[[{“value”:”That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one excerpt: To the extent there is a lot of slack [with cost and energy], AIs themselves will create wild products of the imagination, especially as they improve in computing power and skill. AIs will sing to each other, write for each other, talk
The post How weird will AI culture get? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]]
That is the topic of my latest Bloomberg column. Here is one excerpt:
To the extent there is a lot of slack [with cost and energy], AIs themselves will create wild products of the imagination, especially as they improve in computing power and skill. AIs will sing to each other, write for each other, talk to each other — as they already do — trade with each other, and come up with further alternatives we humans have not yet pondered. Evolutionary pressures within AI’s cultural worlds will determine which of these practices spread.
If you own some rights flows to AI usage, you might just turn them on and let them “do their thing.” Many people may give their AIs initial instructions for their culture-building: “Take your inspiration from 1960s hippies,” for example, or “try some Victorian poetry.” But most of the work will be done by the AIs themselves. It is easy to imagine how these productions might quickly become far more numerous than human-directed ones.
With a lot of slack, expect more movies and video, which consume a lot of computational energy. With less slack, text and poetry will be relatively cheaper and thus more plentiful.
In other words: In the not-too-distant future, what kind of culture the world produces could depend on the price of electricity.
It remains to be seen how much humans will be interested in these AI cultural productions. Perhaps some of them will fascinate us, but most are likely to bore us, just as few people sit around listening to whale songs. But even if the AI culture skeptics are largely correct, the sheer volume will make an impact, especially when combined with evolutionary refinement and more human-directed efforts. Humans may even like some of these productions, which will then be sold for a profit. That money could then be used to finance more AI cultural production, pushing the evolutionary process in a more popular direction.
With high energy prices, AI production will more likely fit into popular culture modes, if only to pay the bills. With lower energy prices, there will be more room for the avant-garde, for better or worse. Perhaps we would learn a lot more about the possibilities for 12-tone rows in music.
A weirder scenario is that AIs bid for the cultural products of humans, perhaps paying with crypto. But will they be able to tolerate our incessant noodling and narcissism? There might even be a columnist or two who makes a living writing for AIs, if only to give them a better idea what we humans are thinking.
The possibilities are limitless, and we are just beginning to wrap our minds around them. The truth is, we are on the verge of one of the most significant cultural revolutions the world has ever seen.
I urge the skeptics to wait and see. Of course most of it is going to be junk!
The post How weird will AI culture get? appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.
Economics, Music, The Arts, Uncategorized, Web/Tech
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