The Cure Was the Disease
In 1847 Vienna, the doctors’ maternity ward killed far more mothers than the midwives’. Ignaz Semmelweis found the cause, and it was the one thing the profession could not afford to believe: their own hands.
epistemics
3essays tagged "epistemics"
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The Truth Was a Setting
xAI wants to build a truth-seeking AI. But a language model is a coherence engine, and "truth" is a word that hides which kind you mean. What would have to hold for the output to be true?
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Where the Bullet Holes Aren't
The military asked exactly the right question about where to armour their bombers, and still nearly reinforced the wrong parts of the plane. A question carries assumptions; so does the method you use to answer it.