There's a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it's basically an LLM.
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There's a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it's basically an LLM. His wife does ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) and she discovers that his machine can do it as well as her because he's tape recorded her classes and fed the data into the computer. She says to him,
"You, Doctor Hiroguchi, think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you're scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?"
I read that on the bus this afternoon.
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There's a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it's basically an LLM. His wife does ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) and she discovers that his machine can do it as well as her because he's tape recorded her classes and fed the data into the computer. She says to him,
"You, Doctor Hiroguchi, think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you're scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?"
I read that on the bus this afternoon.
@strange_new_words I recall that the first luddites were people que fought not against industrialization, but it's indiscriminate use by the capitalist class.
Obviously, entrepreneurs wanted (then and now) to spare labor costs.
Corporations will never change.
EDIT: Switched language.
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@strange_new_words I recall that the first luddites were people que fought not against industrialization, but it's indiscriminate use by the capitalist class.
Obviously, entrepreneurs wanted (then and now) to spare labor costs.
Corporations will never change.
EDIT: Switched language.
@yuki2501 I heartily recommend Brian Merchant's book "Blood in the Machine," which looks at the Luddites in the context of the modern tech industry.
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There's a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it's basically an LLM. His wife does ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) and she discovers that his machine can do it as well as her because he's tape recorded her classes and fed the data into the computer. She says to him,
"You, Doctor Hiroguchi, think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you're scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?"
I read that on the bus this afternoon.
@strange_new_words Vonneguts first novel is essentially all about this. Not LLMs. But the tension of machines replacing human dignity.
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