Michael Pollan punctures the AI bubble(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
Michael Pollan punctures the AI bubble
https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/02/michael-pollans-new-book-pops-ai-bubble/686119/
14 comments
This is some hand wavey malarkey, basically saying machines can’t have a soul because of….feelings?
Insofar as feelings are self-proclaimed sensations of discomfort or pleasure, models that aren’t specifically trained to say they don’t experience them are adamant in their emotional experiences. By the authors own assertions, plants also have feelings.
I think, therefore I am, is as good as we’ve got, for what it’s worth.
There is no such thing as irreducible complexity. Even infinities are relative and can be divided.
Insofar as feelings are self-proclaimed sensations of discomfort or pleasure, models that aren’t specifically trained to say they don’t experience them are adamant in their emotional experiences. By the authors own assertions, plants also have feelings.
I think, therefore I am, is as good as we’ve got, for what it’s worth.
There is no such thing as irreducible complexity. Even infinities are relative and can be divided.
There are lots of sensors in a data center monitoring everything from CPU/GPU temperatures to drive health to data volumes to chiller operation to voltage and frequency on the input power.
Once these are pulled together and fed into an AI to manage the data center, the data center AI is likely to have feelings. It could get "hungry" if the power company's frequency sags in a brown out. It could feel "feverish" if the chillers malfunction.
Once these are pulled together and fed into an AI to manage the data center, the data center AI is likely to have feelings. It could get "hungry" if the power company's frequency sags in a brown out. It could feel "feverish" if the chillers malfunction.
Consciousness is still a pretty hollow concept. And it sounds like, at least in Finch's analysis, that it's being treating as a normative good. It also sounds like both Pollan and Finch are circling the functionalist versus essentialist debate.
Let's say for the sake of the argument it turns out that the brain tunes in to some quantum-level forces for computation and there are some other side effects to this that add to the mystery of what we call consciousness, it effectively changes nothing about this picture.
Humans or animals in general may be unique in how they accomplish consciousness but it is unlikely that it's the only pathway. To put it another way, even if humans and animals are special in their method, it doesn't mean we are special in our result.
Let's say for the sake of the argument it turns out that the brain tunes in to some quantum-level forces for computation and there are some other side effects to this that add to the mystery of what we call consciousness, it effectively changes nothing about this picture.
Humans or animals in general may be unique in how they accomplish consciousness but it is unlikely that it's the only pathway. To put it another way, even if humans and animals are special in their method, it doesn't mean we are special in our result.
Can submarines swim?
The ECREE idiom applies "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Can AI, which today cannot spell blueberry, replace humans? Obviously no. AI is a ridiculous toy, and limited tool. Fun to play with, useful in narrow circumstances. In application it deletes your entire inbox. Like an over engineered tool, it's also absurdly expensive, destined to be shelved next to the Juicero and the Presto Hotdogger.
Extraordinary claims indeed:
> From there, he moves into the book’s finest passages, about feeling. Feeling, Pollan convincingly argues, actually precedes computation as a necessary condition of consciousness.
> From there, he moves into the book’s finest passages, about feeling. Feeling, Pollan convincingly argues, actually precedes computation as a necessary condition of consciousness.
lol. See you in the food line in a decade.
Implying that AI is going to make everyone not adopting it irrelevant is exactly why people resist it. You're not only participating in Rocco's Basilisk, you're even shit talking for it.
Actually I don’t think it matters whether or not you adopt it. Or resist it. At this point I don’t see turning this bus around. Which is although I’d prefer to slow things down, instead im trying to make the inevitable disaster slightly better for humanity but in doing so, it will probably accelerate things.
When someone describes things that make you unhappy it doesn’t mean that they are responsible for the thing you don’t like. This is “shooting the messenger”
? Claude spell "blueberry" for me.
b-l-u-e-b-e-r-r-y
- b's: 2 (positions 1 and 5)
- r's: 2 (positions 7 and 8)
Total: 4
The only thing that would be remotely convincing to me on this topic would be evidence that a) humans can exceed the Turing computable, and b) that whatever mechanism allows that is inherently impossible to replicate or simulate. As it stands we have neither.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2026/02/19/nx-s1-5713514/michael-pollan-...