AI is beige

In the beginning, there was beige

You might be surprised to learn that the average colour of the universe is beige. Or “cosmic latte” as it’s called - they banned the use of beige when naming such an omnipotent hue.

This wouldn’t be a problem if you like beige however. My sister wears a lot of beige. I think this puts her fashion taste beyond the realms of mortal criticism. But for most people, beige equals boring.

Why is the universe beige?

Because this is the average of the light from over 200,000 galaxies as seen from the vantage point of earth. This suggests that other places in the universe may have more fashionable vantage points than ours - somewhere in the universe they get “kickass crimson”. But Earth is just the boring backwater we always suspected it was.

Our beige universe

AI: Averaging (the) Internet

On the internet, we have information instead of light. (Although as Marshall McLuhan once said “light is pure information”.) The first step in training ubiquitous AI tools like ChatGPT was the data collection process, the acquisition of a diverse and extensive dataset from the internet or “web scraping” as it has been called since the days of dial-up.

Once acquired, the stuff of the web is atomised into tokens - smaller units of data often consisting of individual words or subwords - so that AI systems can process, analyze, and interpret it. Tokenisation is what allows AI systems to process vast amounts of textual information.

Existential office supplies

One of the most famous illustrations of the existential dangers of AI is focussed on the most beige and boring stationary item you can think of (besides maybe the hole punch).

The paperclip maximiser is a thought experiment described by Swedish philosopher Nick Bostrom in 2003. It describes an advanced artificial intelligence that turns all matter in the universe, including human beings, into paperclips.

The paperclip maximiser is an example of “instrumental convergence”, the idea that rational agents can forever pursue “the means to an end” over “the end in itself”.

What is it like to be a paperclip?

[Interlude] A poem about paperclips

Me: What is the most human poem?

ChatGPT: [excerpt] Poems that touch upon universal themes and emotions are often considered to be profoundly human. One such poem is "If" by Rudyard Kipling, which imparts valuable life lessons and embodies qualities often associated with humanity, such as perseverance, integrity, and resilience.

Me: Rewrite the poem "If" but make it about paperclips

“If you can bend and twist when others can't,
And hold your shape, though under pressure, taunt,
If you can join two ends with perfect grace,
Yet not grow proud or think you're the whole case;
If you can stay in place and not let slip,
While busy hands do the paperwork and clip,
Or if you're asked to hold, or even bind,
Be the simple tool, and keep a steadfast mind:

If you can loop and swirl and never tangle,
And be the bridge when documents need wrangle,
If you can serve your purpose without fuss,
A trusty, humble tool, in us we trust,
If you can spring to action when the need,
To keep our papers ordered, so they read,
And be the helper we rely upon,
You'll be the paperclip, our trusty one."

What is it like to be beige?

Another thought experiment. In 1974 American philosopher Thomas Nagel, published a paper titled “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" This paper became on of the the most widely cited and influential thought experiments about consciousness.

In it Nagel argues that the subjective nature of consciousness means it can’t be explained by reductionist means. Or more simply put, when it comes to consciousness “the whole will always be greater than the sum of the parts”

Nagel uses bats as a metaphor since they are mammals with different sensory apparatus from humans. He argues that while a human might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat's point of view", it would still be impossible "to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat."

“Attuned choice by attuned choice, your entire life is a form of self expression. You exist as a creative being in a creative universe. A singular work of art.”

Rick Rubin, The Creative Act

Rhymes with bagel

Lies, damned lies, and applied statistics

AI is a form of applied statistics. I don’t think many people outside of data science and technology appreciate this. Remember the tokenisation part I described earlier? That’s key to understanding this.

The best way to visually see the process of AI “applying statistics” without getting into the technical details of how this actually works is to watch Midjourney render an image. 

Once you submit the prompt a series of visual images start to form before your eyes. At first these are blurred colours and shapes like what you might see with your eyes closed on a bright sunny day. In seconds, they start to acquire progressively more detail with each rendering pass until you have a the final image.

Every single pixel in the rendered image has been calculated based on the statistical likelihood of it appearing next to adjacent pixels. You can see this with ChatGPT as well in the stream of text that appears in response to a prompt but it’s not so visually obvious what is happening. The calculations of statistical likelihood are based on the training and tokenisation of the input data.

But what about the output of AI? Surely that’s exciting and not in any way beige even though it is just statistics?

“Nothing created by AI can be trademarked and copyrighted because it’s not an original piece of work. You can’t build a business when you don’t own the core elements of your brand.”

Tom Muller, Eisner nominee and award-winning designer/creative director

“The interplay between AI, copyright and individual rights is a thrilling narrative we are all part of.”

Antonio Evans, CEO of Socialdraft, a company that sells $5 “prompts” to make chatbots take on the personality of celebrities

“The process of ingesting everything and then spitting out an average may lead to a stylistic and conceptual regression to the mean, says a literary agent, who sees similarities with the algorithms on social media that help propagate the most pedestrian views”

Now AI can write, sing and act, is it still possible to be a star? The Economist Briefing Nov 9th 2023

The persistance of beige

The image of the beige computer is a cliche most often used to tease organisations about how they will end up if they don’t jump on board with the latest technology.

The reason this works as a metaphor is because at one point in history beige computers were perceived as being pervasive. They were everywhere seemingly doing everything - within the hyped constraints of their time.

Think about that for a minute though. A beige box representing pervasive, and from our vantage point in time, boring technology.

Pervasiveness is beige and boring. 

AI is also pervasive technology. It can do everything. It might not seem that way right now because it’s pervasiveness has already outpaced out perception. This is a consequence of the technological environment into which it has emerged, one of the internet, mobile and platforms. The biggest players have already decided on AI and it will be everywhere whether you like it or not. To paraphrase William Gibson, the future is already here it’s just unevenly perceived.