AI learned language backwards and we need a new humanities to understand it - Leif Weatherby

ABOUT THE EPISODEGarett Jones is a Professor of Economics at George Mason University and author of The Singapore Trilogy, which is what he very aptly calls his three major works - Hive Mind, 10% Less Democracy, and The Culture Transplant. Life in Singapore can sometimes feel like the movie adaptation of Garett's books, and as in many other cases, the books are a lot more fun than the movie. He also previously worked in the US Senate and is now the Chief Economist at Bluechip, a stablecoin rating agency. Garett's pointed arguments on intelligence, immigration and democracy might test the relationship between how we think the world works and our favourite political positions, but we should take this test seriously because, in true Singaporean fashion, it is a difficult test and one that many fail. In this episode, we talk about why the people around you matter more for your income than you do, why poor countries should be recruiting migrants instead of losing them, and what happens to all of it once thinking gets cheap. Also: why you can fake your resume but never your country's, whether enough AI could turn Lagos into San Francisco, why democracy is a civil war where we all know which day to show up and so much more.ABOUT SECOND ORDERSSecond Orders is a series of conversations with thinkers, tinkerers and theorists about pivotal changes in science, technology, law and culture, their unintended consequences and what they reveal about how we live and cooperate at every scale.Website: http://secondorders.coBecome a guest or suggest a topic: http://secondorders.co/helloChapters:00:05 Coming up...02:01 How does migration 500 years ago predict your country's income today?04:11 Is there such a thing as an ideal migrant?09:32 Do better ingredients (people) make better pizza (policies)?15:06 Does IQ predict everything else that's good?21:04 Will countries start using their diaspora as spies?24:44 Countries competing for the best migrants?28:30 Should poor countries engineer their own great replacement?31:24 Why can't you fake your country's resume?40:32 Does AI sever the link between IQ and wealth?46:55 Could poor states use AI governance to attract migrants?51:27 Can enough AI simulate San Francisco in Lagos?58:21 After ASI, does IQ still matter?01:08:44 Will AI change how democracies work?01:12:23 Is there any technological cure for our short-sightedness?01:14:42 Election campaigns, voting and promises in the age of AI01:20:21 New chapter01:26:53 Democracy is ritualised civil war01:27:53 Can stablecoins be used to discipline failing governments?01:33:48 Will AI agents pay each other in crypto?01:37:49 What excites you about the future?01:39:31 The future of economics research

ABOUT THE EPISODENoah Charney is a professor of Art History at the American University of Rome and the University of Ljubljana, the founder of the Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) and the prolific mind behind a wide body of books and articles whose range is exceeded only by their depth of insight and lucidity of writing. His work in the field of art crime has been praised in such forums as The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio, and Tatler among others. He might however be best known for being the media's go-to art crime detective whenever a spectacular heist happens in the world, during which he has the unenviable tasks of reminding us that art still exists, that art heists aren't usually like what we see in movies and that crimes in the art world reverberate throughout politics, the economy and even terrorism and armed conflicts. Noah's work and ideas deserve at least as much renown as the art that he studies. In this episode, we talk about why forgers forge for revenge rather than money, how fraud is shifting from the handmade canvas to the digital file, and what happens to authorship, value and crime once AI can both fake a painting and judge whether one is real.ABOUT SECOND ORDERSSecond Orders is a series of conversations with thinkers, tinkerers and theorists about pivotal changes in science, technology, law and culture, their unintended consequences and what they reveal about how we live and cooperate at every scale.Website: http://secondorders.coBecome a guest or suggest a topic: http://secondorders.co/helloChapters:00:43 A grand unifying theory of art crime?09:32 What were art thieves really after?12:51 Were conquering empires just looting for profit?15:48 Forging art for revenge or money?19:23 Is forgery dying out as the gatekeepers lose power?22:06 Will the next great forgery be entirely digital?26:30 Can you forge a song or a film the way you forge a painting?40:30 How would an art criminal actually use AI?44:02 Who really makes the big bucks in art crime?49:13 Can AI authentication give unknown artists a fair shot?51:37 What happens when AI authenticators can't agree?57:45 Is AI art actually art?59:52 What excites you about the future?

ABOUT THE EPISODEBrant Entrekin is a philosopher, currently pursuing his PHD in philosophy at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he also teaches. His work spans social-political philosophy with a focus on epistemology, philosophy of social justice and religious studies. His paper, "AI-mediated mystical experiences" is a deeply interesting and provocative meditation on meditation, in which he examines the nature of mystical experiences, surveys our relationship with chatbots and asks us to consider a future in which AI can give us, to borrow from French writer Romain Rolland, "that oceanic feeling" which was once the preserve of the more saintly among us. I'll be discussing these ideas with Brant and look forward to giving the AI skeptics one more thing to be skeptical aboutABOUT SECOND ORDERSSecond Orders is a series of conversations with thinkers, tinkerers and theorists about pivotal changes in science, technology, law and culture, their unintended consequences and what they reveal about how we live and cooperate at every scale.Website: http://secondorders.coBecome a guest or suggest a topic: http://secondorders.co/hello

ABOUT THE EPISODELeif Weatherby is an associate professor of German at New York University, founding director of the Digital Theory Lab and Director of Digital Humanities. His research spans dialectics, semiotics, the nature of data and computing, and problems of political economy after the Industrial Revolution. He's also written several books, the latest of which is Language Machines: Cultural AI and the End of Remainder Humanism, and is currently working on two other book projects: Artificial Concepts: How Cybernetics Encountered German Idealism and The Mismeasure of Mind: Against the Prediction of Everything. ABOUT SECOND ORDERSSecond Orders is a series of conversations with thinkers, tinkerers and theorists about pivotal changes in science, technology, law and culture, their unintended consequences and what they reveal about how we live and cooperate at every scale.Website: secondorders.coBecome a guest or suggest a topic: secondorders.co/helloChapters:00:00 Why LLMs got language before they got reasoning07:40 Saussure and the poetic function inside attention13:13 The four-horned unicorn: meaning from the top down15:42 What if grammar is easier than meaning?23:05 Steelmanning the AI skeptic32:58 Chess, Go and the boards we play language on36:47 Why language feels like the special human thing44:48 Do we need a new humanities to study AI language?58:16 How will AI change the way we use language?01:01:15 Language-as-a-service01:02:23 Can AI free us to interact more authentically again?01:10:06 LLMs as ideology machines01:23:14 Schismogenesis and the refusal of AI vocabulary01:29:10 Remainder humanism & taste01:37:51 What about the future excites you?

Michael Todasco led PayPal's Innovation Labs and now researches AI at San Diego State University. We explore what the one-person billion-dollar company actually means for incumbents, moats, and consumer trust, why the hollowing out of middle management might not play out the way people expect, and what happens when agents can spin up and run businesses with almost no human involvement.