AI Zen Master

[u/ewk]

Since it's so easy to drop a Zen text or even multiple Zen texts into an llm and ask questions that the llm will answer from the standpoint of the text?

* www.reddit.com/r/Zen/wiki/getstarted

Doesn't it make sense that there would be a lot less confusion and a lot more interesting conversations??

Plus, if you have an llm answer questions about the texts then who better to explain why Zazen Shinto-Buddhism and Alan Epstein Watts are not part of the tradition?

Serious question.

Where are all my AI Zen Masters at?

[u/origin_unknown]

If you ask chatgpt to translate the same thing 3 times, does it produce the same translation each time?

Llm is a non-deterministic black box. What I mean is that if you ask it the same exact question 3 times, you're going to see three different answers. They may or may not be similar, but they are not the same.

Beyond that, enforcing guard rails to try and get a deterministic answer is not reliable on a publicly available chat agent like chatgpt. It might hold context for a while, but not indefinitely, even within the same topic windows. I can vouch for that myself, trying to set up multiple devices in multiple ways on my network and leaning on chatgpt to keep track, it did so for maybe a couple of days then just started hallucinating answers.

I think any faith in such a device to ultimately guide anyone through zen texts may be misplaced.

And it's not AI. More like a jack in the box.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

I usually ask it to "translate literally several different ways". I want multiple answers.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

Nobody is having a conversation about negative consequences of using the tech. I think the tech is being used very ignorantly and with a high degree of naivety.

I think the resistance to these notions speaks for each person offering resistance. I've considered abandoning the forum as a lost cause.

Until someone besides myself is willing to educate themselves and have a discussion about the negative consequences, I'm not sure what else I can say or that saying anymore is even worthwhile.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

separate problems:

Lots of people are negative about tech.

Lots of people don't know how to use tech.

There's no question that people are using tech to commit crimes.

But if we put these three things into a pot, we're never gonna get anywhere.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

That's exactly the kind of low effort response I'm not interested in and it completely ignores what I'm talking about.

I'm concerned you can't have a conversation about this, but you still want a winnable argument. I'm not arguing about this anymore. If you can simply inform people they are being ignorant and that's their own problem, then you should be able to accept someone saying it to you.

It's not a free tech. There are consequences that aren't being well considered. Even if you don't agree with me about the appearance of any reliable translation from the thing, there are plenty of other issues to consider.

I think most people's thinking is about like someone justifying eating meat because they're not the person that killed the cow, they're just the one eating it. It's just ignorant.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

If I can't even get you to narrow down the subject to ignorance verses competence versus crime, then do you want to have a conversation or do you just want to have hysteria?

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

This is another reason why I don't want to play with you anymore.

This is not hysteria.

From you, dota, and TF, you all want to just dismiss this as me being crazy or something. Its a cop out.

You're only considering the words that magically appear on the screen. What about all the infrastructure behind it?

You don't eat meat, but what do the words you're reading consume to reach your eye sockets? Ever consider that? What about the consequences of thousands of data centers going up everywhere for this precious precious tech? Homes are being stolen, water is being stolen. So long as we get our llm output though, right?

Do you buy your meat from a "responsible" butcher? Do you get your words from the machinations of billionaires?

I'd just like to see y'all at least have a conversation considering what fuels the output you so cherish.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

I 100% want to have conversations. Not just with you, but with everybody, and I don't want anyone to think that I'm dismissing them.

You're saying tech is dangerous, and this is a serious historical question.

But it's equally dangerous to not be specific and careful in any public debate.

For example, Luddites are commonly understood to be blue-hate technology, but the history of Luddites suggests that they were people who hated predatory corporateization and they expressed through attacks on technology.

So it is very important to be specific and careful not only in understanding what we're talking about now, but in understanding what's historically been a situation people faced.

Are we talking about people who don't understand the technology and feed hysteria about how we're all going to be unemployed in 10 minutes?

Are we talking about the dangers of misuse of technology, by people who don't really understand what they're putting into it and what they're getting out of it, and can't tell readily the difference between reality and fantasy in every situation?

Or are we talking about criminals who are using the technology to prey on people in ways that society is not prepared to address, doing harms that society is not prepared to compensate people for?

I think all three of these are big problems and I have read articles by serious people on these problems.

But when I try to narrow you down to understand what your concerns are, I don't seem to make any progress. For you to tell me that I'm the problem does not seem evidence-based.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

I've expressed a number of concerns. I'm not really sure what's not landing.
There are lots of things to consider, beyond any particular user's ability to produce favorable or unfavorable output.
Who owns the tech?
How is the tech deployed? Beyond responsible use, is it being responsibly deployed?
What are the infrastructure requirements now? Future?
Environment impact?
Economic impact?
Social impact?

Will the physical requirements of using the tech cause death and suffering? Is that worth considering for someone who takes a precept against killing?

Beyond being able to produce a passable translation, has my requesting of this passable translation caused any death? Could using this technology potentially violate any precepts, not least of which, that against killing?

Full accounting, value vs cost. All things considered.

Least of which, who gets the real value, and who bears the real cost?

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

I don't think there can be an accounting along the lines that you're asking for. A similar request for accounting was made for the Industrial Revolution, and it's just not possible. My hunch is that the question is too intertwined with subjective values of good and evil.

As far as accounting in the three categories that I discussed and that people are writing about:

1. There is plainly hysteria. Some of that hysteria is likely justified as it was with the Industrial Revolution bringing an end to hundreds of years of ways of life. On the other hand, some of the hysteria is not justified, as it was not justified with the television and the radio and the electric light.

2. People don't know what they're doing with technology, but we see that in every kind of technology. And I don't know that the argument can be made that LLMs are significantly more dangerous than guns or virus laboratories.

3. Criminal uses of the technology are the most unknown of the unknowns. There's a reasonable fear that the US will lose the arms race by regulating. On the other hand doing true little too late is what politicians specialize at.

I don't think we can treat LLMs as significantly different from all the other technologies, whether it's electricity, from coal power plants, or corporate chemical dumping. My instinct is that when people want to take LLMs out of the context of all the terrible things that big business is doing right now that people themselves are trying not to be honest and accountable.

[u/origin_unknown → u/ewk]

I think the industrial revolution is your red herring.

I think if you had the infrastructure forced upon your own property, or upon your own community, you might be willing to consider it differently.

You could probably get some experience of it for yourself. Locating temporary lodging in such a community. It would be like...tasting a lemon for yourself.

[u/ewk → u/origin_unknown]

I don't understand what you are saying there.

Have you read much about the industrial revolution and the collapse of the cottage industries?