NOTE: This is an archival backup, original is on medium.com, please read it there . It’s hard to look at H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) as a pioneer in warning people of the dangers of AI . And even more bizarre to see him in the same boat as someone like Elon Musk . I mean, yeah, “cosmic horrors” can easily painted in modern sci-fi as originating from “perverted” superhuman artificial intelligence. But Lovecraft had neither interest in modern information technology (that wasn’t yet invented , btw), nor much interest in science and technology based fiction in general. He was no Jules Verne. Nevertheless, by means one cannot even begin to fathom, a strange meme has landed in his darkly creative (and xenophobic, and in other ways disturbed too…) mind. A strange intuition of things yet to come: S hoggoths — described as “a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles” with “myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming”. Their image seemingly evocative of a giant a
NOTE: This is one is probably better read on Medium.com - it's mirrored here too for archival purposes. TOC: TL;DR (abstract) — for the impatient Problem statement & the “do what you love” fallacy A better way to do it (proposed solution) The “starting with the how” or “engineer’s way” fallacy When stars align — the why-s that can also be what-s 1. TL;DR (abstract) — for the impatient There’s no easy way to summarize this in less than 1000 words. A picture is worth 1000 words. So here you go (better read on and come back to the diagram later though): 2. Problem statement & the “do what you love” fallacy (how I also used to live my life for a while…) We live in an age of abundance. Probably like 90% of people reading this live in an area of the world where this abundance is fully manifested! And this also manifests as an abundance of choices and freedoms. Despite the restrictions we so painfully perceive when they’re laid upon us (by work, school