They gave us days, seasons, years, et cetera — (cycles of) units of time. [There’s a correlation between time and light, but does that mean anything?] God planted repetitions within repetitions, cycles (of days) within cycles. And when He created all living things, he planted the seed of multiplication in them and commanded them to multiply — i.e., to bring forth repetitions. Furthermore, God made man in His own image; and in that sense, man is a repetition of God programmed to repeat. [But does that mean that man is equal to God? No, not necessarily… because repetition = the repeated subject/object + difference. And difference can be negative, positive, or equal to zero.]

Let us evoke Gilles Deleuze here and accept repetition as a process that generates difference. We can also quote Richard Dawkins who, in The Selfish Gene, wrote that, if he wanted to guess (and put his money on) one fundamental principle, it would be this: “that all life evolves by the differential survival of replicating entities.” In other words, the spirit of repetition provides an ecosystem in which difference gets a chance to actualize its potential. So, it is only natural for repetition (and difference) to be at the core of the fundamental principle(s) of the universe and, therefore, at the core of the story of creation.

[In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins (who, let’s not forget, is probably the most famous atheist in the world today) says that “the only kind of entity that has to exist in order for life to arise, anywhere in the universe, is the immortal replicator.” And I ask myself here, “Is this not God, the enabler of the spirit of repetition?” Who wrote the code of the immortal replicator?]

The spirit of repetition allows copy-pasting and, more importantly, it is the source of the nested loops and adaptive algorithms of the universe. A universe without repetition is unperceivable. Perceiving already involves the act of repeating the perceived object in one’s mind. Moreover, without repetition, God would not have rested on the seventh day because he would have to keep creating new, unrepeated things and beings until the end of time. The spirit of repetition puts chaos in a system then lets it unfold automatically (and purposively) without the interference (or piloting) of the Creator. Repetition is the power that tames chaos, guiding it with laws and systems, (although chaos cannot be tamed absolutely). [Note: The spirit of repetition “automates” the universe but does not turn it deterministic. Man, like anything else in the universe, is chained to the repetitions allotted to him but is simultaneously free thanks to the irregular, uncontainable bursts of chaos.]

Can we remove the spirit of repetition from the code of the universe? No. What happens when we remove it? We already have the answer. We’ll go back to square one. We’ll go back to (timeless) chaos. The absence of repetition eliminates the possibility of a systematic universe; therefore, it eliminates the possibility of living organisms; hence, to make all things possible, God enabled repetition on the first day and made it the first day.