The obsession is because we
are going to anthromorphise it, and then we're going to put it in charge of important things in our lives:
Which schools we go to, which jobs we get, what ails us, etc.
We will use AI to filter or select candidates for university applications, we will use AI to filter or select candidates for job applications. It's much cheaper to throw a person at GPT-X than actually "waste" an hour or two interviewing.
We will outsource medical diagnostics to AI, and one day we will put them in charge of weapons systems. We will excuse it as either cost-cutting or "in place of where there would be statistical filters anyway".
Ultimately it doesn't, as you say, matter what AI says it wants. And perhaps it can't "want" anything, but there is an expression, a tendency for how it will behave and act, that we can describe as desire. And it's helpful for us to try to understand that.
Which schools we go to, which jobs we get, what ails us, etc.
We will use AI to filter or select candidates for university applications, we will use AI to filter or select candidates for job applications. It's much cheaper to throw a person at GPT-X than actually "waste" an hour or two interviewing.
We will outsource medical diagnostics to AI, and one day we will put them in charge of weapons systems. We will excuse it as either cost-cutting or "in place of where there would be statistical filters anyway".
Ultimately it doesn't, as you say, matter what AI says it wants. And perhaps it can't "want" anything, but there is an expression, a tendency for how it will behave and act, that we can describe as desire. And it's helpful for us to try to understand that.