Today's DJ has PJ Gilbert's Fear and trembling with apologies to Kierkegaard
AI can be of immense benefit and immense harm. And it is not fully understood by its creators who can only conjecture about its potential. AI was developed by humans. It can accomplish some tasks in milliseconds that humans would take days, weeks, or years to accomplish. A segment on 60 minutes involved conjectures about when or if AI becomes conscious of itself. Yikes! I try to show a positive outlook while whistling in the dark. Hence the title of this column “Fear and Trembling” and no asterisk. Frankenstein’s monster threatens to kill himself, but in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, we do not know for sure that he does.
A few weeks ago, Ireland’s premier university – Trinity College, in Dublin – decided to cancel the name of its “Berkeley Library.” A NY Times piece on the change noted that the library’s namesake “owned slaves in colonial Rhode Island and wrote pamphlets supportive of slavery.”
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