I think this gets almost all the way there but not quite — there is one more vital point:
How we act depends on our environment and incentives.
It is possible to build environments and incentives that make us better versions of ourselves. Just like GPT-3, we can all be primed (and we all are primed all the time, by every system we use).
The way we got from small tribes to huge civilizations is by figuring out how to create those systems and environments.
So it's not about "reaching for the stars" or complaining about how humanity is too flawed. It's about carefully building the systems that take us to those stars!
How we act depends on our environment and incentives.
It is possible to build environments and incentives that make us better versions of ourselves. Just like GPT-3, we can all be primed (and we all are primed all the time, by every system we use).
The way we got from small tribes to huge civilizations is by figuring out how to create those systems and environments.
Yes, the algorithm is not the problem alone, but a good algorithm can help fix the problems — since it creates the "loss function" (the incentives) for the humans using the platform (I go into that in more detail here https://twitter.com/metaviv/status/1529879799862378497 and here https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/bridging-based-rank... for those who are curious).
So it's not about "reaching for the stars" or complaining about how humanity is too flawed. It's about carefully building the systems that take us to those stars!