Ramble: New Developments, Sex&Pleasure, Man-Machine, Relations between the two

1. Sex & Pleasure

I’ve just completed a new article for 3 Quarks Daily: Redeeming Pleasure: Women Lead A Second Sexual Revolution. Though I’ve been thinking about these things for years, decades even, this is still a new topic for me; the first time I’ve actually written something. So I’ve got lots of things floating around.

For one thing, there are topics I should have covered in that essay but didn’t. Not enough space.

• Pornography: I’m thinking particular of the case of Lily Phillips and its implications.
• Behavioral Mode & Sexuality: This is a tricky one, but I’m thinking of the masks or faces question in traditional acting, which has to do with authenticity. This is related to my observation that, when in photo mode, I’m distanced from the subjects I’m photographing.
• Polyamory & relationships: Another whole series of issues, the big one being: Is this new? This is related to what DH Lawrence referred to as “star equilibrium” between man and woman in Women in Love.

That’s a lot to skip. I think I’m looking at a possible book, but I don’t want to write it. I want to hand it off and see someone else write it.

2. Man-Machine relations

I prefaced my recent post, ChatGPT evaluates my work over the last two months + a note on search [what AIs can't do], with some observations about the relationship between humans and machines. I’m interested in whether or not there is anything that humans can do but that is, perhaps in principle, beyond machines. I asserted:

Imagine that we can project the sum total of my knowledge onto an LLM. Just what that means – “the sum total of my knowledge” – is a tricky and undefined matter; perhaps ultimately undefinable. Imagine it anyhow. I’m asserting that I can move around in my knowledge in a much more flexible, versatile, and robust way than an (unaided) LLM could do with its projection (of me) – however you imagine accomplishing that. But I can present a chatbot with a prompt that draws on that projection in a novel way to which it responds by recruiting facts, knowledge, and ideas that are (well) beyond that projection. That’s its value to me.

That needs to be clarified and explored. I’m thinking of three different cases:

• The interpretation and analysis of Jaws,
• Tracking the Xanadu meme over the web, and
• The implications of Miriam Yevick’s 1975 paper on holographic logic.

The first two cases involve situations where I performed some intellectual tasks and then had ChatGPT perform that same task. It seems to me that those tasks rested on my years of open-ended intellectual experience and exploration. It’s not at all clear to me that we’ll ever be able to create an AI that can have similar experience. The issue involves 1) the structure of memory in the face of the structure of the world and 2) autonomous agency. Come to think of it, the third involves that as well, though in a different way.

3. The relationship between 1 & 2 in the context of my book project.

The book has a new working title, suggested by my friend David Porush: Play: How to Stay Human in the AI Revolution. I thinking about the book I hadn’t thought about including sexuality in the book at all. But, in view of my thinking about a second sexual revolution, it’s obvious I need to include that in the book as it bears on the proper relationship between humans and machines, but in a different way. It’s not about intelligence, but affect, connection, and community. The question is how to do it.

The rubric certainly exists: Homo Ludens. It’s a matter of fitting it in. How much material do I use, just what material, and where does it go? That’s going to take some serious thinking.