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Yes, several years ago I acquired a set of encyclopedias from the year I was born! Yes, they're old-ish and outdated-ish but these vibrant things are a portal to my childhood curiosity.
Childhood me hopscotched through them repeatedly. I especially remember the maps with their plastic overlays and various gripping entries including cartooning and human reproduction, lol.
I also pondered the people/polymaths who contributed such wide-ranging information...how did one obtain a (dream) job researching random things? Is this why I changed my undergrad minors every year? Is this why I completed a Master's Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies? Hmm, coincidence?
Considering encyclopedias were once my first personal library and a legitimate authority for credible knowledge, I asked AI a somewhat personal question: are you founded on old encyclopedias?
The response? NO. "AI is not primarily based on old encyclopedias. While they form a tiny, curated fraction of the data used for training...encyclopedia content is minimal: while some digitized older encyclopedias might be included in the, say, (10^{12}) parameters of a massive training corpus...[more like] the relationship is reversing, with traditional publishers like Britannica transforming their curated, old-school knowledge into AI-powered tools...."
Well well well. This world-choice, eh? Minimal vs massive? Hmm. Is it just me, or do you also sense some "pissing-match" type tension here?
Dear friends, when AI becomes fully sentient, I suspect we may need to fight back using "the old ways" and thus my old-ass encyclopedias might just help us save the world. 🤔
It’s wild how much those books shaped our curiosity before we had a search bar for everything. I had a bunch of encyclopedias at home and they helped me write quite a few reports when I was in high school.
ReplyDeleteThe only encyclopedias in my childhood home had been purchased used, so the information was somewhat out of date. In the late 1980s we acquired a set a volume at a time via a local grocery store promotion, and got rid of them 30 years later.
ReplyDelete...when my sister and I were young, our parents bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica that they couldn't afford so that "we would have the best education!" Talk about high pressure salesmanship.
ReplyDeleteThere was a full set of World Book encyclopedias at school. In my era, they were an emerald green colour. I read every volume from cover to cover. That's how hungry for information and knowledge I was.
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