#41 Angelinvesting.it - From idea to Series A - Weekly Newsletter

Tha Chinese room and the bed time stories

In the thought experiment coined as "The Chinese Room" by philosopher John Searle, an intriguing perspective on intelligence and understanding is presented.

Searle asks us to imagine a person situated inside a room, devoid of any Chinese language comprehension. This individual receives Chinese characters from outside the room, and using a comprehensive instruction manual, responds with relevant Chinese characters, despite having no grasp of the language.

Searle's analogy likens the person in the room to a computer, elucidating that a system can manifest signs of understanding a language (represented by the Chinese characters) without genuinely grasping it.

This analogy finds resonance in ChatGPT. Despite its lack of original thought and creativity, ChatGPT boasts an extensive repertoire of written works. It navigates through its intricate programming to parse its library and construct a coherent response, based on the data it encounters.

To an external observer, ChatGPT may exhibit signs of intelligence, answering a diverse spectrum of queries across numerous domains. However, this raises pivotal questions: Does ChatGPT truly embody intelligence? Does it comprehend the content it conveys, or is it essentially an advanced search engine, assembling snippets of pre-existing data?

My personal reflections on this subject deepened following a recent episode at home. Alongside my daughters, I engaged ChatGPT in a storytelling session, requesting bed time stories created on the spot. Leveraging the app’s latest update, we could incorporate images of stuffed animals from the room into the stories. My daughters, perhaps influenced by my pronounced Italian accent, even developed a preference for the ChatGPT new speaking feature, asking the AI to read the created stories.

By the fourth story, it was evident that my daughters perceived their interactions with ChatGPT as engaging with an intelligent being. While it's relatively straightforward to create this illusion for children aged 3 and 5, the broader implications of such technology are compelling. The system demonstrates the ability to describe videos or images, simulate sounds from text, and craft stories, all while seemingly engaging in thoughtful contemplation.

Yet, it is crucial to demystify these outcomes. What we witness is not the product of contemplation or understanding but rather the fruits of an algorithm adept in pattern recognition. ChatGPT is fundamentally mechanical, devoid of thought, free will, or any semblance of magic. Anthropomorphizing such a system is a profound error, attributing human-like qualities to an entity fundamentally dissimilar to us.

The essence of intelligence remains a contentious and perhaps elusive concept. Regardless of whether we label these algorithms as intelligent, their capability to string words together, creating coherent and engaging narratives, is undeniable.

The emotional warmth and connection my daughters and I experienced during those storytelling sessions were tangible and very real, showcasing the profound impact of this technology, irrespective of the nature of its intelligence.

2 Resources to pro

How ChatGPT is different from anything we know

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1). In my opinion, it is the use of words, as a product of algorithms, that grants ChatGPT the right to define itself as Intelligence.

Here, Yuval Noah Harari, one of the greatest contemporary thinkers, masterfully expands on the idea (link):

Language is the stuff almost all human culture is made of. Human rights, for example, aren’t inscribed in our dna. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by telling stories and writing laws. Gods aren’t physical realities. Rather, they are cultural artefacts we created by inventing myths and writing scriptures.

Money, too, is a cultural artefact. Banknotes are just colourful pieces of paper, and at present more than 90% of money is not even banknotes—it is just digital information in computers. What gives money value is the stories that bankers, finance ministers and cryptocurrency gurus tell us about it. Sam Bankman-Fried, Elizabeth Holmes and Bernie Madoff were not particularly good at creating real value, but they were all extremely capable storytellers.

What would happen once a non-human intelligence becomes better than the average human at telling stories, composing melodies, drawing images, and writing laws and scriptures? When people think about Chatgpt and other new ai tools, they are often drawn to examples like school children using ai to write their essays. What will happen to the school system when kids do that? But this kind of question misses the big picture. Forget about school essays. Think of the next American presidential race in 2024, and try to imagine the impact of ai tools that can be made to mass-produce political content, fake-news stories and scriptures for new cults.

AI at its inception

Many people today enjoy pointing out what doesn't work in ChatGPT, highlighting its hallucinations and its still-low accuracy. They emphasize how the algorithm merely averages the thoughts of the average user, which is considered (perhaps rightly) to be anything but sophisticated.

All of this is true, but these individuals are missing the bigger picture. Despite its limitations, ChatGPT has unveiled a glimpse of a possible future.

There has always been skepticism towards innovations—early computers, the first telephones, the advent of the internet, and the initial automobiles all faced ridicule. What’s the use? They don’t work perfectly; why not stick with what we have?

However, when capital and genius focus on a technology, it tends to gain momentum with exponential improvements. That initial simplicity is replaced by a myriad of incremental enhancements, transforming it into something far superior and almost unrecognizable from its original version. I believe that artificial intelligence will be no different.

1 Reason to be happy

The appearance on earth of an artficial intelligence is a great opportunity. Humans have the chance to look at themselves in the mirror, compare their biological intelligence with the synthetic one they see reflected in the mirror, and ask themselves: 'in what ways are we the same?' and even more interestingly: 'in what ways are we different?'

This second question brings to mind the 'via negativa,' or 'apophatic' approach, a millennial philosophical method that seeks to describe a reality (such as God, the self, the world) by stating what it is not, rather than what it is.

It is easier to define what we are not, rather than trying to articulate exactly what we are. This artificial intelligence, so different from us, but at the same time capable of producing outputs similar to ours, truly allows us to define ourselves better

Have a great weekend,

Simone

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