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Rob Nelson's avatar

Thinking of predictive AI as "just a rebrand of the Big Data hype bubble from 10-15 years ago" seems right, and the habit of substituting "data for strategy" nicely sums up the real risks of many forms of AI, including the kind that generates cultural artifacts.

They don't use the term in the book, but last year the Snake Oil guys put out a paper with a few others on what they call "predictive optimization," which I think helps frame this danger. Here is a link to post about it: https://www.aisnakeoil.com/p/ai-cannot-predict-the-future-but?utm_source=publication-search

Deflating AI hype requires pointing out all the ways AI doesn't work, but it also requires pointing out how truly terrible using it can be when it works as designed to make some types of management decisions. Davies is a great example of how to think about this problem in terms of organizations, as is The Ordinal Society. Analytical Activism is now on my list.

Thanks mentioning my review essay!

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Ary Shalizi's avatar

The recent chemistry Nobel was for the prediction of protein structure. Describing it as being for “the study of chemical compounds” is like saying “the Nobel Prize in chemistry was given for the study of chemistry.”

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