The educational system is producing scions of machine anthropomorphism
Why don't educators bother correcting a bad concept straight from the classroom?
There are two distinct missions:
1. Scientific - Understanding how things work
2. Engineering - Building more performant tools
Those two missions are related but shouldn't be mixed together, lest people go into what Kambhampati calls "ersatz natural science."
It's apparent that some people are either confused about that or just flat out don't care. As I’ve indicated in a previous post, the practical problems machine designs solve isn’t that of "how to make something work like humans or the human mind" but “how to get more performance out of machine tools in specific tasks.”
Machine anthropomorphism is a mistake
This constant thinking inside “the human trap” is anthropomorphism. Thinking like that doesn’t make anything “better.” Derek Muller recently outted a video compilation of non-humanoid robots which espoused the similar point of how humanoid robots would only “overlap humanity” instead of complementing or exceeding it:
Educational institutions perpetuate wrongheaded anthropomorphic thinking
If anthropomorphism in machines is antithetical to overall technological progress then why the heck are universities perpetuating it along with their educators? Are they also immersing themselves in the same anthropomorphic brainwash that they’re now passing onto the next generation? It appears so. Just look at these slides from one of Lex Fridman’s MIT lectures:
Yes, it’s “history” but just because something has been thought of in a certain way does in NO MEANS point to a necessity of KEEP THINKING OF IT THAT WAY. A historically bad concept is being taught but NOT CORRECTED. Fridman taught those mistakes but didn’t arse himself for even a few seconds to mention how, you know, machine anthropomorphism isn’t exactly a great idea to actually implement?
Teaching a mistaken idea without correcting it is just shameful. Allowing that sort of thing to go on… Shame on you, universities. Shame on you, MIT.
The entire educational community is responsible… I blame absolutely everyone. No proper correction is going on, and no proper teaching either- Look, I've seen lectures like the one above and anthropomorphic ideas are being perpetuated and it appears that it will go on ad infinitum due to momentum and inertia. Look at how vigorously functionalism and even behaviorism of the mind is still being pushed as we speak, on "popular scientific and engineering publications" such as Nature and IEEE. Some of their articles on GenAI are positively headache-inducing.
It's not just "techniques" of anthropomorphic imitation but the entire cultural misunderstanding behind it. Anthropomorphism is continuously perpetuated through both the educational system and the journalistic community at large. What is the nature of the system which produced the likes of Lemoine and Thaler?... not to mention influential cultists such as Kurzweil and his ilk? Even Hinton himself is now a major headache, with media and educational and institutional admirerers helping him along. I saw one of his recent "lectures" on Youtube and the cheering for him and jeering on his "jokes" of contrary positions by the adoring university audience made me SICK… It was one big noncritical back-patting party.
How is this cultural brainwash ever going to recede?