The link in your post to RARE/EARTH panel discussion video does not seem to work (I get "This video is private" message) but it is now available on IAS YouTube channel:
The great Nicholas Gessler has been writing about the material substrates of information for 40 years. Its more important than ever to push back against the delusion of info-disembodiment. Very well said Michael. Here's an interview I did with Nick in Cabinet magazine (2006). Even back then the dangers were clear and with AI they've multiplied exponentially.
Glad to see that you pushing on the issue of the environmental damage associated with AI.
It does seem unfair to me that you should lay the blame for the missed opportunity on the SV&SP folks. From their point of view, and of course from the point of view of the governments and corporations that they are criticizing, AI for Math is a small niche activity. If the AI community completely lost interest in AI for Math, it would only have a tiny impact on the demands for material resources. It's mostly the job of the math community be aware of the issue and to say that they don't want to be any part of that.
It's not even obvious how much larger the environmental impact of "AI for Math" would be than the "ordinary" use of high tech by the mathematicians themseles. If you take all desktops, laptops, smart phones, cloud usage, emails, Googling, online material and so on that can be associated directly with the people who are involved in one way and another with AI for Math, and compare that to the environmental impact of AI for Math activities specifically, how do they compare in environmental impact? My completely uniformed guess is that, so far, the AI for Math impact would be a fairly small fraction. That could change, of course; or I could be dead wrong
already.
Enjoy your trip to Cambridge! Best to Ursula Martin.
I agree with both of your observations, with qualifications. While the environmental impact of mathematical AI as such would probably be no more significant than the damage caused by transporting physical mathematicians between conferences, I'm assuming that AI will not be able to provide the promised benefits to mathematics, if at all, without AI overall having been developed according to the highly damaging scenario that was the subject of the SV&SP conference.
As for the other comment, on the basis of my experience at the IAS I would say that more interaction between the School of Social Science and the School of Mathematics would be beneficial and enlightening to both.
That both meetings took place at IAS within a month of each other indicates to me -- above all -- that IAS still has the intellectual wherewithal and vision -- in the tradition of Dyson and von Neumann -- to mobilize in addressing even the most immediately consequential of challenges from an "advanced" point of view. This should be -- on balance -- a cause for celebration, more than lament. Separately, human mathematicians are still more "economically viable" than the AI putative alternative ("fuelled by nuclear energy and demanding of rare earth minerals in addition to trillions of dollars of additional investment"), and are apt to remain so in the foreseeable future methinks.
Good evening Michael. Do I gather you are in Cambridge this week? Care to talk face to face rather than mining my back catalogue for things to snark at?
The link in your post to RARE/EARTH panel discussion video does not seem to work (I get "This video is private" message) but it is now available on IAS YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxVM3cAxHfg&t=7s
Thank you… I have changed the link.
The great Nicholas Gessler has been writing about the material substrates of information for 40 years. Its more important than ever to push back against the delusion of info-disembodiment. Very well said Michael. Here's an interview I did with Nick in Cabinet magazine (2006). Even back then the dangers were clear and with AI they've multiplied exponentially.
https://cabinetmagazine.org/contributors/gessler_nicholas.php
All credit is due to the panelists; I just reported on what they said… as you were doing almost 20 years ago!
Michael --
Glad to see that you pushing on the issue of the environmental damage associated with AI.
It does seem unfair to me that you should lay the blame for the missed opportunity on the SV&SP folks. From their point of view, and of course from the point of view of the governments and corporations that they are criticizing, AI for Math is a small niche activity. If the AI community completely lost interest in AI for Math, it would only have a tiny impact on the demands for material resources. It's mostly the job of the math community be aware of the issue and to say that they don't want to be any part of that.
It's not even obvious how much larger the environmental impact of "AI for Math" would be than the "ordinary" use of high tech by the mathematicians themseles. If you take all desktops, laptops, smart phones, cloud usage, emails, Googling, online material and so on that can be associated directly with the people who are involved in one way and another with AI for Math, and compare that to the environmental impact of AI for Math activities specifically, how do they compare in environmental impact? My completely uniformed guess is that, so far, the AI for Math impact would be a fairly small fraction. That could change, of course; or I could be dead wrong
already.
Enjoy your trip to Cambridge! Best to Ursula Martin.
-- Ernie
I agree with both of your observations, with qualifications. While the environmental impact of mathematical AI as such would probably be no more significant than the damage caused by transporting physical mathematicians between conferences, I'm assuming that AI will not be able to provide the promised benefits to mathematics, if at all, without AI overall having been developed according to the highly damaging scenario that was the subject of the SV&SP conference.
As for the other comment, on the basis of my experience at the IAS I would say that more interaction between the School of Social Science and the School of Mathematics would be beneficial and enlightening to both.
That both meetings took place at IAS within a month of each other indicates to me -- above all -- that IAS still has the intellectual wherewithal and vision -- in the tradition of Dyson and von Neumann -- to mobilize in addressing even the most immediately consequential of challenges from an "advanced" point of view. This should be -- on balance -- a cause for celebration, more than lament. Separately, human mathematicians are still more "economically viable" than the AI putative alternative ("fuelled by nuclear energy and demanding of rare earth minerals in addition to trillions of dollars of additional investment"), and are apt to remain so in the foreseeable future methinks.
Good evening Michael. Do I gather you are in Cambridge this week? Care to talk face to face rather than mining my back catalogue for things to snark at?
With pleasure… but I'm not in England yet.