LLMs will Compound the Interplay of the Three Complex Systems: The Market System, Bureaucracy, and Electoral Democracy. (Quote of the Week)

  "Quote of the Week" is leisure reading in the assignment reminder email to my students.

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“We eke out freedom by setting one against another, deploying bureaucracy to limit market excesses, democracy to hold bureaucrats accountable, and markets and bureaucracies to limit democracy’s monstrous tendencies. How will the newest shoggoth change the balance, and which politics might best direct it to the good? We need to start finding out. “

Artificial intelligence is a familiar-looking monster, say Henry Farrell and Cosma Shalizi

June 21st, 2023. The Economist

https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2023/06/21/artificial-intelligence-is-a-familiar-looking-monster-say-henry-farrell-and-cosma-shalizi

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Many computer scientists in Silicon Valley perceive Large Language Models (LLMs) as such an enigma that they liken them to the shoggoth, a fictional eerie octopus-like monster [1][2]. This comparison is shared by the authors of the featured article, Farrell and Shalizi, a professor of international affairs and democracy and a professor of statistics and machine learning, respectively. Yet, they posit that LLMs are not the first 'shoggoth' modern societies have faced: humans have been co-existing with similar incomprehensible entities for centuries: the market system, bureaucracy, and electoral democracy.

The market system, as Friedrich Hayek [3] explains, is too complex for any individual intellect or governmental body to predict its outcomes accurately. In the same vein, James Scott [4] argues that while bureaucracy is a massive information processor, making vast amounts of data visible to politicians and citizens, the mechanisms of its complex, multi-layered system remain elusive to any observer. Likewise, electoral democracy generates policies that no individual can entirely foresee. A myriad of representations and abstractions ensures that no single individual's plan fully materializes. Hence, these commonplace institutions for modern societies, the market system, bureaucracy, and electoral democracy, resemble 'shoggoths' in their complexity and their defying of any single person's comprehension.

Significantly, the present-day world is shaped by the interplay of these three gigantic and intricate systems. The introduction of LLMs will compound the current complexity of the world. The ensuing interactions promise to be more elaborate, widespread, and unpredictable than ever before. What is required from humans is not the unfeasible pursuit of knowledge to predict and control these monsters, but rather a depth of wisdom to navigate their complexities.

[Written with ChatGPT]

[1] The Wisdom of Humanities in the Age of Technology (Quote of the Week) http://yosukeyanase.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-wisdom-of-humanities-in-age-of.html

[2] Google image search, "Shoggoth": https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1PWSB_jaJP967JP968&q=shoggoth&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjujq6CgNj_AhVOxWEKHUo3AakQ0pQJegQICBAB&biw=2327&bih=1179&dpr=1.1

[3] Wikipedia, "Friedrich Hayek": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek

[4] Wikipedia, "James Scott": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott