Wadler's Blog: There is No AI

Reposting Jaron Lanier's 2023 New Yorker essay, the piece argues that large language models like GPT-4 are not independent minds but statistical mashups of human-created content, comparing GPT-4 to an expanded Wikipedia and image generators to enhanced image search. Lanier promotes 'data dignity' (also called 'data as labor' or 'plurality research') as an alternative to the free-data-for-services model that enabled a few platforms to dominate through network effects while monetizing user attention through addictive algorithms. Under data dignity, creators would be compensated when their work is used or recombined by AI models, illustrated through a hypothetical scenario of tree-trimming robots creating new creative economic niches for displaced workers. The essay also argues AI companies have self-interested reasons to adopt this model since better, more diverse training data would let LLMs expand into new domains like virtual-reality world generation.

Source: https://wadler.blogspot.com/2026/08/there-is-no-ai.html. 8 Sync News only summarizes and links out; content copyright belongs to the authors and original sources.