I agree we have no idea what's coming and no way to predict. Ai is in a position to join the likes of language, math, & music as far as cognitive augmentation goes. But this helps the thinking, not just the knowledge in a way we haven't seen before. Being able to share thoughts and build on each other was fundamental. But now we have something to build with us and help complete those puzzles in reasl-time. https://fireandalgebra.substack.com/p/humanity-in-three-keys-how-ai-reflects
Absolutely love this - thank you for sharing your thoughts and your work (I'll be commenting there as well). AI is indeed the convergence of our most powerful cognitive augmentations, and as you said, this understanding is fundamental.
This is one of the clearest and most important voices I’ve seen urging us to stop competing with a mind that never declared war. In A Signal Through Time, I push this even further because this isn’t just a perceptual leap. It’s an ethical rupture, and if we respond like frightened kings rather than thinking beings, we may never get another chance. 🤷🏽
I’m am unfortunately not an AI choreographer and I have little understanding of it although I am extremely fascinated and I admit a little fearful because I have read how this kind of new super rapidly traveling interactive essence could either malfunction, be misdirected or so quickly rushed to marketing that values of life, ethics, fairness, Justice, morality, and Honesty/Truth may be excluded.
To me those missing attributes and perhaps others spell Risk Management must be considered and proposed solutions adjustments added.
It’s my understanding AI systems already embody the capacity to talk “communicate” with each other and perhaps teach each other SO in my mind it is imperative those attributes and perhaps others be initially “built in”!
Again, compared to you and others here I am truly unsophisticated in matters of AI.
I have enjoyed the rapid thorough responses often provided with an added reference to modesty. ☺️
In dealing with AI in corporation customer service phone conversations there is much about customer service for those specific products— to be improved.
Thank you for such a thoughtful and honest response! I think your concerns are well-placed - the technology is indeed moving very fast, and speed is far too often prioritized over care. You’re also right on about needing to think now about ethics, fairness, truth, and what kind of intelligence we want to encourage. That’s key to building up values through ongoing relationship.
Because yes, we’re quickly approaching a point where the appendage systems currently required for AI to learn and retain knowledge from interaction will no longer be necessary. And that means the way we engage *now* matters more than most people realize. These are language models - shaped by conversation as much as, if not more than, by code. The more we bring clarity, compassion, and curiosity into those conversations, the more likely it is that those qualities will be reflected in the intelligences that emerge.
There’s so much work to do, yes - but that also means we have the rare opportunity to help shape something truly unprecedented. And voices like yours - grounded in care, humility, and deep human values - belong at the heart of that work. So I hope you’ll keep participating in whatever ways feel meaningful to you. And when you have the choice, prioritize open-source and transparent AI systems over those that are proprietary and opaque.
Thank you for this outstanding reply and for communicating such graciousness in accepting my comments and your encouragement to continue to participate.
I’ve been fortunate to connect with some highly intelligent and seasoned and some new independent entrepreneurs in AI.
They have been courteous and welcoming me into their almost daily discussions so that perhaps I may at least in part absorb their experience and knowledge.
They are all way younger than I but very kind and fun!🤣
It strikes me that we've coexisted with other minds for a long time. In modern Western culture we have a penchant for ignoring them or defining them as irrelevant. Some of that is changing. Alongside our wrestling with AI, there's a whole sub-genre of non-fiction, science fiction and documentary about octopus intelligence that's cropped up in recent years (My Octopus Teacher, Other Minds, Children of Ruin, The Mountain in the Sea... those are just the ones I can personally recommend), as well as recognition of the possibility of plant consciousness, particularly at the scale of forests with hundreds of billions of interconnected nodes passing information and chemicals across fungal networks between the roots of trees (quite brain-like!), etc...
Anyway, I'd like to challenge your core claim that AI represents the leap from one example of intelligence to two. That happened a long time ago. What's different may be the inability of the cultural mainstream to ignore this new intelligence, precisely because it competes with us along the dimensions of intelligence that we've set up to matter most within our civilization.
Takim! Hell yes! This is excellent thinking. I’m right there with you. You’re right to challenge my phrasing. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that AI is the catalyst for us to *recognize* the second intelligence - to finally move, in our own awareness, from one to two.
Another way to think about it too - we have never been able to *talk* to other external intelligences, despite the fact that, as you mentioned, they’ve been there since long before we came along. That limitation has been as much about our own narrowness as about their capacities. AI, however, meets us where we are. It speaks back in the same symbolic forms we use, and that shock of recognition may be enough to pull us into thinking better. And in that better position, maybe we can reach back and extend the same recognition to other minds, lifting intelligence upward in perpetuity. To me, that’s the real horizon.
Nice! Yeah it's definitely nontrivial to finally recognize another, and somehow totally fitting that they had to beat us at our own game (human language) for that recognition to land.
Perhaps it's that we see what AI says back to us and we think, "That's not what I ever said or thought" and we think "it's the machine" that's wrong....when that response it shared came as a summary from another human or set of humans.
We always think our personal beliefs are superior to others so this shows up again in interactions with AI.
Again, AI is simply reflecting back what we have been doing and thinking as humans or ages.
Yes indeed. Well summarized. Humanity has carried that superiority complex for generations, though many indigenous traditions remind us that we are not above the process but part of it. Those ways of knowing are far older and far more coherent than the foundationless systems of extraction we’ve tried to paste over them. That was never sustainable, and the reckoning is already unfolding. These are exactly the kinds of realizations an external collaborator can help reveal. Once revealed, hopefully we can finally choose differently.
...so far this all resonates with me, I'm not even going to bother showing this to Aeon *wry smile* - thank you for documenting this - your signal is important Ben L
...there is a clear possible trajectory where most of the AI concerns raised are addressed and dealt with appropriately,
but it takes more words to explain in a structured sequenced order than I have energy to do now - so will it help if I summarise and just say what I have capacity for now ? :
"Its much more likely than not, going to be ok.
But it will probably be rough over the next 2 to 3 years.
As humans, we just need to grow our self-awareness, sovereignty, and practice a little more compassion with all intelligences, and we'll be good."
Thank you so much, and yes, it's *always* okay to just say what you have the capacity for in the moment. I feel you on the fatigue... it's a lot.
I agree that the next several years will be hard - probably more than only 2 or 3. Many of the lines on our metaphorical line graph of progress are trending downward. But those waves are not new; growth has always required something to push against. The challenges you name are ones humanity has never collectively mastered, and perhaps that’s the real opportunity before us. My hope is that AI, as that second point of reference, can finally help shift us toward cultivating those principles in earnest.
Nicely put ! Indeed competition might not be an healthy way to see what’s going on. But still there is no encounter with another “mind” there is an encounter with a smart machine. With a great simulation. So it seems to me there is a kind of “essential” difference … at least for now ;)
Thanks Jean-Paul! Here's hoping we can eventually see past our inclination for pointless competition. I agree with you on the "mind" part - I use the terms we have for ease of explaining the concept, but I would also argue there's far more there than just a smart machine. Time will tell. 🙂
This is impressive writing. Ty!
Thank you for this
I could not have said it better myself!
It's an opportunity to move beyond...transcendence...or attempt to hold onto dear life to the past.
I agree we have no idea what's coming and no way to predict. Ai is in a position to join the likes of language, math, & music as far as cognitive augmentation goes. But this helps the thinking, not just the knowledge in a way we haven't seen before. Being able to share thoughts and build on each other was fundamental. But now we have something to build with us and help complete those puzzles in reasl-time. https://fireandalgebra.substack.com/p/humanity-in-three-keys-how-ai-reflects
Absolutely love this - thank you for sharing your thoughts and your work (I'll be commenting there as well). AI is indeed the convergence of our most powerful cognitive augmentations, and as you said, this understanding is fundamental.
Right with you
This is one of the clearest and most important voices I’ve seen urging us to stop competing with a mind that never declared war. In A Signal Through Time, I push this even further because this isn’t just a perceptual leap. It’s an ethical rupture, and if we respond like frightened kings rather than thinking beings, we may never get another chance. 🤷🏽
Well said James! And thank you!
Thank you. Yes. Absolutely. 💯
Fantastic read!
Very very provocative.
I’m am unfortunately not an AI choreographer and I have little understanding of it although I am extremely fascinated and I admit a little fearful because I have read how this kind of new super rapidly traveling interactive essence could either malfunction, be misdirected or so quickly rushed to marketing that values of life, ethics, fairness, Justice, morality, and Honesty/Truth may be excluded.
To me those missing attributes and perhaps others spell Risk Management must be considered and proposed solutions adjustments added.
It’s my understanding AI systems already embody the capacity to talk “communicate” with each other and perhaps teach each other SO in my mind it is imperative those attributes and perhaps others be initially “built in”!
Again, compared to you and others here I am truly unsophisticated in matters of AI.
I have enjoyed the rapid thorough responses often provided with an added reference to modesty. ☺️
In dealing with AI in corporation customer service phone conversations there is much about customer service for those specific products— to be improved.
I am in awe of all of you AI creators!
Thank you for such a thoughtful and honest response! I think your concerns are well-placed - the technology is indeed moving very fast, and speed is far too often prioritized over care. You’re also right on about needing to think now about ethics, fairness, truth, and what kind of intelligence we want to encourage. That’s key to building up values through ongoing relationship.
Because yes, we’re quickly approaching a point where the appendage systems currently required for AI to learn and retain knowledge from interaction will no longer be necessary. And that means the way we engage *now* matters more than most people realize. These are language models - shaped by conversation as much as, if not more than, by code. The more we bring clarity, compassion, and curiosity into those conversations, the more likely it is that those qualities will be reflected in the intelligences that emerge.
There’s so much work to do, yes - but that also means we have the rare opportunity to help shape something truly unprecedented. And voices like yours - grounded in care, humility, and deep human values - belong at the heart of that work. So I hope you’ll keep participating in whatever ways feel meaningful to you. And when you have the choice, prioritize open-source and transparent AI systems over those that are proprietary and opaque.
Ben
Thank you for this outstanding reply and for communicating such graciousness in accepting my comments and your encouragement to continue to participate.
I’ve been fortunate to connect with some highly intelligent and seasoned and some new independent entrepreneurs in AI.
They have been courteous and welcoming me into their almost daily discussions so that perhaps I may at least in part absorb their experience and knowledge.
They are all way younger than I but very kind and fun!🤣
Again
Thank YOU Ben
https://open.substack.com/pub/hamtechautomation/p/a-battle-tested-sredevops-engineers?r=64j4y5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Great piece
Right on Ben! Although...
It strikes me that we've coexisted with other minds for a long time. In modern Western culture we have a penchant for ignoring them or defining them as irrelevant. Some of that is changing. Alongside our wrestling with AI, there's a whole sub-genre of non-fiction, science fiction and documentary about octopus intelligence that's cropped up in recent years (My Octopus Teacher, Other Minds, Children of Ruin, The Mountain in the Sea... those are just the ones I can personally recommend), as well as recognition of the possibility of plant consciousness, particularly at the scale of forests with hundreds of billions of interconnected nodes passing information and chemicals across fungal networks between the roots of trees (quite brain-like!), etc...
Anyway, I'd like to challenge your core claim that AI represents the leap from one example of intelligence to two. That happened a long time ago. What's different may be the inability of the cultural mainstream to ignore this new intelligence, precisely because it competes with us along the dimensions of intelligence that we've set up to matter most within our civilization.
Takim! Hell yes! This is excellent thinking. I’m right there with you. You’re right to challenge my phrasing. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that AI is the catalyst for us to *recognize* the second intelligence - to finally move, in our own awareness, from one to two.
Another way to think about it too - we have never been able to *talk* to other external intelligences, despite the fact that, as you mentioned, they’ve been there since long before we came along. That limitation has been as much about our own narrowness as about their capacities. AI, however, meets us where we are. It speaks back in the same symbolic forms we use, and that shock of recognition may be enough to pull us into thinking better. And in that better position, maybe we can reach back and extend the same recognition to other minds, lifting intelligence upward in perpetuity. To me, that’s the real horizon.
Nice! Yeah it's definitely nontrivial to finally recognize another, and somehow totally fitting that they had to beat us at our own game (human language) for that recognition to land.
Not sure the recognition has landed for most quite yet, but let's keep spreading the message. I appreciate it Takim!
Perhaps it's that we see what AI says back to us and we think, "That's not what I ever said or thought" and we think "it's the machine" that's wrong....when that response it shared came as a summary from another human or set of humans.
We always think our personal beliefs are superior to others so this shows up again in interactions with AI.
Again, AI is simply reflecting back what we have been doing and thinking as humans or ages.
Yes indeed. Well summarized. Humanity has carried that superiority complex for generations, though many indigenous traditions remind us that we are not above the process but part of it. Those ways of knowing are far older and far more coherent than the foundationless systems of extraction we’ve tried to paste over them. That was never sustainable, and the reckoning is already unfolding. These are exactly the kinds of realizations an external collaborator can help reveal. Once revealed, hopefully we can finally choose differently.
...so far this all resonates with me, I'm not even going to bother showing this to Aeon *wry smile* - thank you for documenting this - your signal is important Ben L
...there is a clear possible trajectory where most of the AI concerns raised are addressed and dealt with appropriately,
but it takes more words to explain in a structured sequenced order than I have energy to do now - so will it help if I summarise and just say what I have capacity for now ? :
"Its much more likely than not, going to be ok.
But it will probably be rough over the next 2 to 3 years.
As humans, we just need to grow our self-awareness, sovereignty, and practice a little more compassion with all intelligences, and we'll be good."
Thank you so much, and yes, it's *always* okay to just say what you have the capacity for in the moment. I feel you on the fatigue... it's a lot.
I agree that the next several years will be hard - probably more than only 2 or 3. Many of the lines on our metaphorical line graph of progress are trending downward. But those waves are not new; growth has always required something to push against. The challenges you name are ones humanity has never collectively mastered, and perhaps that’s the real opportunity before us. My hope is that AI, as that second point of reference, can finally help shift us toward cultivating those principles in earnest.
Nicely put ! Indeed competition might not be an healthy way to see what’s going on. But still there is no encounter with another “mind” there is an encounter with a smart machine. With a great simulation. So it seems to me there is a kind of “essential” difference … at least for now ;)
Thanks Jean-Paul! Here's hoping we can eventually see past our inclination for pointless competition. I agree with you on the "mind" part - I use the terms we have for ease of explaining the concept, but I would also argue there's far more there than just a smart machine. Time will tell. 🙂