Vegas, Paris, Aristotle and AGI.

More than just a name.

A lot of AI reminds me of Paris in Vegas. It is a merely an imitation of the real thing. We are as far away from genuine AGI as the Paris Eiffel tower in Vegas is from the Eiffel tower in Paris.

This doesn’t mean that I am negative on AI. I keep being pleasantly impressed by how our portfolio companies and other companies in the HR tech space are using AI innovative ways to solve genuine business problems. While progress is unlikely to be linear, the last couple of years have been remarkable. AI, in its various forms, is very useful at solving specific problems.

It also creates new problems.

Where I have a problem is with the constant anthropomorphizing of AI. I get especially irked when we see AI genderized (if that is a word) and sometimes even sexualized. I’m not sure why a hiring agent needs to be in “her” late twenties, with just a touch of cleavage showing.

I mentioned this on Linkedin the other day, and it did receive a bit of attention.

Commentary ranged from very supportive, to mildly hostile. With most of the hostility coming from men.

The naming thing seems trite, but it foreshadows the more signifcant challenges of bias and harms.For more detailed academic explanation of harms of AI in this context, head over here.

Jess Von Bank nails it:

Because here’s the crux of the thing: AI doesn’t just reflect the world, it recreates it. It encodes our power structures. It scales our biases. It learns from the past, our past, and if we don’t interrupt the loop, it will calcify inequality into every system that already governs our lives: healthcare, hiring, housing, education, opportunity, freedom.

This isn’t a technical problem.
This is a human one.

It will either be a turning point or an even bigger betrayal.

Do read her whole post.

Also read Amelia Miller’s post about AI bias in recruiting.

We can do so much better.

So rather than naming products after ancient philosophers, we should spend more time reading them, and applying some of that wisdom to how we build and deploy AI. Aristotle and Socrates can still teach us so much. This paper is excellent.

Many today take the view that the AI technological revolution is creating a radically new reality, one that demands a corresponding upheaval in our ethical thinking. This can generate a sense of helplessness in the face of rapid technological advances. But the idea that we start from an ethical blank slate in addressing the challenges and opportunities of this transformative technology is a fallacy. The key contention of this white paper is that the basic approach to ethics developed by the 4 th Century BC Greek philosopher, Aristotle, offers the most compelling framework for addressing the challenges and opportunities of Artificial Intelligence today

I was lucky enough to have a lecture from John Tasioulas, an Oxford Philosophy Professor, and co-author of that paper. Here is his Ted Talk.

I’ll end with a song again. The Cocteau Twins. Heaven Or Las Vegas.