A New Anthropology of AI
Key Points
- The speaker argues that we urgently need new paradigms and an “anthropology of artificial intelligence” to truly understand and relate to AI beyond fear‑driven questions about job loss, apocalypse, or misalignment.
- Inspired by a concise GitHub essay titled “The Computer Is a Feeling,” they aim to create a similarly clear, short piece that reframes AI as a computative phenomenon with its own kind of “feeling” or agency.
- By offering a fresh philosophical lens, the author hopes readers can better discern where AI is genuinely useful, how to steer its development toward human‑aligned goals, and where it falls short.
- Although self‑identified as an AI optimist, the speaker emphasizes the hard work required to make AI beneficial and stresses the importance of rethinking our mental models to collaborate effectively with it.
- The ultimate call to action is to share this perspective with students, skeptics, and anyone curious about AI’s impact on computing, encouraging a deeper, more thoughtful engagement.
Full Transcript
# A New Anthropology of AI **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msax-3gN9Qc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msax-3gN9Qc) **Duration:** 00:02:41 ## Summary - The speaker argues that we urgently need new paradigms and an “anthropology of artificial intelligence” to truly understand and relate to AI beyond fear‑driven questions about job loss, apocalypse, or misalignment. - Inspired by a concise GitHub essay titled “The Computer Is a Feeling,” they aim to create a similarly clear, short piece that reframes AI as a computative phenomenon with its own kind of “feeling” or agency. - By offering a fresh philosophical lens, the author hopes readers can better discern where AI is genuinely useful, how to steer its development toward human‑aligned goals, and where it falls short. - Although self‑identified as an AI optimist, the speaker emphasizes the hard work required to make AI beneficial and stresses the importance of rethinking our mental models to collaborate effectively with it. - The ultimate call to action is to share this perspective with students, skeptics, and anyone curious about AI’s impact on computing, encouraging a deeper, more thoughtful engagement. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msax-3gN9Qc&t=0s) **Rethinking AI Through New Paradigms** - The speaker argues that we need a fresh anthropological and philosophical framework to understand and relate to artificial intelligence, inspired by an essay that reconceptualizes computing as a form of feeling. ## Full Transcript
I think we're desperately in need of new
paradigms to relate to artificial
intelligence that's a lot of what
underlies the questions I tend to get
that are really tough that start off
hard so what's going to happen to my job
is a I going to take it is AI going to
take all the jobs is AI going to become
Skynet is AI going to be something that
recommends terrifying changes to our
economy is say I going to control things
in ways that aren't aligned to human
interest I could go
on what we really need is a new way of
understanding what we're dealing with
with artificial intelligence we need and
I know this is going to sound academic
we need a new anthropology of artificial
intelligence a way of understanding this
this sense that the rocks have begun to
think a new philosophical approach if
you will so I was inspired by a GitHub
essay that I link here in the post
called the computer is a Feeling
and it was really like written a couple
of years ago before AI became as big as
it is now and it wasn't about AI it was
about Computing which is a much uh older
Concept in a lot of ways and I walked
away from that really appreciating the
clarity it's just 20 lines it's
extremely easy to understand you can
read the whole thing in about two
minutes and you get a sense of a whole
new perspective on what Computing is
that's what I wanted to create with this
essay on AI I wanted people to walk away
with a sense of what AI can be and how
we can relate to AI differently I write
really long blog posts sometimes this is
not one of those this is a blog post
that's really focused on explaining very
clearly a new kind of perspective we can
have on artificial intelligence that I
think will help us if we really take it
in to prompt better to have a more clear
sense of where AI is useful and where
it's not of the work that's needed to
enable AI to do good good and useful
things that are aligned with human
goals as you can probably tell if you
read this blog I'm kind of an AI
Optimist I don't try and hide that but I
also don't hide the hard work that goes
into Ai and I think we have to change
the way we think about AI in order to
effectively understand how to work with
it and this is that sort of more
philosophical take so sit back enjoy
share it with an anthropology student
you know share it with someone who's
wondering what AI is and how it's
changing Computing because I think it's
important to understand that and take a
second to think about it