After-Orts #122
A.I. can be amazing; it just discovered an antibiotic that kills a deadly superbug. But it may also eventually see us as superbugs.
We can’t deal with artificial intelligence unless we cultivate and educate the non-artificial intelligence that we already possess.
-- Maureen Dowd, in an altogether splendid op-ed, Don’t Kill ‘Frankenstein’ With Real Frankensteins at Large, in NYT, May 27, 2023
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/opinion/english-humanities-ai.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
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... I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.
-- James Madison, Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788
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"All we have to do to be saved from vegetarianism is to cultivate a taste for hippopotamus, rhinoceros, camel, eland, springbok, …"
- How the U.S. Almost Became a Nation of Hippo Ranchers -