Artificial Intelligence: A Contrarian’s Dilemma
Automatically believing the exact opposite of what authorities say isn’t “thinking for yourself”
The silliest of amateurs,
The noisiest of dim poseurs
Refute the great authorities
With common sense conformities.
Each scientist must hesitate,
First learn the field, else replicate
Questions asked and answered long ago.
First fundaments, then experiments:
Results mean what the data present.
Astrology persists as monetized beliefs,
So many sham enquirers profit through conceits,
And such think they think by rejecting thought
Without regard for what they’ve bought.
Peers must challenge peers, else knowledge comes to naught.
- Tom Tordillo, © 2022
Spotted a meme that made me smile.
Automatically believing the exact opposite of what some authority states is a form of ‘artificial intelligence.’ At least, in the older sense of ‘artifice’ — a cunning device, especially one used to trick or deceive.
By rejecting ‘authority,’ certain people feel the ‘artificial’ equivalence of thought: they place themselves as the equal of those who did the thinking for them by rejecting them.
A very old pattern. Mock those silly philosophers and scientists with their heads stuck in the clouds. Automatically become judge, jury and executioner for ideas without bothering to learn what they are. One might even kill the thinkers. Or threaten to kill them.
Modern science works through a peer review process. Before one can seriously question another scientist, one must become a “scientist” — acquiring deep understanding of the basic concepts, then building on the basics to grasp the most advanced concepts, until finally, one has the depth of knowledge needed to spot flaws in methods, data, or interpretation.
Even then, ‘peer review’ requires extremely close scrutiny of claims, data, and reasoning. Every single time.
Credentials, positions, reputations are mostly irrelevant, except to the extent they suggest one ought to pay attention to someone’s work. But really, one must know, understand, and master evidence before questioning how others make use of it. Science is not a jury trial.
Useful questions require time and effort. Life is short. Most of us respond to claims from authority the way we respond to signs or cones stating “lane closed ahead.” People might:
- accept the lane is closed, drive on an open lane or take an alternative route or means of transportation;
- reject that the lane is closed, drive on through the cones or barrier;
- miss the sign/cones stating the lane is closed, and drive forward obliviously (there’s a reason they use the colors and signage that they use…); or
- stop driving, park, and study the lane closure.
The fourth possibility seems ridiculous. Most amateurs don’t believe they know as much about road maintenance as civil engineers and work crews doing the work. More problematically, every other driver on the road would see them stopping traffic and honk.
Not the case on the internet. Anonymity empowers ‘questioning’ authority without understanding what they have claimed, much as a rubbernecker on a road might wish to study road works or accident sites, but tends not to given the fury they would attract.
On the internet, certain ‘media’ convince people to stop — ‘study’ the road closure, see if they spot the face of Elvis, Jesus, or Trump in the concrete…
Such media operates through our pre-programmed ‘non-thought’ processes, the artifices of artificial intelligence. Damned inconvenient.
My poem is intended to mock the mockers. There’s nothing at all wrong with amateurs — except silly amateurs who automatically believe they have better understanding than the professionals, experts, and scientists who’ve devoted their lives to mastering a field.
Note that this meme was shared on August 8, 2022 by “IFLScience” on Facebook, and within 7 hours, generated more than 2,800 comments and 30,000 ‘likes.’
The original tweet appears to have been released by “Tin Foil Awards” on April 19, 2020, and it generated 202 retweets, 24 quote tweets, and 552 likes over the course of more than two years.
A simple algorithm might analyze these different response rates, and propose certain meanings. Only intelligence can discern the ‘value’ of these numbers.
More interesting than the meme is how the commentary on IFLScience illustrates the point. After a few minutes study (again, no parsing with an algorithm — just eyeballs and curiosity) — the most popular (reactionary contrarian) responses were variations on “you cannot trust authority!” “Science works by questioning!” “What does authority mean anyway?”
No commenters seemed to notice what I think is the key to this meme: how do thought processes actually work?
Commenters who automatically reject the ‘authority’ of a random tweet demonstrate the point of that tweet. Commenters who automatically accept it ALSO demonstrate the point of the tweet. Both agreement and disagreement are “artificial” thought — one person does the primary thinking, another simply reacts automatically, accepting or rejecting someone else’s thoughts.
The key should have been the term, “automatically believing,” rather than authority — just as an ‘artifice’ means something different from meets the eye, an ‘automaton’ is one that is not thinking at all.
