Greg Brockman of OpenAI

 He grew up in Thompson ND, which is 8 miles south of Grand Forks. He attended HS in Grand Forks and took UND classes while in HS. Later went to Harvard, transferred to MIT, then dropped out to start a series of unsuccessful start-ups, until a few years ago, when he co-founded OpenAI.

His responses to the questions were quite thoughtful (at first) and I was impressed with how genuinely intelligent he is (not a tech bro at all). HOWEVER, in the last few minutes I ended up being really disgusted, for several reasons:

ChatGPT is NOT creative, as he claims. It bases its output on the creative work of humans, much of it scraped from the internet without permission. Claiming that GenAI is creating original content, something that has "not been seen before" (by creating a response from predicting the next most likely word) is LAUGHABLE (and kind of offensive).

He also suggests the AI might have an internal or interior experience, which I also think is absurd and sort of wishful thinking on the part of humans. We don't really know exactly what makes us human, but I would contend, whatever it is, AI doesn't have it (at least not yet).

I seriously question whether neural networks are successfully modeling biological thinking, as he is claiming. Human thinking is NOT just information processing! This debate has gone on for decades and I think it continues, it is not settled yet. It is clear to me that humans process information through a filter of experience, memory, and especially emotion, something AI does not and cannot do.

Thought he claims the goal of the company is to harness the value of AI for the benefit of all humanity, ChatGPT4 is fee-based - I guess it's just a happy coincidence that the adoption of LLM technology happens to pour money into his pocket.*

His final comment was that the best way we can prepare for the future is to become "experts" in this technology. This was after claiming that AI is the magic wand that will create the (imminent) utopian future (within 10 years he thinks).

No mention of intellectual property theft, and no mention of the alignment issue (though he hinted at it). 

Pollyanna horseshit, imho.

ADDENDUM

I spoke with someone who was at the session and they think some of the stuff I'm objecting to is cognitive dissonance - that Greg has to believe his company is a force for good because he's a good person and he is inextricably wedded to it.

*ADDL ADDENDUM

Sam Altman was fired as CEO in November and Greg Brockman quit in solidarity - both are committed to the open part of the name (OpenAI) and clearly the board wants to monetize it all. Sam was eventually rehired, but it was a huge drama.

Jewish high holiday sermons

 The local synagogue has a student rabbi for the HHD, like the synagogue I attended growing up. The first year, I thought the guy was just okay, but I really like the guy who came the second year. He was supposed to return for a second year, but he is have some undiagnosable health problem, so he couldn't come to GF for the HHD. Instead, we had a sub - the chief chaplain at the Minneapolis VA. I had low expectations, but he was terrific.

He said on Erev RH that his sermons would be on the theme of rn - the text shortcut for Right Now. In this case, meaning there are things we should be changing and addressing right now. Also, the themes for each of the 4 sermons would be a word that started with R and ended with N.

The four sermons: reflection, rebellion, retraction, refraction.

I know, sounds obscure. But, so great!

Reflection is kind of obvious. Rebellion (which I actually missed) was about saying NO when needed.

Retraction was about getting stuck - he told a story about his daughter's seatbelt getting stuck and it won't come out and won't retract. We find ourselves in that situation sometimes, where we can't seem to go forward, but we can't go back either.

But the final one! He started by talking about how the equinox is not really equal light and dark (12 hours of each) - because of the way light refracts, we actually get a few more minutes of light on the equinox (which means equal night). He also mentioned that the true equal light and dark day is called the equilux (equal light).

Anyway, his point was THE LIGHT GETS THERE FIRST. It's physics, but it's also metaphysics: we experience the kindness, the light, even the smallest bit, first and most. That's the takeaway message: do whatever you can to make the world a little better, because every tiny beam of lightness arrives and lands and lightens.

Towel travails (AirBnB)

I really don't understand how complicated it can be to hang a wet towel on the towel bar in the bathroom, as requested. Repeatedly, guests hang the towel on the wooden furniture or even leave it on the bed in the bedroom. 

Now, two guests in a row have hung the towel over the bathroom door. WTAF? The door already sticks - does it not seem problematic to leave a moisture-filled towel on a wooden door, where it will only make the door sticking problem worse? 

I tried putting the towel information more prominently, and repeatedly, in the AirBnB information, and, finally, I put a note in the bedroom. Still, the towel is often not on the towel bar.

Why is this an issue? The most recent guest continued to hang the towel on the door, even after I moved the towel to the towel bar on the first day. Why can't people follow this simple and clearly stated instruction? 

Why do I even have to ask - why don't people use the metal towel bar in the bathroom, the obvious place? How I can effectively communicate what seems to me to be an incredibly simple task? Why can't them seem to do this? Seems easy, both because I asked them to, but, also, out of common courtesy. I'm just flummoxed by this. 

ADDENDUM

I finally put a note on the shower door and the few guests since have managed to hang the towel there.

I'm running out of steam with people

 Everything is annoying today!

SP is so passive aggressive. Wow, now that I am noticing it, it's just heartbreaking. She sent out an email today about the Thurs morning horticultural society gardening with no mention of the BIG collaborative event on Tuesday (though they have been unsuccessfully recruiting for the Thurs group for 2 years, which is why Cindy asked Gro.UND to get involved). I sent an email about it and she just did her usual thing of acting confused and she is trying oh so hard to be helpful. (My previous exchange with her was how I MUST tell them where the biking group is ending in order for UPN to promote it. I am thoroughly sick of her thinking she gets to tell me what to do. Even better, when I tried to talk to a person across the table from me at lunch yesterday, during the planning workshop, her and RC, who were sitting on opposite sides of me, suddenly needed to have a very urgent and loud conversation. Afterwards, RC commented on how difficult it was for her to be sitting between 2 loud talking people...)

I am trying to organize folks to order some swag for the library and we met this morning. Even though I suggested it and did all the background research on the materials, MF sort of tried to take over the meeting and say what she thought we should do. This even though she is leaving this afternoon for the rest of the week and this needs to be done by the end of the week. 

We also had our APA team meeting where we were supposed to review our work for the past 2 weeks, but it was so awkward and no one was speaking up, and the whole meeting lasted about 25 minutes. At the end, we talked about the new person, KT, helping us with stuff for the next 2 weeks, and MD said KT could help me with Mod 4 and 5 - what? I need help with Mod 1, 2, and 3 - the things I'm doing right now, so weird.

The one where I impress a Nobel Laureate

 I had an interesting night. The University had a Nobel Prize winner as their featured lecturer, which is the kind of stuff I normally love and had expected more of than UND has offered in the past 2 years, so this was cool. The Dean invited me to the pre-lecture reception, which I was excited about. However, at the last minute she couldn't go (sort of doubly sucked because I skipped the french fry feed so I would be ready at exactly 5:30 - if she had told me earlier that she couldn't go, I could have gone to the park before the reception). I chatted with a few people at the reception, including a real sour woman who apparently attends the synagogue, though I don't remember talking to her there.  Mostly it was listening to people talk and smiling politely, my favorite activity. The food was decent, though - roasted veggies and chicken skewers and fancy hummus, which I could eat (and a bunch of stuff I couldn't eat). 

The 2nd person I spoke with was the director of the Global Friends, which is the refugee resettlement org in GF. She is older than me and still fighting the good fight. At one point, I asked her how she stays optimistic when everything we have worked for our whole lives is being attacked. Shortly after that, she said she was going to chat with the guest speaker and she ws gonna ask her my question. Whatever, I didn't think much about it. (She also made a comment about how honest I was, which is, if I am counting correctly, the 4th person who has said this to me in as many weeks. Pretty pathetic that this is a trait that gets remarked upon. How much dishonesty is out there?)

Anyway. Fast forward to the end of the lecture (which was just okay). At the end of the Q&A, the speaker said she was going to ask herself a question because it was the best question she had been asked, at the dinner earlier that night. Imagine my surprise: she wanted to tell us how she stays optimistic! Wow! It made up for how desultory and disappointing the rest of the night had been - just knowing that my question had filtered to her and been meaningful enough to remark upon. Pretty great (for all the good it does me).