An empty world is one in which everything from politics to technology to science to health lacks intrinsic existence. Emptiness has escaped from the monastery into the street. Risk is its characteristic form, and that's how I wanted to approach AI.
How the word moved
I wrote Empty World in April 2023, two months into the generative AI frenzy, when everyone and their mother was writing about AI. Back in the day it was the empty self that started the debates. Now even the contingencies are contingent, and today's extinction is tomorrow's clean energy.
In my words
"Emptiness has escaped from the monastery into the street."
from Empty World, 3 Apr 2023
"even the contingencies are contingent."
from Empty World, 3 Apr 2023
Related
- Inherited from Nagarjuna - He's the one who saw that emptiness is itself empty.
- Related Emptiness - That's the concept underneath.
- Related Street Metaphysics - Emptiness in the street is street metaphysics.
Still open
The essay ends at a heading, The science of an empty world, and doesn't write it. I still owe that section.