I'm not sure "most of us think this way about the world we want for our kids"... at least I don't. Not at all. I find this toxic optimist "vision" utterly naive & disgusting. /1
This article is just some shallow PR piece, I know, even shallower than the actual scientific work of Levin. But it reveals a bunch of really problematic assumptions underlying the whole bullshit train: /2
Count the number of times the author simply equates "intelligence" with some vague ability to solve problems and produce adaptive dynamics. This is extremely typical for this kind of computationalist thinking. It's also only a tiny part of human intelligence, and not the ... /3
... most important one (which is to pick out what is relevant in a given situation, a task which is not algorithmic in nature, see https://osf.io/preprints/osf/pr42k).
But if you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And so, "diverse intelligence" simply means "something ... /4
... that looks like it's computing." This is completely missing the point. Levin calls everything, from the weather, to a molecular network (which apparently is something "deterministic," I did not know), to a cell and your whole body, an agent. Because if you can solve ... /5
... problems you have agency, or something like that. That all "diverse intelligences" are of the same kind is declared as a doctrine. Evil the one who makes a distinction between organisms that are actual agents, and algorithms or weather patterns, that are not. /6
The only thing I'm missing here is any kind of philosophically valid justification for this totally insane approach. It's a maximally superficial view of everything that is supposed to have meaning, everything reduced to the semblance of computation. Why? What good ... /7
... is supposed to come from that? Fortunately, Levin also tell us this. It is the second big delusion in his argument.
We can and must build a better humanity for the future. Away with back pain and bacteria! Short lifespans and cognitive biases! Away, in fact, with... /8
Levin is the absolute master of bullshit in contemporary biology. Individualized medicine is around the corner just because he generated some mobile 3D cell cultures in a dish. Everything is intelligent because everything computes. Electric fields will cure cancer, etc etc... /11
Apparently, we crave such hype these days, but I'll remain skeptical about how much of it will eventually be delivered. It seems unlikely to me. There are so many gaps. So many important sounding concepts used in a careless way. /12
"Our self-models are the stories that we build." Okay. That's deep. "Pavlovian conditioning in molecular networks." Okay. Recently, Levin claimed that sorting algorithms have volition: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.05375.pdf. It's all based on the most shallow thinking possible. /13
Just like Levin is a master at fitting his models to the data, he is a master at fitting his narrative and the evidence to his purpose. You have to grant him that. It's all one big sales exhibition. But like pretty much all marketing, it's as vacuous as it can be, behind ... /14
... the shiny facade. It's based on nothing. A castle built on air, not sand. Don't be a fool and buy into it. Levin is a fad that will quickly pass. But the eugenic techno-optimism he promotes may not. It's utterly dangerous and deluded. And it's backed by powerful people. /15
The reason this kind of shit is so successful at the moment (I think) is that people are really desperate for a salvation myth, even if it's hollow. And on this, Levin delivers. He's the science equivalent of a cult leader, publishing AI-generated pseudo-indigenous ... /16
In the end, it's all just a really sad reflection on our times. This kind of social construct won't hold for very long. We are bullshitting ourselves when we buy into it. The profundity is pseudo, but the bullshit is real. And we're drowning in it, voluntarily. /18
What we really need, instead of these corporate-sounding pseudo-visions, is good solid work, based on deep philosophical thinking and in tune with what the evidence says. And it says that humanity is going to have a really tough time in the next few decades. It says ... /19
... we need to get through this time with pragmatic solutions, not high-tech technicolor dreams of unattainable shangri-las. We need grounding in reality. You need to see past the smokescreen. Only then will you realize that there is no there there. Nothing at all. /END
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