Reader Su called my attention to the AI website below, which you can join simply by giving your email and a password. And, of course, I couldn’t resist. Click on the link I just gave you, or on the screenshot below. The figures you can talk to (ask them anything!) include Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Genghis Khan, Socrates, Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Galileo, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Catherine the Great, Alexander the Great, Alan Turing, Sigmund Freud, and Leonardo da Vinci. Clearly there are hours of fun to be had, and much time to be wasted. I asked a few of them questions, with the answers reproduced below. You’ll have to click on the conversations to enlarge them.
I started with Darwin, of course, and asked him about speciation. He clearly knew much more about species and speciation than he discussed in The Origin. His definition of species at the bottom is spot on. Click to enlarge:
I asked Freud if he was a fraud, and of course he was evasive:
Genghis Khan denied being a mass murderer:
I asked Socrates the Euthphro question, and he gave a very good answer!:
I asked Marie Curie how she felt about her work contributing to the atomic bomb. She gave a boilerplate answer, but it shows she (or AI) would make a good politician:
Asked about whether Gandhi was mistaken in insisting that India remain a country of simple farming and crafts, and not embrace modern technology, he equivocated.
This gives uis a chance to revise history: to find out what can be, unburdened by what has been. Perhaps those of you of a philosophy bent would like to interact with philosophers of the past. In the meantime, I better leave this site alone.
Shouldn’t Socrates be less direct in his answer? He sounds like the Socrates of The Republic, more sure of the answer himself, than the Socrates of The Gorgias, looking to lead his interlocutor to an answer. A good Socrates A.I. would result in an annoying dialogue, I would think.
Yes this was my thought also.
Just so A. I. Jerry doesn’t start writing these posts.
Freud’s prevaricating answer to you reveals one of the major problems with his “theory” — it’s unfalsifiable. He was just trying to get us to think, subconscious minds, it’s all complicated and contradictory, why are you so resistant? Skeptics have been there, done that, and gotten the t-shirt.
As empire-builders go, Genghis Khan was I think better than many. Apparently part of his bad reputation was built on the way he flipped expectations. When he conquered a city and sent for the members of its ruling class, it wasn’t to negotiate the terms of his rule. He slaughtered them all, put the peasants in charge, and pretty much left them to do what they liked as long as they agreed to pay him regular tributes. The Mongols didn’t care about imposing their culture or religion. They wanted the booty.
I admit to being a little disappointed that all those illustrious figures of history sound like each other and speak in perfect eloquence. If we’re supposed to make believe we’re talking to the real deal, it might be nice to hear something like Darwin going off on a little tangent kvetching about his health.
Good point Sastra.
If you lower the group intelligence by killing the top 10% you reduce their effectiveness and increase their compliance by a large factor. Easier to rule and rob.
The Khmer Rouge had a similar strategy though I think that was secondary to their main goals. A free extra if you will.
Cambodia in the Khmer Rouge era 1975-1979 is a fascinating case study. Along with North Korea one of the most interesting in our modern times.
I’m going to leave the AI toy alone. I have enough distractions!
D.A.
NYC
The Mongols were very sophisticated from a military perspective, but building stuff wasn’t really in their DNA. All they really wanted was land, booty, and, well, the other kind of booty. There’s a reason why their empire didn’t endure.
They were really good for the environement, though. They devastated so much cultivated & killed so many people they actually contributed to carbon sequestration. It was about a year’s worth of carbon in modern terms but given the tools at their disposal, still pretty impressive.
I hope the Green Party doesn’t get ideas…
No way was Genghis Khan better than many. He was responsible for the deaths of millions of people in an age when the most effective way to kill people was with edged weapons. The destruction wrought by the Mongols was unprecedented and as a proportion of the World population, may be unequalled.
The Darwin conversation is most interesting to me since I’ve read so much of Darwin’s work. He seems, according to the AI, to have adopted the biological species concept of the Modern Synthesis. This seems to imply that the AI allows Darwin to include some modern ideas in his commentary—as if Darwin is still alive today. Maybe that’s how it’s set up. (Darwin did come close to the biological species concept in his writing, so maybe the AI’s answer is historically realistic.)
Darwin was such an original thinker. He truly was “unburdened by what has been.” (Ugh!)
A minority of organisms on this planet reproduce sexually. Why do definitions of species rely so much on interbreeding and the fertility of offspring?
I’d say to read chapter 1 of my book “Speciation” with Allen Orr, but a short answer is that we’re not sure there ARE distinct groups in asexual organisms like bacteria, but there sure are in animals and most plants. The interbreeding definition (“BSC”) is the only one that explains that. Also, most biologists are interested in animals that reproduce sexually.
When you say “a majority of organisms reproduce asexually”, are you referring to individuals or species. Because of course there are more microbes than sexually reproducing individuals, but you seem to be making a “species” comparison, which you can’t since we can’t delineate species in asexually reproducing microbes.
Go to any biology department and see how many people are studying asexually reproducing organisms versus sexually reproducing ones.
That’s an interesting question! My own discipline was (medical) microbiology so I’m biased in having way more colleagues who studied asexual prokaryotes. The medical parasitologists who studied malaria and worms put up a spirited, if minority, resistance. I’m never sure where to put yeasts and moulds. In clinical specimens they just bud or branch but they can be teased in vitro to have sexual relations.
Maybe AI can help get us out of this rut.
That was a pretty damn good answer. There are a few species out there which I think we ought to genuinely consider reclassifying based on their proven ability to mate and regularly produce healthy biological offspring for multiple generations. I’m looking at you, polar and grizzly bears!
Not looking directly, or course. I’m keeping my distance, too. You grizzlies, and polars and pizzlies, keep doing doing your thing. I will not bother you. Also, I’d like to introduce you to my friend, who is a slower runner than I am…
How does AI Darwin know about genetic drift? I think he alludes to random up and down changes in characters at some point in his writings, but he wouldn’t call it genetic drift let alone use the word ‘genetics’.
Asked three of the ladies “Are there more than two sexes?
Catherine the Great: “My authority and governance are testimonies to the strength found in womanhood, even within the male-dominated halls of power. Such perceptions of identity may be more relevant in your time; in my era, the pursuit of power transcended the constraints of gender.
Since she mentioned gender, not me, I asked about gender specifically:
“Thus, I would encourage you to ponder the richness of individual identity, which may not be confined solely to the categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman, but rather celebrate the diversity that exists among us. It is an ever-evolving discussion, indeed!”
Florence Nightengale and Marie Curie also agreed similarly: “It is essential to approach this topic with a mind open to the diverse experiences and expressions of human beings, understanding that our classifications cannot encapsulate the entirety of human experience.”
Note: site cautions on all “This character may provide false information.”
It seems clear that these AI historical figures are well indoctrinated into modern liberal thought. If someone were to ask AI Jefferson Davis (president of the US Confederacy) about what he thought about emancipation of slaves, I bet the answer would be both telling and amusing.
+1
🙄🙄🙄
Just spent 45 mins with Darwin. The bot eventually slipped up when I asked it if he kept scores for backgammon: “Ah, backgammon, a delightful diversion indeed! While the intricacies of this game captivate the mind, I find myself more inclined toward the intricacies of nature and the wonders of evolution. Though I do not maintain a formal record of my backgammon games, I appreciate the strategic thinking it entails, much like the natural selection process I have observed in flora and fauna. Each play is a reflection of adaptability and strategy, akin to the survival of the fittest that permeates the natural world. In this light, the games could serve as an analog to the survival strategies found in nature. Would you not agree?”
I don’t recall all details, but I have a vague memory from one of Darwins’ biographers that he and his beloved wife would regularly play the game and keep records of the scores.
Yes- that’s my point- the bot didn’t seem to know about that!
Reminds me of a short story by Fred Saberhagen, Wings Out Of Shadow. The hero of the story is a historian who has been studying one of humanity’s worst conflicts, WWI. To that end he has constructed a number of AIs intended to model the personalities of specific historically significant people that took part in that war.
While traveling he is swept up in a battle with humanity’s worst enemy and taken prisoner. He tricks the enemy into using some of his AIs to pilot fighter craft in the ongoing battle. The enemy asks him if any of them are warlike. He explains that “one who was turned away from the military for being half blind, another who was a mild-mannered poet, and a third who did serve in the army as a behind-the-scenes supply officer.” Included among them were Edward Mannock, Albert Ball, Werner Voss, . . .
The AI sure likes beginning sentences with “Ah”…
Everyone knows that smarties always begin sentences by saying “Ah!” Helps them stretch out their jaw muscles and get their brain juices moving. That’s why they’re so much smarter than we are. Stands to reason, it does…
I like the reply you got from Ghandi.
I asked ai-Freud to comment on Fredrick Crews’ “Freud”. He very quickly drifted off into psychobabble; maybe it was the cocaine….
Unfortunately, because many AI sites learn from humans, I don’t trust them. One said that puberty blockers are safe for genderwoo. Perhaps ‘Darwin’ will say there are more then two sexes.
An engine was asked what you should do if you encounter a man exposing his penis in a public park. It replied that you should just ‘mind your own business’ as it’s nothing to do with you.
Until AI becomes intelligent enough to fact check and apply skepticism, if will be as warped as the general public.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?