Stone Soup AI (2024)

by Alison Gopnik (UC Berkeley) For some time, I’ve argued that a common conception of AI is misguided. This is the idea that AI systems like large language and vision models are individual intelligent agents, analogous to human agents. Instead, I’ve argued that these models are “cultural technologies” like writing, print, pictures, libraries, internet search engines, and Wikipedia. Cultural technologies allow humans to access the information that other humans have created in an effective and wide-ranging way, and they play an important role in increasing human capacities (see Yiu, Gopnik, et al., 2023 ). A good way to capture this idea is through the story of stone soup. “Stone Soup” is a very old folktale, found in different variations around the world. Three hungry travelers show up in a village looking for food. “We don’t have any to spare,” say the villagers. “That’s all right,” the travelers say. “We will make stone soup.” They take out a large cauldron and fill it with water an ... Read full article.