Synthetic teaching / Authentic cussing
Today: Maria Bustillos, editor, journalist, and information activist, and founding editor of Flaming Hydra, Popula, and The Brick House; and Harry Siegel, senior editor at THE CITY, co-host of the FAQ NYC podcast and columnist at the New York Daily News.
Issue No. 48
Superficial Intelligence
Maria Bustillos
Fuck All
Harry Siegel
Superficial Intelligence
by Maria Bustillos
Silicon Valley has been like a whole Naked Emperor nudist colony for years now, packed to the rafters with delusional buffoons demanding admiration as they yabber on about colonizing Mars, coffee with butter in it, the “Singularity,” the “Dark Enlightenment,” Bored Apes, sentient AI, one-drop hematology, “the metaverse,” tiny submarines, and other daft notions. They may not get up on stage at TED or at Davos in the nude, but with all their preening foolishness and self-consequence, they might as well be.
When you consider the power these people have over everyone’s lives, though, the buffoonery very rapidly stops being funny at all. Let’s consider just one of them: Sal Khan, the former hedge-fund analyst who in 2008 founded Khan Academy, a nonprofit online learning platform offering video tutorials and quizzes, first in math, and then on a broad range of subjects. Since then, Khan Academy has attracted hundreds of millions in philanthropic funding, brought fame to its founder, and developed a significant influence on the schooling of millions of kids.
Last spring (and yes, at TED), Khan announced the development of Khanmigo, an “artificially intelligent but amazing personal tutor.”
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