By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/10/2026In "theory-free AI," a programmer does not create a software model of reality and then ask a machine-learning system to use statistical insights from its training data to guess at how to operate over that model. 1191
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/10/2026Rather, the programmer shovels *vastly more training data* into the AI's inbox and uses *titanic* amounts of computing power to analyze that data and find statistical relationships *without trying to explain them*. 1324
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/10/2026In other words, the current, "theory-free AI" finds all the instances in which A seems to cause B, but has no internal representation of *why* A causes B. This is true even when we know why A causes B! 1305
