E.M. Forster's 1909 story 'The Machine Stops' predicts aspects of modern technology, including the internet, social media, and AI. The story notes that people constantly exchange ideas, with their main activities being eating, sleeping, or generating ideas. Modern AI can remix and explore randomly, which is a large part of the creative process, but they are weaker at novelty. As the gap between 'idea' and 'output' shrinks, the best ideas remain scarce due to limited world attention.
The chart will appear after repeat observations. The current metric comes from the source.
14 source pointsReal observations only. History before source connection is not reconstructed.
This text discusses how modern AI may affect idea generation but does not replace human uniqueness in creating novel concepts.
Robin Hanson did not invent the concept of a martingale process, but he popularized the idea that probability assignments should form a martingale. This concept is linked to the Efficient Markets Hypothesis, which states that short-term price movements cannot be predicted. The idea was developed earlier, but Hanson contributed to its visibility.
4 days agoLessWrongThe article investigates the origin of a popular anecdote about a pottery experiment where students evaluated based on quantity produced better quality work than those focused on quality. The author traced the story to its source in the book 'Art & Fear' by David Bayles and Ted Orland, finding it was not a scientific study but an anecdotal account. The experiment's methodology and results are described as lacking rigorous scientific validation.
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