Most of the books are the outcomes of the Renaissance. The relationship between “science” and spirituality was much closer then than now.

Further, most books published in Europe between 1300-1700 were written in Neo-Latin. Most of these books, therefore, have not been digitized and translated.

Now, to me, it seems like a real shame if this humanist core of European thought is deemed too dangerous for consumption. But it wouldn’t be the first time. The library behind these works, the Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica, specializes in books banned by various church authorities.

I personally believe that these materials should definitely be part of large model training. The renaissance, esoteric though it may be, deserves to be part of the diversity of thought used to train LLMs.

We can easily imagine an AI apocalypse - maybe these books might even help us imagine an AI renaissance…

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zozbot234 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I personally believe that these materials should definitely be part of large model training.

Already done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37752272 It turns out that the real safety risk with AI is not Mecha-Hitler, it's just that it might end up reading the wrong sorts of books and accidentally conjure a horde of demons.

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dr_dshiv 5 days ago | parent [-]

> accidentally conjure a horde of demons.

If we have a certain perspective on demons as self-sustaining information processing loops—we’ll, yeah, demons abound.

And, yes, this hn post from BenBreen — is amazing. We’ve been in touch!

And if Ben is reading, we’ve made progress on our version controlled community—LLM book translation prototype. Of course, it’s much to early to share on hn. Or whatever, it’s great, take a peek: https://www.philosopherslibrary.com/

Upload books, get translations. We have a separate system where neolatin scholars can evaluate randomly selected paragraphs — so we can measure and report on the base rate of different qualities for each book as a whole.

I don’t know if it is technically important for advancing AI, but it might be.

80% of the Neo-Latin books in the library have not been translated. Most NeoLatin hasn’t been translated. And it is even worse with Sanskrit. So much material has not been digitized or translated.

Is it meaningful to try to get this humanist core into our language models? Maybe including only modern writing is a good bias, but I doubt it.

It will take at least 2 years to get all this stuff scanned, digitized, translated and published.

So it’s kind of urgent, given all the AI training taking place over the next two years.

I’m writing this in a rush, but I’m at the Houghton Library at Harvard and they just brought up 5 books from Marsilio Ficino, published 1497 and 1516.

(If you or anyone is into this kind of thing, my email is in my profile — it’s my favorite hobby)

	▲	carlosjobim 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> If we have a certain perspective on demons as self-sustaining information processing loops—we’ll, yeah, demons abound. Such as paranoid schizophrenia, drug addiction, self harm, harming others, etc.

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pelasaco 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> books banned by various church authorities

A book that "explains why" the church is still against it, is the Anti-christian conspiracy, Msgr. Henri Delassus, 1911 (I guess)

	▲	lo_zamoyski 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		In general, the Church is opposed to anything “magical” on the grounds that it is, first, irrational and superstitious, and second, entails evil desires for power and knowledge. These on their own suffice as justifications, but each of these are also taken to create conditions that make one vulnerable to demonic influence. Here’s an excerpt from the Catechism [0]: “Divination and magic “2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility. “2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone. “2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.” [0] https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7E.HTM