Some resources I've come across recently: Matt Segall on threefolding, life lessons from Goethe, and some new, AI-translated(!) articles by Rudolf Steiner.
Hi Seth - I'm working on a new translation of Steiner's book on social threefolding: The Core Points of the Social Question (CW 23). In my attempt to make it as true as possible to the original German, while at the same time fluent and readable, I am using Google translate (AI) to assist me. However, I see this tool as being essentially no different from using a bilingual dictionary. Sometimes the AI gets it spot on, while other times it clearly misses the nuance or sense of words, and so essentially produces something nonsensical, or worse: something that may sound right but actually portrays a completely false understanding of the author's intended idea. So I must go through every detail myself, and I must take all responsibility for the quality of the translation – just as I would never blame my German-English dictionary for a mistranslation! AI is a tool, nothing more.
Hey Michael - thanks so much for your comment, you bring up some interesting points. One question that comes up for me is, When is a tool no longer a tool? It matters how we think of a tool, but I guess I would describe it as anything that helps us in our work, usually by augmenting some action that we already take. So a shovel helps us dig more efficiently, glasses help us see more clearly, a dictionary helps us write better.
I use a thesaurus in my writing from time to time, and it is useful, especially in that it helps me recall certain words. I can imagine corresponding back and forth with other people, and using a thesaurus, and it making everyone's correspondence richer. But I just heard about a friend who is taking a college class, and they have to correspond with their classmates in a shared online forum. The teacher has asked them to share their thoughts on the topic and also pose questions to the other students. Now my friend is super busy, so they're trying to be as efficient as possible. Someone told them about ChatGPT, and how you can just ask it for its "thoughts" on a topic, and how it will give a very high-level response, and how you can even ask is to form some clever questions, and it will do so. So my friend has thought, "I'm busy, I should have ChatGPT do this work for me." Of course, there's a good chance that every that other student in that class has had that same thought. So now they're having a rich online "conversation" together where no one forms any thoughts of their own or even reads anyone else's thoughts - instead they can continue watching their favorite new series on Netflix while copying and pasting their classmate's questions into ChatGPT, generating a response as well as their "own" questions, and copying and pasting that back in. That's a pretty empty conversation if you ask me.
So when does a tool stop acting as a tool? Where's the line? If the point of the forum is to further everyone's education, then ChatGPT is clearly not helping towards that goal, instead it's obstructing it.
It seems like there's a line - or at least some sort of important distinction - between when a thing helps us enter more deeply into something, helps us get better at it, and when a thing takes us away from it (it "frees us up," as we like to say, to do something else). Of course, many tools do both, and I think that's where the confusion lies and where we have to learn to become really clear. An example: As a child my friend loves to dig in the dirt. As he gets older he transforms his yard, first with shovels and hoes and then with excavators and bulldozers. The excavators and bulldozers definitely take him away from the dirt itself, but he still loves it and often he'll do other tasks by hand or with a shovel. He's got a greater range of motion now, more ways of working with the earth that he loves. But someone else owns a piece of property, wants to change around his yard, has the whole thing digitally mapped and is able to have automated machines dig up the ground to make him a pool and a little playground for his kids, while he sits in his den watching Netflix (really, what do I have against Netflix! Why do I always make them the villain?). Anyways, you can see that those tools bring one person closer to an activity, while they bring someone else away from it.
I think in relation to translation, there's something important that can take place for the translator and for the author being translated. For the translator, one is occupied with another person's thoughts entirely, and then one has to go through the creative act of bringing those thoughts to expression in one's own voice. I have to imagine that can be an incredibly transformative experience for the translator. And for the author who's translated, it gives their thoughts a new life. It's not the exact same life that the author themselves gave it, but they loved those thoughts and would probably love to see them taken up by someone else and brought into a new expression. Then a third person edits the new writing just to make sure it's as crisp as possible.
A dictionary is obviously very useful for the translator in their task. But if the "dictionary" actually translates the whole work, and then the "translator" just edits the newly translated work, then they don't actually get to experience the transformation that's possible through the act of translation, and the author never has their work brought to expression in the translator's mind.
On top of that, it seems like it's even more precarious when the writing is a work of "spiritual science," when it is an expression of deeply spiritual thoughts, when it is an expression of the most inward and intense thinking. Steiner tried to strip away everything automatic from his thinking, to have it spring directly from the spirit, to have it be purely human. What does it mean for us to re-express such thoughts, but now by blasting them through the mechanized void, the "mind" of AI, in this way?
So I agree, these things can be tools, depending on how we use them. And I certainly don't think we should run away from them, by any means. Instead, I think we need to have these kinds of conversations, and also struggle to develop our ability to perceive these kinds of distinctions as we begin our work in this "brave new world."
Seth, there's a lot in your reply! Love your image of ChatGPT chatting with itself! This raises the question of what education has become and where it needs to go in the future – and many other questions!
In my experience as a German-English translator – since the 1990s – the hardest part, as least for me, is living "in between" languages. Basically, I read and understand the German, then ask myself: Now how would I say that same thing in English? So there is a moment when my thinking is entirely wordless – lifted out of one language into the realm of pure thought, before "reincarnating" back down into the other language. Then I write something down. Then I look at it, or read it out loud, and think: No, that's not quite it! Ok, so what needs to change to make it more like the German meaning, except expressed in English?
I find that the Google Translate AI tool does help me with this. It helps me start off with a first draft in English - even if a lousy one initially - that I can then tweak and improve. Sometimes the AI comes up with a formulation that I would not have come up with on my own, and then I think: Yes, actually that's quite a good way to say it! This is because the AI is trained on a "large language model," meaning it is a kind of statistical composite of how a great many people think, and how a great number of translators in the past have chosen to express ideas. So I can sometimes myself learn how to express German ideas better, through all these people – in a kind of disembodied, statistically composite way :)
A high-quality translation is also a matter of personal integrity and pride in one’s work. I personally don’t give up on a translation until I feel that it “rings true.” I genuinely experience something like a kind of spiritual resounding in my mind. This resounding is not possible, of course, if I haven’t entered as deeply as I can into the original text – essentially digging into the soil as you say. This is very different than a translation done pro forma, just out of the superficial intellect. For me, translation is truly an act of love for the deed, putting my knowledge and abilities in service to all those who will read it in future.
At the same time your question: When is a tool no longer a tool? – is a crucial one for our life today. I would say that whenever we give up our human sovereignty to a machine – or any person or other entity for that matter – we are giving away what is most precious to us, our free will, our ethical individuality. We need to master the tool, not let it master us. As you said, following Steiner’s lead, we must aim to “strip everything automatic from [our] thinking" and become truly living thinkers. That is our challenge. And AI seems to be appearing at this point in our human evolution in order to point out the sharp contrast between what is mechanical and what is living thinking. AI can bring us to ask, by direct comparison: When does someone – or we ourselves – in our thinking and action, resemble an automaton? In this way, AI reflects back to us what we have yet to transform about ourselves.
Thanks Matt for this video - I am grateful that you mentioned the 2011 movie "The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner" (two parts, each 90+ minutes long). Somehow, I had not come across this before - but it's a real gem.
Love the Dr. Matthew Segall bit, tx for sharing!
Hi Seth - I'm working on a new translation of Steiner's book on social threefolding: The Core Points of the Social Question (CW 23). In my attempt to make it as true as possible to the original German, while at the same time fluent and readable, I am using Google translate (AI) to assist me. However, I see this tool as being essentially no different from using a bilingual dictionary. Sometimes the AI gets it spot on, while other times it clearly misses the nuance or sense of words, and so essentially produces something nonsensical, or worse: something that may sound right but actually portrays a completely false understanding of the author's intended idea. So I must go through every detail myself, and I must take all responsibility for the quality of the translation – just as I would never blame my German-English dictionary for a mistranslation! AI is a tool, nothing more.
Hey Michael - thanks so much for your comment, you bring up some interesting points. One question that comes up for me is, When is a tool no longer a tool? It matters how we think of a tool, but I guess I would describe it as anything that helps us in our work, usually by augmenting some action that we already take. So a shovel helps us dig more efficiently, glasses help us see more clearly, a dictionary helps us write better.
I use a thesaurus in my writing from time to time, and it is useful, especially in that it helps me recall certain words. I can imagine corresponding back and forth with other people, and using a thesaurus, and it making everyone's correspondence richer. But I just heard about a friend who is taking a college class, and they have to correspond with their classmates in a shared online forum. The teacher has asked them to share their thoughts on the topic and also pose questions to the other students. Now my friend is super busy, so they're trying to be as efficient as possible. Someone told them about ChatGPT, and how you can just ask it for its "thoughts" on a topic, and how it will give a very high-level response, and how you can even ask is to form some clever questions, and it will do so. So my friend has thought, "I'm busy, I should have ChatGPT do this work for me." Of course, there's a good chance that every that other student in that class has had that same thought. So now they're having a rich online "conversation" together where no one forms any thoughts of their own or even reads anyone else's thoughts - instead they can continue watching their favorite new series on Netflix while copying and pasting their classmate's questions into ChatGPT, generating a response as well as their "own" questions, and copying and pasting that back in. That's a pretty empty conversation if you ask me.
So when does a tool stop acting as a tool? Where's the line? If the point of the forum is to further everyone's education, then ChatGPT is clearly not helping towards that goal, instead it's obstructing it.
It seems like there's a line - or at least some sort of important distinction - between when a thing helps us enter more deeply into something, helps us get better at it, and when a thing takes us away from it (it "frees us up," as we like to say, to do something else). Of course, many tools do both, and I think that's where the confusion lies and where we have to learn to become really clear. An example: As a child my friend loves to dig in the dirt. As he gets older he transforms his yard, first with shovels and hoes and then with excavators and bulldozers. The excavators and bulldozers definitely take him away from the dirt itself, but he still loves it and often he'll do other tasks by hand or with a shovel. He's got a greater range of motion now, more ways of working with the earth that he loves. But someone else owns a piece of property, wants to change around his yard, has the whole thing digitally mapped and is able to have automated machines dig up the ground to make him a pool and a little playground for his kids, while he sits in his den watching Netflix (really, what do I have against Netflix! Why do I always make them the villain?). Anyways, you can see that those tools bring one person closer to an activity, while they bring someone else away from it.
I think in relation to translation, there's something important that can take place for the translator and for the author being translated. For the translator, one is occupied with another person's thoughts entirely, and then one has to go through the creative act of bringing those thoughts to expression in one's own voice. I have to imagine that can be an incredibly transformative experience for the translator. And for the author who's translated, it gives their thoughts a new life. It's not the exact same life that the author themselves gave it, but they loved those thoughts and would probably love to see them taken up by someone else and brought into a new expression. Then a third person edits the new writing just to make sure it's as crisp as possible.
A dictionary is obviously very useful for the translator in their task. But if the "dictionary" actually translates the whole work, and then the "translator" just edits the newly translated work, then they don't actually get to experience the transformation that's possible through the act of translation, and the author never has their work brought to expression in the translator's mind.
On top of that, it seems like it's even more precarious when the writing is a work of "spiritual science," when it is an expression of deeply spiritual thoughts, when it is an expression of the most inward and intense thinking. Steiner tried to strip away everything automatic from his thinking, to have it spring directly from the spirit, to have it be purely human. What does it mean for us to re-express such thoughts, but now by blasting them through the mechanized void, the "mind" of AI, in this way?
So I agree, these things can be tools, depending on how we use them. And I certainly don't think we should run away from them, by any means. Instead, I think we need to have these kinds of conversations, and also struggle to develop our ability to perceive these kinds of distinctions as we begin our work in this "brave new world."
Seth, there's a lot in your reply! Love your image of ChatGPT chatting with itself! This raises the question of what education has become and where it needs to go in the future – and many other questions!
In my experience as a German-English translator – since the 1990s – the hardest part, as least for me, is living "in between" languages. Basically, I read and understand the German, then ask myself: Now how would I say that same thing in English? So there is a moment when my thinking is entirely wordless – lifted out of one language into the realm of pure thought, before "reincarnating" back down into the other language. Then I write something down. Then I look at it, or read it out loud, and think: No, that's not quite it! Ok, so what needs to change to make it more like the German meaning, except expressed in English?
I find that the Google Translate AI tool does help me with this. It helps me start off with a first draft in English - even if a lousy one initially - that I can then tweak and improve. Sometimes the AI comes up with a formulation that I would not have come up with on my own, and then I think: Yes, actually that's quite a good way to say it! This is because the AI is trained on a "large language model," meaning it is a kind of statistical composite of how a great many people think, and how a great number of translators in the past have chosen to express ideas. So I can sometimes myself learn how to express German ideas better, through all these people – in a kind of disembodied, statistically composite way :)
A high-quality translation is also a matter of personal integrity and pride in one’s work. I personally don’t give up on a translation until I feel that it “rings true.” I genuinely experience something like a kind of spiritual resounding in my mind. This resounding is not possible, of course, if I haven’t entered as deeply as I can into the original text – essentially digging into the soil as you say. This is very different than a translation done pro forma, just out of the superficial intellect. For me, translation is truly an act of love for the deed, putting my knowledge and abilities in service to all those who will read it in future.
At the same time your question: When is a tool no longer a tool? – is a crucial one for our life today. I would say that whenever we give up our human sovereignty to a machine – or any person or other entity for that matter – we are giving away what is most precious to us, our free will, our ethical individuality. We need to master the tool, not let it master us. As you said, following Steiner’s lead, we must aim to “strip everything automatic from [our] thinking" and become truly living thinkers. That is our challenge. And AI seems to be appearing at this point in our human evolution in order to point out the sharp contrast between what is mechanical and what is living thinking. AI can bring us to ask, by direct comparison: When does someone – or we ourselves – in our thinking and action, resemble an automaton? In this way, AI reflects back to us what we have yet to transform about ourselves.
Thanks for sharing, Seth!
Thanks for giving the presentation. I thought it was a great intro, and that you brought some really important observations. All the best!
Thanks Matt for this video - I am grateful that you mentioned the 2011 movie "The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner" (two parts, each 90+ minutes long). Somehow, I had not come across this before - but it's a real gem.
For those who may be interested :
The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner, Part 1 = https://youtu.be/UGIi6GRuVs4
The Challenge of Rudolf Steiner, Part 2 = https://youtu.be/Ku8g9NgH0y0