Posts Tagged ‘DeLorean’
“Some people worry that artificial intelligence will make us feel inferior, but then, anybody in his right mind should have an inferiority complex every time he looks at a flower”*…
Dan Davies took a ride in a silver machine…
A while ago, I was lucky enough to attend a presentation on a Google DeepMind project called “The Habermas Machine”. It’s a really intriguing use of the LLM technology – basically, you take a lot of people who disagree with each other and ask them what they think about an issue. Then you feed their answers into a model, which tries to produce a statement of minimal agreement that all of them might sign up to. They score the extent to which they do agree with it (which trains the model), and explain what it is that they don’t like about the statement. This second round allows the model to come up with another, better version, which also clarifies to the participants what the other side’s reasons are for disagreeing with them.
It’s called “The Habermas Machine” because it’s meant to, loosely speaking, do a similar job to Jurgen Habermas’ “Ideal Speech Environment,” In tests, there seems to be decent evidence that not only is the machine better than a human moderator at coming up with consensus statements, but that the machine-moderated process leads to more convergence of opinions among the actual participants. (I think I might have predicted this; the model obviously has a “flat” affect, and unlike a human being, isn’t always leaking clues from its intonation and body language about what it really thinks of the participants. That might suggest that as LLMs get better at simulating human responses, they might be worse for this purpose!)
There’s really a lot to say and think about this. But it’s Friday [as he wrote this] and I’m a facetious person, so instead I’m going to share the notes I’ve been making ever since seeing the presentation on which other philosophers and social theorists might also benefit from having machines made out of them.
The Giddens Machine – in accordance with the principle of double hermeneutics, it’s the Habermas Machine, but only for reaching agreement on interpretations of Habermas.
The Goffman Machine – after your side lost on the Habermas Machine, it comes along and generates a set of reasons why you shouldn’t feel so bad about that and should come back for another go.
The Bourdieu Machine – you type your views into it, and then it repeats them with slight and subtle adjustments to make you sound more middle class
The Fourcade/Healy Machine – it gives you a score, then makes you do the work of finding out how to change your views so as to increase your score. Finding equilibrium for the machine is your job now.
The Gambetta Machine – instead of finding a consensus, it selects the most awful version of each conflicting view, and then everyone switches to that in order to show how committed they are.
The Austin Machine – instead of telling the machine “I agree with this statement”, you have to tick a box saying “I hereby agree with this statement”.
The Grice Machine – like the Habermas one, but via conversational implicature it aims to create consensus among all the views that you haven’t expressed rather than the ones you have.
The Derrida Machine – everyone keeps asserting the same statements, but the AI brings them into agreement by changing the meaning of the words themselves.
The Crenshaw Machine – in each round the machine finds a new issue to divide up the group in a different way. Equilibrium is reached when everyone realises they’re on their own and need to get along with each other anyway…
A wry exploration of the possibilities of AI: “Fully automated social theory,” from @dsquareddigest.bsky.social
(Image above: source)
* Alan Kay
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As we delegate discourse, we might recall that it was on this date in 1981 that the first production model of the DeLorean sports car rolled off the assembly line at the Dunmurry factory, located a few miles from Belfast City Centre in Northern Ireland.
The Midas Touch…
In 1980 American Express teamed up with John DeLorean for a Christmas promotion, offering a limited edition of 100 24-karat gold-plated DeLoreans for $85,000 each. The response to the promotion, as to the car itself, was underwhelming: only two were sold– though a third gold-plated car was assembled in 1983 with spare parts that were required by American Express in case one of the other two that were built were damaged.
But in fact there was a fourth golden DeLorean. Michael Feldman, who’d paid $28,000 (including an early delivery premium) to get the first production model, decided that he’d do the plating himself. He found an electro-brushing facility and had his car gold-plated, panel by panel, to a 24-karat luster. The process cost him an additional $8,000– not chump change, but a comparative bargain. Still, a golden car wasn’t the most practical vehicle in the world; Feldman sold it in 1981 to the first a series of subsequent owners.
The Golden DeLorean (note John Lennon’s psychedelic Rolls Royce in the background)
Feldman’s story in full here (whence the photo above); the promotion flyer, via Dangerous Minds, to whom, TotH.
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As we keep our eyes peeled for Doc and Marty, we might recall that it was on this date in 1956 that “Heartbeak Hotel” earned Elvis Presley his first Gold Record. Presley’s first million-seller (and his first release on RCA, after moving from Sun), the record sat at number one on Billboard‘s Top 100 chart for seven weeks, topped the Country and Western chart, and reached number five on the R&B chart. It continued to sell– it was eventually certified Double Platinum– and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1995.
Five sweet seconds…
From our friends at The Selvedge Yard:
One of the greatest rivalries in all of Drag Racing history has to be the classic Wildlife Racing matchup– Don “Snake” Prudhomme vs. Tom “Mongoose” McEwen. Any red-blooded boy born of that era remembers their famous Funny Cars decked-out in bright Hot Wheels badges screaming down the 1/4 mile in a furious blur that lasted all of 5 sweet seconds. The two faced-off in match races that raged over a period of about 3 years. Don Prudhomme, being the stronger competitor, usually came out on top. Their epic West Coast battles, fueled by huge sponsorship deals (Mattel, Coca-Cola, Plymouth, and Goodyear) were a major draw, and their loyal fans never tired of seeing them go head to head.
At the Dallas International Motor Speedway, 1971
Per the poster at the top of this post, see more at the Peterson Automotive Museum’s new exhibit, NHRA: Sixty Years of Thunder…
As we rev our engines, we might recall that it was on this date in 1982 that John Z. DeLorean, the auto industry celebrity credited with designing the Firebird, the GTO, and of course the (Back to the Future-starring) DeLorean, was arrested and charged with conspiracy to obtain and distribute 55 pounds of cocaine. DeLorean was ultimately acquitted of the drug charges, but was soon back in court charged with fraud; over the next two decades, he was forced to pay millions of dollars to creditors (and of course lawyers).
DeLorean and the DeLorean (source)
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