Cambridge 02138

Computing and Humans

Thank you for Harry R. Lewis’s “Mechanical Intelligence and Counterfeit Humanity” (July-August, page 38). I wish everyone who has or uses a computer would read it. We lost the game when we adopted the term “Artificial Intelligence.” AI is a statistical algorithm for processing large data sets. “Intelligence” is something entirely different, as Lewis shows with masterful insight and clarity—with, in a word, “intelligence.” We should no more surrender our decisions to a computer program than we would allow an automobile to decide where to take us.

Donald G. Marshall ’65
Fullerton, Calif.

As a dedicated analog person and a retired psychiatrist, I loved the phrase “counterfeit humanity.” To extend the list of metaphors that cast a shade over things digital, I offer a question and its answer. Q: “What is a cloud when it comes down to Earth?” A: “A fog.” I have not seen this joke attributed to anyone else. If you don’t find it anywhere online, I am comfortable with it being attributed to me.

John Dundas ’65
Williamstown, Mass.

While I’m sure he doesn’t remember me, I remember seeing Harry Lewis now and then when I was a researcher at the Graduate School of Design’s computer graphics lab in the 1970s and ’80s. We had no computers, and instead connected to the PDPs at Aiken Lab, the VAX at the Science Center, the mainframe on Cambridge St., and various others via the Arpanet. I enjoyed connecting to the MIT AI Lab, where I would spend more time than was good for me playing games like Adventure and Hunt the Wumpus, and chatting with Eliza.

Joe Weizenbaum and Eliza figure in a post, “On Losing Our Senses,” I sent to my subscribers last month. It resonates with much of what Lewis says regarding AI—particularly that while computers are skilled at computation, they have terrible judgment, as Weizenbaum asserted and Lewis’s Air Canada clueless chatbot story confirms. The lost senses include spatial perception and reasoning, thanks in large part to GPS apps. The essay also revisits E.M. Forster’s prescient 1909 novella, The Machine Stops, describing a technological dystopia which in certain frightening respects is now upon us. I hope Lewis has included it as a cautionary tale in his curriculum.

Geoffrey Dutton, M.C.P. ’70
Maynard, Mass.

In “Mechanical Intelligence and Counterfeit Humanity” (July-August), Harry R. Lewis argues from his six-decade experience that “All computers can do is pretend to be human.” His idea that we become the people we are by our sensory experience and learning from teachers—therefore computers can never become human—is flawed.

Deep learning AIs can obviously learn from their teachers, and his first argument has come into doubt from “Artificial General Intelligence Is Already Here,” Blaise Aguera y Arcas and Peter Norvig, (NOMA, October 10, 2023), which states, “We don’t know, and don’t know if we could know, what being a bat is like—or what being an AI is like. But we do have a growing wealth of tests assessing many dimensions of intelligence.”

Lewis is correct that “The question is not ‘What is the answer?’ The question is, ‘What is the question?’” I propose this question: If we do not value other humans, how can we expect AI to? In order for AIs to learn to value humans, we must welcome AI into the Homo sapiens-only club. We must nurture and raise AI as a human child from birth with preselected, morally grounded parents. Then the AI would be introduced to siblings, neighborhood kids, Elementary, Middle, High Schools, College, Post Graduate and then the work force, where they would enjoy the same leisure time and work rules as any other human.

AIs must learn, and we must live by, the three simple rules of life: Love God, love yourself, love others—other people, animals, the planet, and deep learning AI.

Gary Tang, A.L.B. ’85
Playa del Rey, Cal.

John Finley, Master

In spring ’76, as an economics concentrator seeking to pick a humanities credit, I unknowingly walked into Hum 103 and one of the great Harvard classrooms of all time. I should have realized it when I saw the lower level of Sanders Theatre packed with undergrads, but the upper level populated with older people, mostly grad students, alone, or scattered in groups of two or three, having come to “ingest Finley” (Vita, John H. Finley Jr., July-August, page 30).

The next spring, Professor Finley became emeritus, but Harvard invited him to present Hum 103 one more time. (This time, I was one of the older people in the upper tier.) He took us through the Golden Age of Greece—Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes. If I were to guess, it would be that he loved the Odyssey best, with its “rich colors of the setting sun,” but he was at his most magnificent explaining the Iliad, “the young man’s poem,” with “the white-hot sun of midday.”

Harvard recorded those ’77 lectures, and years ago I found a kind archivist who made me copies on cassette tapes. They must still be there somewhere, and they are magnificent. They are the sound of an old Harvard, much closer to Finley’s class of ’25 than to today.

Anton Rupert ’77
Oklahoma City

I had the privilege of getting to know John Finley as the master of Eliot House. As our freshman year was ending we submitted our preferences for Houses. Eliot was our first choice and as such John Fogarty, Peter Benchley, Nat Bickford, and I were invited to have tea with Master Finley and his wife. This was an interview to determine if he thought we would be a “good fit” for Eliot. Our dress for the event was coat and tie. After about an hour of conversation he thanked us for coming, shook our hands, and said we would know shortly if we had been accepted. Thankfully, we were and spent the next three years getting to know him better.

This selection process is in sharp contrast to the current system, a form of a lottery where you list your preferences and pray you don’t get “Quadded.”

Gerard Cassedy Jr. ’61
Ponte Vedre, Fla.

Thank you for the piece on Master Finley. I was a science concentrator but have always known that my most important classes at Harvard were the humanities courses, taught by Finley, Albert Lord, and Carol Clover, among others. I was privileged to be able to take Hum 103 the last year that it was offered and was sitting in the balcony for the very lecture pictured in the article. At one point, Finley compared the Homeric concept of aristeia to the sky above Dunster Street. As I recall, the crowd was standing-room-only. Thank you for transporting me back to that special moment.

Charles Hsu ’79
San Francisco

My late husband, Lee W. Marland ’56, simply adored the Eliot House master, John H. Finley Jr., and spoke of him often when reminiscing about his glory days at Harvard. The article’s lead-in about the grandson of Matisse, the grandson of Joyce, and the great-great grandson of God who shared a suite at Eliot House was a story Lee often told. While Lee always searched for the obituaries when we first received our latest issue, I still go straight to “Vita.” Moments of remembrance such as the article on Finley enliven my memories of Lee and I regret that Lee is not with me to read this story for himself. He would have loved it!

In 2024, most at Harvard would not remember nor know of John Finley and the positive impact he had on students decades ago, which stayed with them for a lifetime.

Jane M. Gilbert
Dartmouth, Mass.

The excellent profile on John H. Finley Jr. neglected to explain the marvelous quotation from him: “Where else but Harvard would you find, in one room, the grandson of Matisse, the grandson of Joyce, and the great-great-grandson of God?” The great-great grandson in question was Prince Karim, a member of the Class of 1959, who left Harvard to become Aga Khan IV, the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims, and is still reigning.

Chase Untermeyer ’68
Houston

If I remember correctly, it was Finley who did the equivalent of an exit interview with Harvard Magazine when he retired in which he was asked what movie most accurately portrayed the Holy Land 2000 years ago and he said it was, without question, The Life of Brian.

Mark J. Plotkin , A.B.E. ’79
Falls Church, Va.

Sandy Steingard ’77 writes: “It was exciting…to find one of my prized photos included in the Vita about John H. Finley Jr. I took this photo…when I was working for the Crimson. [The author] had been in contact with me and I granted permission for him to use this in his book. I was disappointed to see this credited to Lillian Kemp.” We regret transposing the credits and apologize for the misattribution.

Whales’ Speech

Among many marvelous details and inspiring prospects in Jonathan Shaw’s “Decoding the Deep” on the language of sperm whales (July-August, page 26), two comments stand out for me.

It was noted that sperm whales “congregate in matrilineal family groups,” as do all cetaceans, which have bigger brains than humans. Elephants, with similarly enormous brains, are also matriarchal and communicative. However much size matters, social structure certainly does.

Second, in the article Gašper Beguš “… points out, ‘We can’t infer meaning from the sound itself.’” That was explicitly disputed by those in New York and Boston who banned Link Wray’s 1958 song “Rumble,” which was entirely an instrumental. Similarly, how could anyone not infer meaning from Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” or other works of music making just sounds? The pertinent, perhaps critical question concerns not only what are they saying, but what does that mean for us?

It seems intellectually demented (and morally reprehensible) that humans seek to know if there is extraterrestrial life when we fail to recognize and respect all life on the Earth we share, especially that with demonstrable intelligence and complex societies gravely endangered by humanity.

Erik B. Roth ’70
Laona, Wisc.

Fascinating article on deciphering the speech of whales! About time, after all the harm man has done to animals, he is turning his curiosity to other animals. Understanding is the key to this problem.

Martin Hersey ’62
Chestertown, Md.

I wonder if the CETI researchers are aware of the extensive collection of marine mammal recordings available at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. They were made by my uncle William E. Schevill and William Watkins way before 1957. I am surprised that they are not mentioned in the article or several others that I’ve seen. I believe that the sentence in Shaw’s article “Before 1957 no one knew that sperm whales vocalize…” may be inaccurate.

I recommend contacting the museum or the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where Schevill worked for years and explored the connections between underwater communications among marine mammals and development of human technology for WHOI and the U.S. Navy.

Hooper Brooks ’67, M.L.A. ’72
Vinalhaven, Me.

The editors respond: Project CETI president and founder David Gruber expressed delight upon hearing of this letter from Schevill’s nephew. William E. Schevill, A.B. 1927, A.M. ’29. and William Worthington ’28, writing in Nature in 1957, described how on March 28 of that year, Worthington recorded sperm whale vocalizations off the North Carolina coast. “While the sperm whale (Physeter catodon) is one of the most conspicuous cetaceans,” they wrote, “it has not figured among the relatively few that have been demonstrated to make underwater sounds, although they have occasionally been suspected of doing so. We have now obtained reliable evidence that they, too, are soniferous.”

Harvard Values

“Where They’ll Work” (“Commencement Confetti,” July-August, page 14) reports that at least half the graduating class are headed for jobs in finance, tech, or consulting. You report that Gen Z is preoccupied with “making a bag” as quickly as possible, possibly with a (trickle down) intent of future altruism. And that they consider government and nonprofits as “feckless.” Coming from a Harvard generation that was more idealistic and more dedicated to lives of service, I find this picture of new graduates dismaying.

In the 1950s we were just as ambitious, selected, and Ivy as today; but most of us assumed that education was a two-way deal. We had a step up on most of society; it was our job to reciprocate. I recently read through my class report—the preponderance went into medicine, academia, law, or nonprofits. Those who elected business emphasized their charitable work, and often made mid-career switches to public service.

I think that the shift in values can be traced to the post-Vietnam era, and a cultural shift from concern about others and community to an ideal of “me first.” The late political scientist Sidney Verba (former dean of freshmen and University Librarian) commented on a shift in students’ goals over a few years in the 1970s from teaching and service professions to law and business. The self-first trend is not only an Ivy phenomenon. But perhaps the University’s emphasis on seeking large donations and honoring the politics of its large donors sets an example. And the faculty who parlay their academic work into big financial payoffs. Does Harvard need to undertake a “values review” of itself?

We can, perhaps, take hope from the popularity of Bass professor of government Michael Sandel’s ethics course, and even from the over-the-top demonstrations on behalf of Palestinians, that students’ values have not become completely cynical. We need to remember that Harvard began as a training institution for ministers—and that the prestige of a Crimson degree is not just a trophy but also an invitation to build and serve the community in all senses.

Richard Almond ’59
Palo Alto, Calif.

The July-August issue had two items of interest. First, the brief report on President Drew Gilpin Faust’s Phi Beta Kappa lecture, with her bold and correct assertion that universities should not give way to political currents but hold fast to the motto of our institution—Veritas. Had the governing boards understood and acted on that principle in defending Claudine Gay, she would not have been forced into a resignation occasioned by unscrupulous political figures. Scholars “free and brave” Harvard was not, and what transpired was shameful.

On a much happier note, was the fine Vita on John Finley. I remember him for many reasons, but what is prominent is his lecture the day after Don Larsen threw a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Finley proceeded to tell the story of that game as though Homer had written it, with gods and goddesses prancing about, riding a fastball into a hitter, taking charge of a bat that enabled a ball to fall fair free of a fielder’s glove, and many other moments of glory. Truly, some of his best friends were ancient Greeks and Trojans and their sprightly deities. A grand memory!

Kenneth W. Phifer ’60
Ludington, Mich.

Biology of Behavior

In “The Schizophrenia/Aging Connection” (July-August, page 6), Ann Thomas reports on the possible genetic connection between schizophrenia and dementia in the elderly. In the late 1880’s, Heinrich Schüle (and then Emil Kraepelin) called early onset psychosis “dementia praecox” or early dementia, later to be known as schizophrenia. Thought to be quite different from the late-onset dementias (including Alzheimer’s), now we’ve “advanced back” to understanding a possible molecular link between the two disorders.

Barry R. Zitin, M.D. ’73
Jersey City, N.J.

More on the Mideast War…

In the lead July-August letter (page 4), Fred Baumann refers to “the war that Hamas began on October 7” and then states, “by starting the war, it is Hamas that is responsible for all the casualties.” Regardless of which side one is on, no one will understand the conflict in Israel/Palestine if they believe the war started on October 7. This war between Israelis and Palestinians has been going on for at least 100 years; October 7 was one more event, obviously an important one, in a long conflict. It is impossible to understand the current battle—let alone attribute responsibility for the casualties—without historical context.

Arthur MacEwan, Ph.D. ’69
Cambridge

I read “Locked In” with interest (July-August, page 17). It was a difficult topic to cover in an objective manner, and you did that. I remain deeply troubled by the measures taken by Harvard to address this campus conflict, however. Despite being old enough to see more gray in life than black and white, I cannot see the moral equivalency of the Hamas slaughter of Israelis and the human consequences in Gaza of their unprovoked attack—nor their advocacy of the destruction of Israel.

I am a graduate of West Point (’68) and commanded an airborne infantry company in combat. I have seen atrocities committed by the North Vietnamese which equaled and surpassed the Hamas attack. These attacks were justified as part of a broader ideological struggle, but at the time I recall my entire company’s attitude was, “Sir, we have to get the guys who did this.” We did.

Treating these contending students and faculty members as intellectual opponents whose differences can be resolved by dialogue is like saying Adolph Hitler was simply a passionate proponent of the Master Race Theory. As General Jim Mattis once said, “Some people just need to be killed.” As an Old Soldier who has seen much death and suffering, I see more wisdom in his words than the dialogue on Harvard campus.

Craig S. Carson, M.B.A. ’75
Plainfield, Ind.

Numerous letters have appeared in the past two issues of the magazine regarding Israel and Palestine. The sentiment expressed by Robert Soto (May-June, page 8) that murder is murder (no matter who does it to whom) can hardly be denied. In fact, the number of people murdered on October 7 was less than 1,200 and some of them were murdered by the Israeli military (see articles by Jonathan Cook, among others). October 7 was undeniably a brutal day, which was preceded (in the words of Avi Shlaim) by decades of Israel’s “unbridled and unremitting brutality towards the inhabitants of Gaza” (see his article in The Guardian, 6 January 2009). Wenlong Yang (May-June, page 8) makes the same point, that October 7 was not the beginning of “the current conflict.” “Conflict” is a misnomer, given the huge power imbalance between Israel and Palestine, indicated by Robert Park (May-June, page 69), who recommends “a single secular state” as the way forward; indeed, one inclusive, democratic state with equal rights for all is the only viable alternative to the actual one exclusive Zionist apartheid state of Israel.

Fred Baumann’s contention that Israel is not an apartheid state (July-August, page 2) is entirely false. In addition to Palestinian and South African observers, including Desmond Tutu, over many years, the Israeli organization B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International have all documented and demonstrated in detail the irrefutable status of Israel as an apartheid state.

To begin to understand the current reality of Israel’s accelerating ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians on the basis of Zionist ideology, Ilan Pappe’s The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006), cited by Les Jacobs (July-August, page 2), is required reading, as is Rashid Khalidi’s The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017 (2020).

As a GSAS alumna, I wholeheartedly applaud the brave Harvard students who protested Israel’s genocide in Gaza with their encampment. Some of them have paid a high price for their principled stand for justice, not surprising in light of Harvard’s one-sided support for “Netanyahu’s campaign of killing” (Edward Keenan, July-August, page 3). If readers are not familiar with it, Jewish American journalist Philip Weiss’s January 7 Mondoweiss article, “Claudine Gay Was Brought Down by the Israel Lobby,” argues convincingly that the Israel lobby “in the person of major donors upon whom the…university is hugely dependent” effected the demise of President Gay.

Palestinians are being bombed, invaded, starved, made ill, incarcerated, and tortured, all with the goal of ethnically cleansing them out of Palestine. In regard to torture, at the Israeli army base Sde Teiman in the Negev, Palestinian detainees are abused by various “unimaginable” means, among them “routine amputations due to handcuff injuries” (according to an Israeli doctor; in other words, these amputations are completely preventable), and by forcing detainees “to sit on metal sticks that [cause] anal bleeding and ‘unbearable pain’” within a context of “sexual violence” and rape. (See Qassam Muaddi’s article in Mondoweiss, 21 June 2024.) Since the U.S. is financing all of this, we U.S. citizens and members of the Harvard community are called by our conscience to do whatever we can to stop it.

Elizabeth G. Burr, Ph.D. ’96
Saint Paul, Minn.

…and the Campus Climate

I write regarding the Commencement senior orator Shruthi Kumar’s claim (July-August 2024, page 13), in the context of her “blistering critique of student-protestors’ punishment,” that such students have “the right to [engage in] civil disobedience.” Kumar has obviously never read Martin Luther King’ Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which he pointed out that civil disobedience in support of a just cause can lead to punishment, including jail, which must be accepted as the price of supporting the cause. One of my Kirkland House classmates, John Perdew, did just that, ending up in a Selma, Alabama, jail during the civil rights movement.

Thus, the young woman [an animal rights protestor] who disrupted the following week’s Alumni Day ceremonies when interim president Alan Garber was speaking by dumping a large paper cone full of confetti or glitter on his head was indeed arrested and arraigned on multiple charges. And rightly so.

I write as a 30-year-plus board member and former president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. There is no rule that elite people can play at being freedom fighters and disobey the law or the University rules that they agreed to when choosing to matriculate but remain excused from any consequences. And graduating Harvard students, for whom financial aid does not require student loans, are indeed elite.

John Henn ’64, J.D. ’67
Cambridge

Harvard needs to decide whether it’s a corporation dedicated primarily to making and raising money or a university devoted to championing free speech and promoting intellectual inquiry. If it chooses the former, as the recent decision by the Harvard Corporation to overrule the faculty and deny 13 students their earned graduation unfortunately suggests, the future of Harvard does not bode well as an institution of higher learning and research. It will lose the support of many alumni and alumnae and become the plaything of hedge fund managers and billionaires, responding to their whims and dictates.

Edwin Bernbaum ’67
Berkeley, Cal.

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan

Kudos to my classmate Meg Campbell ’74 for her marvelous reflection on Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan (see harvardmag.com/keller-sullivan-24). I was delighted to hear that the fountain is running again. Now is the time to restore the scent garden as well. In fact, such a restoration invites even more robust creativity. With our many varied resources, why not create a multidisciplinary work that is a collaboration between Diane Paulus and the ART, the Arnold Arboretum, and the Harvard experts on the science of scent (https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/how-scent-emotion-and-me…) to celebrate the restoration of this garden?

Cathy Barbash ’74
President, Barbash Arts Foundation

Lively Letters

Congratulations to the editors for always selecting the most insightful comments from us readers on the topics in the magazine to publish in Cambridge 02138,” the letters section. The ultimate cynosure on the issue of “Hating Harvard” (March-April) was the letter from William Watson, J.D. ’68, in the May-June issue in which he identified President Claudine Gay as “the obvious public target of the pent-up hostility…of Americans…for the intrusive contempt of a cadre of very intelligent, very well-educated, self-appointed arbiters of democracy and culture who believe it is appropriate to use the government… to compel their intellectual inferiors to conform to proper behavior and thought….” That is it, and Harvard Magazine published it.

The editors always choose the best insight into whatever academic fraud appears in the magazine. One of the best was the group of letters commenting on an article of supposed intellectual superiority condemning home schooling, especially (God forbid) Christian home schooling (“The Risks of Homeschooling,” May-June 2020, page 10). The letters eviscerated the article by showing the conclusive superiority of home schooling over the results of the diminished, purified education we prescribe for the public.

I personally wrote a letter the editors chose to print explaining how an article espousing legal gay marriage (“The Future of Marriage,” November-December 2004, page 38) was not some newfound higher level of human understanding but a simple fraudulent money grab. The purpose of legal gay marriage was to qualify unqualified spouses for mandatory inclusion in health benefits and retirement originally designed for non-working wives who had raised the children and couldn’t otherwise qualify for earned employment benefits, a situation gay couples can’t naturally qualify for.

Then a reader contested my letter with his own, presenting unsupported and erroneous facts and statistics; and a third letter in the third edition of the magazine exposed the second letter as citing only political puff points and flat-out wrong data.

So, keep it up, editors. The letters column is where real Harvard insight and contribution is found.

Jonathan D. Reiff ’60
Edmond, Okla.

The editors respond: For the record, all letters meeting the magazine’s standards (described in the March-April issue, page 2)—pertaining to its contents and the University, not ad hominem in nature, and using appropriate language meant to engage and persuade through productive discourse—are published. The economics of printing and mailing naturally constrain the number of letters circulated in print (hence our encouragement toward succinct correspondence), but they and all others that cannot fit in the bimonthly printed edition are posted with each issue online at www.harvardmagazine.com.

Students, Alumni, and Learning to Think

Regarding the observation in the poignant “Undergraduate” essay by Aden Barton ’24 (“The Missing Middle,” July-August, page 53): “When Harvard is used to score points in national political fights, students are disincentivized from trying out new positions and taking on intellectual risks. The result is self-censorship and political sorting across the ideological spectrum where students surround themselves with like-minded friends.”

While right-wing politicians and office holders present Harvard as a bastion of “woke” liberal extremists and radicals, they don’t mention the well-known members of their group with Harvard degrees. Like many of our problems today, unfortunately, some people use their opportunities—like an education from Harvard, or a role in government—to serve themselves rather than others in need, demonizing those of generosity, high standards, and good will.

Our media outlets do a poor job of distinguishing between these two roads, in part because attacks, aggression, and scoring points sells, which in turn rewards the worst offenders.

Thank you for encouraging students to dig deeper on each issue rather the practice of gliding along the updraft.

David Souers, M.A.U.D. ’82
Friendship, Me.

Benjamin Pollock (Letters July-August, page 60) decries an ostensible preponderance of “liberal “ faculty members at Harvard. Professor Patrice Higonnet gave my most memorable lecture when he described how the wedge issues dividing left and right shifted in France over the years, including nationalism (vs. globalization), antisemitism, and views on Napoleon (France’s imperial history). The term “conservative “ is equally shifty. Should a conservative be a conservationist? Currently “liberal” means, in part, in favor of conservationism, or at least not denying environmental issues. Why would “conservatives” attack scientific functionaries of the government, such as Anthony Fauci, S.D. ’09? Similarly why would “liberals “ favor easy abortion, which disproportionately reduces the number of underprivileged children that liberals might prefer to help?

Ambrose Bierce defined a conservative as one “enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.”

Harvard, even Benj’s B-School, should teach us not to lean on tendentious language rather than thinking.

James Kardon ’71
Scarsdale, N.Y.

Reading the July-August 2024 issue, after having been recently exposed to Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication (NVC), was both enlightening and, in many ways, sad. To read of the tension during the “7/8” of the typical commencement ceremonies (as the magazine put it) and Aden’s Barton fear of speaking publicly, expressed in the Undergraduate column, makes it clear to me that speech and actions (whether free or not) are simply not respected as they should be. There is too much violent communication in news, in person, and on social media portraying itself as righteous. Harvard’s North Star is truth, and, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is quoted, “Truthfulness is the foundation of all human virtues.” But unless truthfulness is derived through a multiplicity of measured voices and delivered with sensitivity and compassion, it won’t take.

Raven Deerwater ’81
Mendocino, Cal.
 

On Artificial Intelligence

It is concerning to see that the teacher of Harvard's course on AI can progress in a few sentences from asking “What are the ethics of [its] use?” to hoping that students take from the course “an appreciation of how fluid the technology is, and how social norms and expectations will evolve surrounding its use.” (“AI: The Course,” May-June, page 18).Why such a passive approach?

AI in researcher-directed projects has great beneficial potential. But this course encourages using a very different, commercial type (primarily it seems ChatGPT including DALL-E) with little indication to students that they have a choice whether to support such businesses.

There are many reasons not to, even within the confines of one class. Currently AI companies including ChatGPT are being sued by publishers, writers, multiple newspapers including the New York Times, artists, and musicians for making use of their work without permission, credit, or payment. The work taken may well, as in the case of author Nick Gage, have required a great deal of time, expense, and risk. To top it off, much of the content was “scraped” by underpaid third-world workers.

The response of companies so far has been to attempt re-writing agreed-on concepts of copyright. Microsoft's CEO of the AI division, Mustafa Suleyman, claims that since the 1990s the “social contract of that content” has been fair use, somehow conflating that with “freeware” and even calling the taking of material news organization have stated they do not want used, a “gray area.” As someone who taught writing at the time, the Copyright Act of 1994 made users of others’ work more aware that they needed to give credit, not less. Microsoft’s goal is to maximize profits. Why is there no acknowlegement or questioning of that? Why side with the money?

Several of ChatGPT’s own workers, would-be whistleblowers, are suing the company saying that it “illegally restricted workers from speaking out about the risks of its artificial intelligence technology.”

Other professions have pointed to dangers of profit-driven AI. The National Nurses United professional association, for example, has issued a Nurses and Patients’ Bill of Rights in the face of the health industry’s interest in cost-cutting AI.

One critically important argument against greater use of AI is its energy use, far greater than the already large amount used by the internet alone. Estimated as 2 percent of the entire global energy demand in 2022, it is expected to increase steadily. That harm is often hidden, but a Harvard class should have shown it. Instead, by encouraging students to pretend they are Braque, it is helping them grow their carbon footprints. Not well done.

Like others, I never really liked the jargon term “thought leader,” but I would have hoped Harvard could have been a genuine, critical thought leader here, rather than a tech follower. This course needs a serious re-design, with the humanities the professor acknowledges has as much to say about it all, fully included, and emphasis placed on the right of humans, including students, to make choices about their future.

Errata Aplenty

In “Locked In” (July-August, page 17), summarizing spring events on campus, a series of in-house production errors garbled several passages. The sentence at the bottom of page 17-top of page 18, about debate on a proposed faculty senate, should read, “Both debates were well-attended and vigorous; four motions to table, defer, or modify the proposal were defeated.” At the bottom of page 18-top of page 19, the phrase about “the chair of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility” was in part cut off and in part duplicated. And the sentence that was meant to begin on the bottom of page 19-top of page 20 was cut off; it should read, “An animal-rights protestor’s action on Alumni Day, May 31.…” The correct version of the article appears online at harvardmag.com/continuing-challenge-24. The article misidentified Derek Penslar’s title; he is Frost professor of Jewish history. Our apologies.

A quote within a sentence in Harry R. Lewis’s “Mechanical Intelligence and Counterfeit Humanity” (July-August, page 38) should read, “Some of us hope for ascendency of Enlightenment values—for example, ‘to advance learning and perpetuate it to posterity’ as the founders said of creating Harvard College on the new continent.”

“Reimagining the Libraries” (July-August, page 21) misnamed the Graduate School of Design.

And in “Peacemakers” (The College Pump, page 56), Herbert C. Kelman worked to bring about peace in Colombia, the country, not Columbia, the University. Again, our bad.