Introducing Augmented
A newsletter that promotes conscientious use of AI to enhance human thinking
Welcome to the Substack previously known as Mostly Mathematical.
Augmented will examine the potential for artificial intelligence to make us smarter and more productive. Each issue will highlight different use cases of AI-driven technologies and explore both the threats and opportunities that these tools pose to our ways of thinking.
My name is Junaid Mubeen. In 2017 I set off on a journey to understand machine intelligence, and its implications for our own human intelligence. My recent book, Mathematical Intelligence: What we have that machines don’t, is an attempt - through the lens of mathematics - to identify ways of thinking that play to our human strengths and are least likely to be displaced by computers.
That journey is still in its infancy, and I suspect that many of you share my keen interest in the advances happening across the field of Artificial Intelligence. 2022 felt to me like a tipping point as generative AI went mainstream. The release of tools such as Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT brought with them the realisation that smart, creative machines are no longer future prospects but present day realities.
That we can outsource routine thinking skills to machines is an idea whose lineage can be traced back to primitive calculating tools like the abacus. In recent history even, we have been only too glad to outsource the task of mining through large datasets to so-called machine learning algorithms that excel in pattern recognition. As these technologies scale exponentially, we accept that there is no hope for humans to compete in the domain of computation. That much has been obvious for a while.
The promise - and peril - of generative AI is that it is encroaching on our non-routine thinking skills too. 2022 put to the sword the idea that creativity is the unique preserve of humans. The apparent ease with which these tools can produce compelling, emotionally resonant images, or the manner in which they can churn out text in different written styles, tones and genres, means the stakes are higher than we might have imagined. The question of how AI bolsters, rather than displaces, human capabilities has become more complicated, more urgent.
The pace at which AI is developing, and the myriad applications it is giving rise to, can feel overwhelming. As these tools proliferate and improve at a speed barely fathomable to humans, we’ll have to work much harder to use them in ways that centre our own intelligence and creativity in the human-machine dyad.
On one level, Augmented is a chronicle of my efforts to stay on top of developments in AI. On another, it is an exploration of how we can use AI responsibly to enhance our thinking and creativity. The name is hopeful; it recognises the opportunity for these tools to bolster and extend our cognition. That promise is undeniable, but so too are the threats that these innovations pose to our ways of working. Much-vaunted large language models, for instance, are still lacking in common sense and reasoning, generating text from subtle, sometimes spurious patterns in data. AI that continues to produce problematic outputs with unabashed confidence, and is guided by the hand of a minority of stakeholders in Big Tech, must never be beyond scrutiny. Nor must the hype that accompanies AI. The biggest threat of AI is that we exaggerate its capabilities to the extent of undermining our own human intelligence.
The line between augmentation and automation - between extending human intelligence and displacing altogether - is finer than ever. AI raises not only practical questions about the skills humans will need in the period ahead, but ethical ones about how these technologies ‘learn’ from human expertise in the first place (without acknowledgement), only to later supplant it.
Too much commentary on AI is done passively from the sidelines. My pledge is to base Augmented on hands-on experience. As a mathematician, writer, educator and parent (among other things), I have a vested interest in understanding the true potential of these technologies. My writing will be a warts-and-all account of my own explorations with these tools, and my attempts (successful and otherwise) to incorporate them into my work.
AI is here; that much is inevitable. How we navigate the era of smart machines, however, is in our own hands. We can be passive consumers, subjects of AI, or critical examiners. I choose the latter and hope you will too.
Looking forward to reading your thoughts and ideas!