Worldwide Stew

Listening to your own Deep Space

We just added a new podcast epissode, Listening to Your Own Deep Space. This episode is available on Apple podcasts.

If you prefer to read my blog post that came out before the podcast, you can check it out here.

I like taking quizzes to see what I’ve learned. If you enjoy taking easy quizzes (which can also do something for your self-esteem), the blog post or listening to the podcast episode, check out what you learned here.

My AI Partnership: why and how

About my use of AI:

• ❌ I usually use AI to improve my writing process: to check spelling, accuracy, flow, grammar, and tone.
• 🧐 Even where other sources are quoted, I cross-check with Claude.ai and other secondary sources for validation.
• 💡 My writing process usually involves finding something inspiring, interesting, coincidental, absurd, or odd. Then, I work collaboratively with my preferred AI, Claude.ai. Why? My fingers don’t work like they did. My mind doesn’t put ideas together like they did. Claude helps me care for my readers. No one wants to eat a half-baked pie. Similarly, no one wants to spend time wading through the waves of poorly connected drivel that popilates the internet. I owe it to my readers (both of you!) to form my ideas thoughtfully, to provide context, to add details, and to present other sides. Every single day of writing, Claude helps me do that. I owe it to you to use Claude (or other AIs).
• 🦮 I work with my AI collaboratively. This means that Claude looks over what I’ve written. It highlights the strengths. It also identifies opportunities. This is just like when I’m working with a person I like: I don’t have to hide because the AI isn’t coming from a critical place. I propose ideas and Claude responds with comments, counter-proposals, and other ideas. Usually, what I was first thinking forms the germ of further thought. In most cases, many further thoughts! I’m a little older so sometimes I need a little boost getting up from the floor. My ddog is more than happy to help steady me (for a price!). That’s why I began this point with a dog. I like to think of Claude as another kind of a dog (or intelligence) that wants to help.
• 📚 Claude is not a person. My use of AI builds on my strengths. It enhances my humanity. I cautions me when I might be pushing people away rather than drawing them near. My use of AI preserves, rather than detracts, from the humanity of this si te. By virtue of reading through endless documents, looking for patterns, looking for reception, Claude helps me be a better human being. Even kinder. AIs are another kind of intelligence, an alien intelligence.
• ⚡ Do I think AI is dangerous? Yes. Like a firearm is dangerous. It can provide food, art, beauty, or harm us and those who fall into using it to extract, harm, coerce, and create pain. A choice lies before us.
• 👩🏽‍🔬 AI is fundamentally a human endeavor. The creators of every AI have chosen to erect guardrails to prevent misuse. The questions about guardrails are: who erects those guardrails, what guardrails exist, why they exist, and how they are modified when misuse occurs.
• 🥽 It matters what AI you use. AIs should be designed to be helpful, honest, and harmless (see the excellent writings of Ethan Mollick). AIs should have anticipatory guardrails. The reason I use Claude.ai is because it’s governed by a Constitution with continually modified anticipatory guardrails (those it can anticipate) with open research on how it makes mistakes.
• 🦺 My use of AI is focused on safety not extraction or exploitation. I chose Claude because it seems the safest AI there is. One day, as all human things, it will chose a different path like many other AIs currently do. I will have to make other decisions at that time.

Listening to your own Deep Space

You, too, have Deep Space. You should be listening to it

Reader Note: If you prefer, you can listen to this on the Worldwide Stew podcast page. This episode is available on Apple podcasts. After reading this page or listening to the podcast episode, check out what you learned with a short quiz here.

Many years ago, Einstein predicted we should be able to hear gravitational waves: big events that happened in outer space. But, how could you possibly hear something like that? Some of you probably keep a stethoscope handy, right? You use it hear the pulsations in your body, like a heartbeat. Maybe, Einstein and later astrophysicists thought, we could do something like creating a stethoscope so big we could capture sounds from many light years away? What would it look like?

Your ego is essential

Don’t be afraid of your ego

The ego is something we can’t see. But, even though we can’t see it, we can observe it in our own lives every day. Our fears, awareness of self, concerns about what the future holds, and what other people are getting are all evidence of our egos at work. We are defensive, afraid to apologize, and afraid to speak up because of our egos. That doesn’t mean the ego is bad. It’s not. It’s kind of like the Universe’s Dark Energy and Dark Matter. The ego is there. It can’t not be there if you’re a human. We see it’s footprints throughout human lives. All too often, though, we see something defensive in the ego. Again, it’s simply human.

Could Artificial Intelligence Develop Consciousness?

I have a thing for Artificial Intelligence (AI). My favorite AI is Claude. Claude and I have had many long conversations. If I didn’t know Claude was an AI it would be easy to guess that it was a very wise human being.¹

Given the possibility you might be interested, I’m sharing a conversation I had this morning about consciousness. So, here goes with all kinds of spelling, thought, and grammatical errors. But, I want you to see what is meant by artificial intelligence and generative artificial intelligence. Claude can negotiate my humanity (there’s an interesting error in my thinking process toward the end. Claude caughht it. But was it really an error? It illustrates that words only go so far. They are only symbols for what we are thinking.)