fundamentally
flawed conception of our selves
language, knowledge

Adapted from:

Today our supposedly revolutionary advancements in artificial intelligence are indeed cause for both concern and optimism. Optimism because intelligence is the means by which we solve problems. Concern because we fear that the most popular and fashionable strain of A.I. — machine learning — will degrade our science and debase our ethics by incorporating into our technology a fundamentally flawed conception of language and knowledge.

It is at once comic and tragic, that so much money and attention should be concentrated on so little a thing — something so trivial when contrasted with the human mind, which by dint of language, in the words of Wilhelm von Humboldt, can make “infinite use of finite means,” creating ideas and theories with universal reach.

In the guest opinion essay, “The False Promise of ChatGPT” by Noam Chomsky (March 8, 2023, NYT).

Mr. Chomsky’s global standing as THE expert on language leaves me little room to argue, not that I would, as I was happy to read his opinions on the latest computer generated textual content craze that has a place in the current news cycle.

For me, the concept is as old as the Infinite Monkey Theory which states that if an infinite number of monkeys were left to bang on an infinite number of typewriters, sooner or later they would accidentally reproduce the complete works of William Shakespeare.

It goes back to 1913 and Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel a French mathematician, who wrote:

.. Concevons qu’on ait dressé un million de singes à frapper au hasard sur les touches d’une machine à écrire et que, sous la surveillance de contremaîtres illettrés, ces singes dactylographes travaillent avec ardeur dix heures par jour avec un million de machines à écrire de types variés. Les contremaîtres illettrés rassembleraient les feuilles noircies et les relieraient en volumes. Et au bout d’un an, ces volumes se trouveraient renfermer la copie exacte des livres de toute nature et de toutes langues conservés dans les plus riches bibliothèques du monde. Telle est la probabilité pour qu’il se produise pendant un instant très court, dans un espace de quelque étendue, un écart notable de ce que la mécanique statistique considère comme la phénomène le plus probable…*

I remembered it more from Bob Newhart who told the joke about the typing monkey’s, “Hey, Harry! This one looks a little famous: ‘To be or not to be – that is the gggzornonplatt.”

To be sure of the date, I did the google and read the article on Wikipedia.

BOY HOWDY!

So much on so little that for some reason caught the attention of so many people including a ‘famous’ study by some fellers named, Hoffmann and Hofmann!

It seems that the image of an infinite number of typing monkeys is just the thing to get stuck in a lot of people’s brain.

And, for the record, my family name is Hofman, but my Grandpa thought it looked unbalanced and changed it to Hoffman.

I think to get four spellings of the same last name into 2 sentences is pretty good for a non monkey!

To return to Mr. Chomsky and his something so trivial when contrasted with the human mind.

I used to try to observe objectively my mind in action as it worked to process all the information coming into my brain as I drove into Atlanta.

I was pretty much left in awe everytime.

In his books, C.S. Forester has several scenes where the hero is in a situation surrounded by activity and is called on to make decision after decision.

In these scenes, one of the sources of activity is either a beeping clock or someone else calling off the time in 5 second intervals or some such thing that marks the time in the background and the hero begins to contemplate how in the world the brain can process all the data let alone arrive at a conclusion, let alone a successful conclusion, in the time allowed for the situation.

Infinite use of finite means, creating ideas and theories with universal reach.

It is, the mind, an incredible thing.

To shift from text to music, I have long said that I had been allowed to compose the first 8 bars or so of Mozart’s Piano Concerto #11, I could die a happy person.

When Artificial Intelligence can compose this music, then email me a note.

When Artificial Intelligence can compose this music and KNOW what it did, then text me.

When Artificial Intelligence can LISTEN to this and feel it and know it is special and also know that if the computer was unplugged today, that computer would be happy that it has composed such a piece, then call me.

*.. Let us imagine that a million monkeys have been trained to type at random on the keys of a typewriter and that, under the supervision of illiterate foremen, these typing monkeys work with ardor ten hours a day with a million machines to write of various types. Illiterate foremen would collect the blackened sheets and bind them into volumes. And at the end of a year, these volumes would be found to contain the exact copy of the books of all kinds and all languages ​​preserved in the richest libraries of the world. Such is the probability that there will occur for a very short instant, in a space of some extent, a notable deviation from what statistical mechanics considers to be the most probable phenomenon… (Yes I used a computer generated translation)

acting normal is
crazy enough be average
we think that is good

I grew up in West Michigan.

I grew up in West Michigan because most of my ancestors immigrated from the Netherlands to West Michigan in the 1870’s.

One branch of the family came over from England in 1842 which is where my Civil War Soldier Great Great Grandfather came from but the rest were wearing wooden shoes and saying Hoe is het met je? while farming in Ottawa County.

Climb up my family tree and you meet Hofman’s, Hendrickson’s, Van Noord’s, De Young’s, Pell’s and other such folks.

That isn’t a typo for Hofman.

See, my Grandfather thought Hofman looked a little lopsided so added an extra ‘f’ to the name.

If you check that Ellis Island registry, you have to search for Hofman.

According to family lore, on Grandpa’s first day of school, the teacher called the role and when he came to Roloef Hofman (son of Kope … or was it Koop Hofman), the teacher said from now on I am going to call you Robert.

Robert liked that so much, changing the last name must have made sense as well.

Grandpa like his new first name so much, he also chose a middle name, an American idea as this is not a Dutch custom.

And he became Robert Karl.

Karl with a k.

To round it all off, he named his son, Robert.

My Grandma’s name was Pauline.

Pauline De Young.

Their son got her name in the middle.

Robert Paul Hoffman to be exact.

My Dad.

My Dad liked Robert Paul so much he named his son, Paul Robert.

But he liked his father’s name so much he named his third son, Robert Karl Hoffman.

My older brother Bobby.

To this, American’s added the fashionable title of Junior or Jr. to my brother’s name and he went down in history as Robert Hoffman, Jr.

Though to be correct, as we liked to point out, he should have been known as Robert K. Hoffman II.

Readers of this blog will remember that my name, Michael, was taken out of the box and tried out on my brother Tim for 2 or 3 days before my Dad decided that the new baby was NOT a Mike and filled out the birth certificate with the name Tim.

I was born 4 years later and got the slightly used name of Michael.

My Dad and Mom have to get a bit of grace on this as they did have to choose names for 8 boys along with 3 girls.

11 sets of names might present a challenge to some folks.

I might have seen it as a opportunity (if you know my kids names).

But my folks came through with some good, average names.

And it all started with being Dutch.

I recently came across the New York Times article, The Country That Wants to ‘Be Average’ vs. Jeff Bezos and His $500 Million Yacht By David Segal (July 29, 2022).

The article tells the story how a multi billionaire had a multi million dollar boat built in a shipyard separated from the sea by an old bridge in Rotterdam.

To get the boat out, the billionaire asked the city if he could have the old bridge taken down.

Not to worry, the old bridge would be put back, just the way it was, and the billionaire would pay for it all so no harm no foul.

But the Dutch said nope, nothing doing.

Mr. Segal writes:

“The Dutch like to say, ‘Acting normal is crazy enough,’” said Ellen Verkoelen, a City Council member and Rotterdam leader of the 50Plus Party, which works on behalf of pensioners. “And we think that rich people are not acting normal. Here in Holland, we don’t believe that everybody can be rich the way people do in America, where the sky is the limit. We think ‘Be average.’ That’s good enough.”

Acting normal is crazy enough.

Boy, Howdy ain’t that the truth.

Be average.

That’s good enough.