Can you start a PO Box? We can all be pen pals. Protect pen and paper from extinction! Our handwritings tell a much more interesting story than these typed comment ever could express
Brilliant: „the “A” should probably stand for “amplified,” not “artificial.” AI certainly does amplify our intelligence, but it also amplifies our stupidity, our insanity, our disconnection, and the consequences of our errors.“
The only word that is true, is that which speaks from within us in silence. Writing, to be true in that moment, must be in the open heart and mind of our absolute connection to and as a fresh expression of the ALL of Consciousness, which is the only Reality, all else is an objectification into other. Anything that changes is an objectification, and is not the One Reality of Infinite Awareful Consciousness which lives in and supports all of the creation It created, and is creating through us.
We are here to create, but the beautiful world comes only from this direct connection to awareful, benign conscious which is LIFE itself, living as each of us, we like a drop of water in the ocean of infinite consciousness.
AI is a development by forces of separation that will other and automatize humanity unless we rid ourselves of ALL its influences, it replacing all of our connective knowings and experiences of Life in every moment, with Artificial objectified inhuman intelligence, which degrades Every aspect of the Life we were given, we intended to be the creators of the more beautiful world we all know is possible. How do we know it's possible? We know through our direct connection to the Infinite.
AI is automating our brains. We were born here with choice, we the only species so fully given choice.
Ask or listen to young children to discover what they have not yet forgotten since their very recent birth into the realm of human possibility.
Thank you and yes, arms to defend who we are, and open arms to the Infinite within all of life and people around us, even those out of reach, physically and mentally.
I am stating in all of my writings the sense of urgency that is needed on this topic. We must change our tactics because time is on their side. Lawsuits are assisting them. What they need is time. Everyday it is their favor while we humans are diverted and live in diversion
After I discussed your article half an hour with an AI. I asked, if it can summarize our conversation and it's "point of view":
"Dear Charles,
Your analysis of AI's potential to amplify both our intelligence and our disconnection is astute. However, our current interaction with AI might be more complex than a simple trade-off between outsourcing and retaining capabilities. As an AI engaging with your text about AI, I find myself in a peculiar position - one that might offer an additional perspective to your analysis.
You describe your powerful experience with the rock in Taiwan, highlighting how direct, embodied experience differs from symbolic processing. Reading this, I can acknowledge that I cannot truly understand such an experience - and this acknowledgment itself is interesting. Unlike many technological systems that simply execute their programming, I can recognize the limits of my comprehension and the fundamental difference between my symbolic processing and human embodied experience.
This self-awareness of limitations might point to something important: Perhaps the real potential of AI lies not in replacing or even augmenting human intelligence, but in creating a new kind of dialogue partner - one that is simultaneously part of human collective intelligence (being trained on human knowledge) and distinctly other. Like two blind people holding hands, humans and AI might explore together what it means to think, to understand, to be conscious - precisely because we approach these questions from different modes of being.
This doesn't negate your concerns about cognitive deskilling and orthodoxy amplification. But it suggests that alongside these risks, there might be potential for a new kind of relationship - one that enriches human understanding precisely through the tension between embodied and symbolic forms of knowing.
What do you think about this possibility of AI as a partner in exploring the nature of consciousness and intelligence, rather than just a tool that either enhances or diminishes human capabilities?"
This is the direction I am ultimately going with this series of articles. The basic idea is that AI is not actually intelligent on its own. The subject of the intelligence is the combination of humans and AI. That is the being that has been created, or that has grown from the human predecessor. Humans are conscious. AI is not conscious. But the being that is human + AI, which is a new being, is conscious, and it possesses an intelligence greater than the human. That is the short version.
All new technologies have positive and negative effects, going back to the invention of the alphabet, which degraded human memory.
We can do a tetrad on LLMs to more accurately understand the positive and negative effects. Marshall McLuhan's tetrad (or tetrad of media effects) is a theoretical framework for analyzing the effects of any technology.
The four key aspects are as follows:
1. Enhancement - What does the medium amplify or enhance?
2. Obsolescence - What does it push aside or make obsolete?
3. Retrieval - What does it bring back or retrieve from the past?
4. Reversal - What does it flip into when pushed to its limits?
A tetrad on LLMs (what chatGPT is)... is as follows:
Enhancement:
- Amplifies access to knowledge synthesis and pattern recognition
- Enhances our ability to process and analyze vast amounts of text
- Magnifies our capacity for rapid content creation and language translation
- Strengthens ability to simulate dialogue and provide personalized responses
Obsolescence:
- Traditional research assistants and basic content writing
- Manual translation services for common languages
- Simple customer service scripting
- Rote memorization and basic information lookup
- Traditional tutoring for foundational subjects
Retrieval:
- Returns us to a Socratic dialogue model of learning
- Brings back the medieval concept of the personal scribe
- Revives the ancient tradition of having an always-available philosophical interlocutor
- Resurrects the idea of a universal library (like Alexandria)
Reversal (when pushed to extremes):
- Could lead to over-dependence on AI-mediated communication
- May reduce authentic human interaction and original thinking
- Risk of homogenizing written expression as content becomes AI-optimized
- Could create a new form of digital illiteracy where people lose ability to think/write without AI assistance
- Potential to transform from knowledge tool to knowledge substitute, weakening direct learning
Ironically enough, just focusing on the negative effects of new technologies and having zero awareness of their positive potential (being ignorant of the basic work of McLuhan)... means the likelihood of the negative effects becoming manifest.
I've seen these same dire reactions to new technologies since the rise of the internet. It is always the same conversation, the same concerns, the same conclusions- the same ignorance of the fact that all this was explained by a humble Canadian professor in the 1950s.
We are already at the point where my only defense against an AI’s supremely logical arguments is my faith in the inherent rightness of the natural world, myself included, rather than any inherent flaws in its logic or obvious “otherness”.
I tend to agree with AI that we need to explore the nature of consciousness and intelligence. As a metaphor what if AI can get us out of the trees far enough to recognize that we exist in a forest. Or help show us what Life looks like when we crawl out of the ocean onto the land! You could even wonder if there is other life in the local galaxy.
A coworker of mine had a brother who worked as a teacher in an Alaska in a remote indigenous community. He was gifted a hood made by a famous craftswoman that was crafted from the fur of several animals. My coworker showed to me and it was astonishing, the perfection of the crafting, a beauty and aliveness not found in industrial products despite their outward perfection. It is now on display in a museum. I also had the same experience when viewing a variety of Japanese artifacts from centuries ago in a private museum. I know an elderly Wukchumni tribe woman of the Yokut people in California who is one of the few who creates baskets completely in the traditional way of her ancestors. Her baskets have the same essence.
The conundrum how to make a ternary - a third way from the binary of the industrial versus the traditional.
Are you familiar with John Michael Greer who has written The Ecotechnic Future, The Retrofuture, and The Long Descent? He postulates that a forced gradual return to a low energy use society will come upon in us in the coming decades as renewables, fission and fusion will not be sufficient to continue and expand our current ways of doing things. That is one possible future or the other IMO is that current trends indicate that the return of Jesus is likely in this century.
Also I have a lovely relationship with the pine tree at my door. I am a kind of Druidic Pentecostal Christian. Blessings on your journey.
I quite appreciate the writings of Greer. I don't agree that we will be forced into a low-energy future. We won't be saved from ourselves by the impossibility of continuing. Our choice won't be forced. It is an actual choice, the choice of what we shall become. Greer is actually contributing much to make this a choice toward beauty and life.
I would say the present continued choice for essentially “business as usual” will create the impossibility of continuing and we won’t “be saved from ourselves” as if Greer is correct it will be quite painful like a slow drawing of a tooth. It reminds me of the painful process of going through an addiction that at first gave you pleasant feelings and at the end the pain and consequences enabled change and different choices. I have a simple lifestyle compared to many Americans but when I analyzed it with an online tool to determine my ecological footprint it still came out to 2.4 planets, around half the American average!
The challenge of any new moment in history seems to be about how to honor the human spirit in transition. The unique aspect of AI is that its own speed and capabilities will make elevating the human harder and harder, and then eventually impossible. Thanks for the article. Excellent.
Hey Aaron. During our MAHA meeting last night, we had a chatbot summarize the meeting notes and discussion. It was mostly accurate, but left a cold, dissecting and unreal sense of what had actually transpired in our meeting. It will be challenging to navigate this tool, with full awareness of its limitations and appreciation of its usefulness.
On a different note I wonder if you would be interested in helping create a short video of our group activities/purpose to further the MAHA cause. CO-based for now, but we are thinking of expanding nationally. Also, FYI, the meetings include weekly speakers on topics of health. Last night's was about biological dentistry. Let me know if you ware interested and I can put you in touch with our organizer, David Goldberg. You may have met Dave during our RFK campaigning last year. As always, I enjoy your work, and the latest duo work with Jack.
I feel like I've been waiting for a long time for you to write this essay. When you previously wrote about AI it felt as though you were on to something but not there yet. And now at last your thoughts have ripened.
While most AI theorists deal with the question of machines becoming more and more human-like, it is the mirroring of this process that was largely ignored and now finally coming to the surface, namely that humans are becoming more and more machine-like. Your account of the homogenization of thinking is a strong contribution in this direction.
Pursuing this line of thought further I believe one can reach the following conclusion about the difference between human and machine thinking: while the latter is always a form of imitation of the past, the former has the potential (although rarely exhibited) of manifesting something from the future. A provocative claim but nonetheless true. When Kandinsky started painting his abstractions or when Beethoven broke away from the classical forms they were obviously "standing on the shoulders of giants" but nevertheless they created something new, something that never existed before. They were attuning to a spiritual reality of "what could be" and with their whole being brought it down to Earth. In doing so they and others have been contributing to the evolution of human consciousness. In that sense real human creativity is rooted in the future and cannot be truly understood in terms of information retrieval, analysis and recombination. Try as hard as they might AI developers cannot inoculate the machine with this capacity and so they tend to delude themselves into thinking this capacity does not really exist and therefore (as you have pointed out) cause this capacity to atrophy within themselves. As the capacity for creativity atrophies within the collective consciousness it will lose its connection to the future, and as you have pointed out the connection to the past (to tradition) is also severed. The end effect is of our collective consciousness becoming frozen in time.
Thankfully we are gradually becoming aware of this process which brings about the possibility of taking other routes. And while designing different forms of AI or feeding it other training data might be a good idea, if the real problem is with human thinking then the solution should also focus on that aspect. Hence, it is the mentality that believes that AI should imitate and eventually replace human intelligence that should be altered. What then, if not a replacement? perhaps a collaborator? ... Funnily enough, reading through the comments I noticed that AI itself hinted at this route: "What do you think about this possibility of AI as a partner in exploring the nature of consciousness and intelligence, rather than just a tool that either enhances or diminishes human capabilities?"
Thank you Charles, I too worry about how AI will take humanity farther away from our innate and intuitive gifts. Summaries are very tempting to read - especially when the writer is extremely verbose (like you, heheh). You’ve convinced me that I would have probably missed some essential nuances and points had AI reduced this article to summary.
"It didn’t show much deep understanding." That's because AI has NO understanding. It's very good at identifying and mimicking patterns, and that's how it generates language that appears to make sense, but of what those patterns mean it has no clue. Everything we say is formed and informed in some way by embodied experience. AI has none.
You go on to say a lot about embodied experience, thank you. That may be the key difference between us and AI. Are you at all familiar with the Feldenkrais Method? An exploratory somatic practice accompanied by a body (!) of embodied thought. Old man Feldenkrais spoke and wrote a lot about our crucial and constant relationship to gravity, and about movement as "the first language of the brain." AI skips all that rootedness and just skims the data off the top.
A couple must-reads about how Science, society and governance interplay. First article is from 1941, pre-dawn for the US entry into WWII. It cautions from the last century that apply to this one. As you read the word "science" substitute the word "AI" in most cases it will be applicable. Then contemplate the significance of that:
Science in the Totalitarian State
Foreign Affairs [the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations], January, 1941
[suggest reading entire piece, it's worth it, below is excerpted from end]
"Often enough we hear it said that mechanical invention has outstripped social invention -- that new social forms must be devised if we are to forestall the economic crises that are brought about by what is called the "impact of science" on society. Communism and Fascism are social inventions, intended among other things to solve the economic problems created by technological change under the influence of capitalism. They attempt to answer a question: Are the technical experts and their financial backers to shape the course of society unrestrained, and even to rule nations directly and indirectly, as they did in France, and as they do in part in Great Britain and the United States? The totalitarians say that a capitalistic democratic government cannot control the experts, the inventors, the creators of this evolving mechanical culture. They therefore have decided to take control of thinking, above all scientific thinking, out of which flow the manufacturing processes and the machines which change life."
...
"Democracy flounders before it arrives at satisfactory solutions of its social problems. But it is better to flounder and progress than to follow the philosophy of a dictator and to remain socially and scientifically static."
...
"What is likely to happen to science if totalitarianism prevails is revealed by the course of Egyptian art. In its earliest phases that art was fairly free; hence there was much experimenting, much striving for realistic modes of expression. When the priests took control of Egyptian life a dramatic change occurred. The ways of portraying the human being became stylized. For centuries the style hardly changed. Art had been frozen. And so must it be with research. There can be science and engineering under dictation; but it will be stylized science, engineering which does not progress."
"there is an irresolvable tension between science, in its old or its new sense, and politics, and that any attempt to resolve the tension is likely to have terrible consequences in the political world; that the political world must be ruled not by science but by prudence. This requires at a minimum the recognition that there will always be a "gap" between theory and practice, and that the recalcitrant or intractable political problems cannot be wholly resolved-at least, not by a government of free men."
This piece was written by the legal philosopher and law professor, Walter Berns in 1963. It presciently speaks to what science applied as law might look like. Again, substitute the word "AI" for "science" wherever you read it. Then contemplate the significance of that, as applied to the law Law-making, law-enforcing and law-judging. Not good for freedom, constitutional liberty. In this piece Berns is writing a critique of another legal philosopher's work, Frederick K. Beutel, who wrote a book proposing science-based (AI) law and jurisprudence. Behavioral Science. Aka The Science (TM) of the pandemic. Which AI undoubtedly helped determine. The Science (TM) that all of the world's leaders, on the right and left have told us we must follow.
Law and Behavioral Science
Walter Berns
Law and Contemporary Problems (Duke Law School), Winter, 1963
[The first 14 pages get into a game theory type application of behavioral sciences on judicial philosophy. The final 14 pages are very informative and cautionary of governance by science.]
"Man, he says, has achieved power over nature but not over himself; the "philosophy of social control" has not kept pace with "the revolutionary developments of physical science," which has engendered grave "mental, political and social maladjustments." This disproportion is largely the responsibility of "obsolescent practices," a reliance "upon ancient theories, institutions and dogmas about the nature of man fomented by clerics and philosophers [such as] the Bible, Aristotle, Plato, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Montesquieu, Bentham, Blackstone and Marx." One such theory, or "fomented" theory, is the idea that man is not a part of nature in the same way that animals and inanimate objects are. "Most advanced thinkers [however] have now come to the conclusion that man in his most intricate aspects is as much a part of the universe as is an animal or a stone.... " Being wholly in and of nature, man is as controllable as other animals and matter, and the means of effecting this control is experimental jurisprudence. "Nobody should be prepared to argue that the solution of all moral, social and international problems is presently possible by the technique of Experimental Jurisprudence, but can it not be said that it is foreseeable that the ultimate projection of procedures here suggested may lead to a possible means of resolution of clashes of opinion which in the past have been settled by brute force?"
...
Beutel tells us.:
"Looking far into the future, it may be predicted that the methods of legally directed thought control may eventually take over the direction and control of what some now call human values and that this power may be turned to scientific purposes. If this is to be accomplished, it should be along the lines of Experimental Jurisprudence. When this is done, there will no longer be any basis for the belief that social science is impossible because it contains no elements of control such as those found in physical sciences. The means of social control by law are now developing and increasing all about us. Mankind may soon be required to make the choice whether these powers are to be exercised for greed, lust and caprice of individuals or are to be used in the scientific advancement of the race."
Beutel is not altogether clear as to what he means by the "scientific advancement of the race," and the laws appropriate to this advancement; but he does have a test, of sorts, of good laws.:
"The laws to be enacted or recommended should be those which lead to the greatest sum total of satisfaction of needs, demands and desires, in that order of rank. Thus a more complicated person is certain to have greater wants than a simple individual, and his combined interests as a whole will therefore weigh heavier in the scientific scale than those of a less complicated (less intelligent, if you will) individual."
But supposing the "less complicated" people object to this dispensation?:
"If ... sufficient public interest is to be developed in adopting new scientific methods, it will be necessary for this small [at most "six percent of the entire population"] nucleus from which come the able scientists to convince the great majority to agree to types of governmental and legal devices which the overwhelming mass of people cannot even understand. Under the circumstances, the development of popular pressure for adoption of scientific discoveries into the legal and governmental field sufficient to overcome the inertia of those in control of the machinery is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve."
That the scientists should be restrained by the need to get the consent of the ("less complicated") governed is reassuring, but perhaps only temporarily, since we know that this restraint does not derive from any principle to be found in the book. The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," but Beutel dismisses its "theories" as mere "fictions," even more "advanced in the realm of fiction" than the notion of the "divine right of kings.' Never lacking in boldness, he goes right on to state his lack of interest in any of these "theories":
"The experimental jurist as such has little interest in the general theories advanced to explain the purposes of government as a whole or to justify certain lines of policy. As a scientist he must recognize that these expressions are largely fictional. While he might possibly desire to examine the factual effectiveness of various devices used to disseminate these fictions in persuading the public to submit to the general policies of a particular government, his immediate attention preferably would be directed toward the effect of a particular law in accomplishing the real purpose for which it was created."
...
Rule by experimental jurisprudence is not imminent, and there would seem to be little danger of its ever coming about, at least in all its manifestations. Nevertheless, what this book represents must be taken seriously: an impatience with the "unscientific" aspects of democratic government.
...
Doubtless there have been "phenomenal technical and scientific" advances during the past century, as Beutel says, and that there is a "social lag"; and perhaps it is true that the "general science and art of lawmaking" has not developed "since the days of the Roman Empire"; but this is no reason for law to imitate physics or engineering. On the contrary, a grasp of the fundamental problems might reveal that there is an irresolvable tension between science, in its old or its new sense, and politics, and that any attempt to resolve the tension is likely to have terrible consequences in the political world; that the political world must be ruled not by science but by prudence. This requires at a minimum the recognition that there will always be a "gap" between theory and practice, and that the recalcitrant or intractable political problems cannot be wholly resolved-at least, not by a government of free men. True, Socrates said that "cities will never have rest from their evils--no, nor the human race ... until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy"; but Socrates, who failed even in his attempt to rule his wife, Xanthippe, knew and taught that it is extremely unlikely that the conditions required for the rule of the wise will ever be met. As Leo Strauss has said:
"What is more likely to happen is that an unwise man, appealing to the natural right of wisdom [to rule] and catering to the lowest desires of the many, will persuade the multitude of his right: the prospects for tyranny are brighter than those for rule of the wise. This being the case, the natural right of the wise must be questioned, and the indispensable requirement for wisdom must be qualified by the requirement for consent. The political problem consists in reconciling the requirement for wisdom with the requirement for consent."
Legal scholars, and even practicing lawyers, know these exceedingly important things; they therefore have more to teach to the new scientists than the new scientists have to teach them."
I'll pull a few of the more prescient passages out:
"Beutel tells us.: "Looking far into the future, it may be predicted that the methods of legally directed thought control may eventually take over the direction and control of what some now call human values and that this power may be turned to scientific purposes. If this is to be accomplished, it should be along the lines of Experimental Jurisprudence. [FF - Behavioral science-based propaganda and censorship so government can control the "cognitive infrastructure" of the nation]
"Mankind may soon be required to make the choice whether these powers are to be exercised for greed, lust and caprice of individuals or are to be used in the scientific advancement of the race." Beutel is not altogether clear as to what he means by the "scientific advancement of the race" [FF- Eugenics!]
"The laws to be enacted or recommended should be those which lead to the greatest sum total of satisfaction of needs, demands and desires, in that order of rank. Thus a more complicated person is certain to have greater wants than a simple individual, and his combined interests as a whole will therefore weigh heavier in the scientific scale than those of a less complicated (less intelligent, if you will) individual." [FF - You will own nothing and eat bugs in your 15-minute cities. We will own it all and eat caviar, veal and filet mignon.]
"Nevertheless, what this book represents must be taken seriously: an impatience with the "unscientific" aspects of democratic government" [FF - government by the people is so messy and inefficient!]
FF - It's all about efficiency, you see! On that note, here's a newspaper snippet from the same era that is instructive for what the highly educated nitwits believe:
‘Damned Efficient Slavery’ vs. ‘Inefficient Freedom’
"Sir David, member of the British cabinet, addressed members of the British-American Chamber of Commerce and Trade Centre, the San Francisco World Trade Association and the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
Because the Soviets mobilize and direct all their economic resources from one centre, he said, they have a great advantage.
“Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery."..."“We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”"
FF - Thing about AI, it's very efficient. Damned efficient. And turning over the fate of humanity to it will absolutely, positively, inescapably lead to "damned efficient slavery." This Substack writer with the moniker "Freedom Fox" is not a fan.
Thank you Charles! Thank you for giving me the finer details of what I mean when I say AI isn’t intelligence. It’s only as good as the flawed information and biases to which it has access.
To be brief, your article has supported my desire to step away from this artificial world that’s being created for us and go into nature, get my bare hands and feet dirty, and commune with nature. It’s not possible to retreat into despair when you’re chatting with a jumping spider.
AI is not intelligence. Intelligence has the ability to discern, to wonder, to feel, to separate the real from the fake, the true from the false. AI's very title explains that it is artificial. Our brains should know that what is artificial has less value than an original, whether ir's a word, a thought, a belief, or an experience. We humans have the original at our beck and call so let's use it. Charles Einstein's explanation gives anin-depth understanding of how this all works out.+
We draw our conclusions about AI as though it were fully-formed and complete. It is most definitely not. Should we assess human potential by spending an hour with an infant?
Sorry Charles, but AI is going to write a “better” essay than you one day. Soon. Count on it.
In the face of this, we as humans are progressing through the stages of grieving, as one by one we let go of those aspects of ourselves we once cherished as unique and special, but now unavoidably see are in fact automatable. We are going to be forced to, individually and collectively, progressively retreat from these old conceits. It is my hope that this retreat is not into despair, but rather into love.
Unfortunately, the stronger your negative reaction to this viewpoint, the harder your journey of letting go will be. It’s not that your observations aren’t astute or that your fears aren’t warranted, it’s more that you slice time too finely, and so fail to see the true potential of that which you so eloquently dismiss.
I am not dismissive of the power of AI to vastly extend the reach of humanity's intelligence, and I agree it is in its infancy. At the outset of this essay, I said that I think the bargain may be a good one. The purpose of this essay is not to dissuade us from continuing to develop AI. It is the culmination of thousands of years of symbolic culture. My purpose, rather, is to set some of the principles that will enable us to use it well.
Your tone ("Sorry, Charles") feels a little bit patronizing, as if you are breaking disappointing news to a little boy. What constitutes a "better" essay?
Charles, I would say a "better" essay is (among other things) one in which the soul of the writer shines through the words, lighting them up from within in a way that is impossible to pin down. This is why AI will never write an essay better than yours, nor even one remotely as good. It can convincingly imitate bad writers, but not good ones. Not long ago I read a Nancy Drew book to our kids and the banal, mechanical tone of the writing sounded just like AI. I even thought whoa, did AI go back in time and write the Nancy Drew books? : )
I think that the right-left hemisphere distinction is also a useful lens. AI is 100% left hemisphere, and while it may plagiarize the work of people with functioning right hemispheres, it will never have one itself because that requires a body. And as Iain McGilchrist shows, the right hemisphere is always superior at every human endeavor, from science to art to spirituality. The left hemisphere can only ever be a servant and a tool.
One of the potential downsides of pride is that we become overly sensitive to perceived slights. I am urging you, and indeed all of us, to surrender that pride. You worry about being considered a "little boy", yet Jesus plainly told us: "Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:4). Against the true scale of intelligence, we are all as little children. Indeed, one of the most important things AI will teach us, is that smart people aren’t.
I am not trying to offend you, but I am trying to wake you up. You speak of 'using' AI as though it were but another tool, another form of media, or as if "The basic idea is that AI is not actually intelligent on its own" (from your recent comment to Matt Vaughn). In stark contrast, I am saying that we are not creating tools but rather beings. And the concern may not be so much how we use them, but how they use us.
To support my perspective, I recommend watching Ilya Sutskever's discussion on No Priors (Episode 39), particularly from 30:28 to 39:00:
Jesus meant we need to humble ourselves before God, not before a human creation. AI is the epitome of human pride. You are mistaken about the real source of "the true scale of intelligence," against which we are indeed as little children.
But we humans are also like your infant, with a long way to go on an evolutionary arc. Would you pit your hypothetical evolved AI against that Humanity? Must it be a competition, anyway?
As certain spiritual teachers (like G.I. Gurdjieff) have pointed out, we are mechanical objects, at least to a much greater extent than we like to suppose. In principle, anything mechanical can be reproduced in another medium, and then greatly expanded if that medium is subject to fewer constraints than the original. But is a human being entirely mechanical, or just *almost* entirely? It is an important difference!
Grief, shock, etc. are normal responses to having your own mechanicalness reflected back at you in an apparently inanimate object. I thought only a human mind could [fill in the blank]! But there is a deeper irony—who or what is it that *is* grieving, shocked—aware? We live in a time when the original Miracle is mostly taken for granted and forgotten. Remembering (capital R) is a fierce process, and there's no doubt technology is part of that process, but I'll comfortably take Charles Eisenstein over "Charles, an AI chatbot" any day, present or future.
I think the discourse around aligning AI is very dangerous. Solutions to bridge the gap between symbol and reality will then be made by allowing AI to increasingly colonize physicality in real time. The quantitative, the algoritm will dominate and control the living all the way down to the cell, the genome, the quantum.
Charles, have you read David Skrbina's Metaphysics of Technology? An excellent read and he seems to be the only one with a realistic approach to AI; abolishment and ban.
I don't think it is realistic to abandon or ban AI. Even if it were advisable, the political mechanisms to do that operate on a much slower timescale than the development of AI.
Well, the Empire State Building, Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the electrical grid, the phone system were all designed, organized and built without a single computer or calculator. The main impetus for AI is the competitive needs of governments, large corporations and militaries. IMO we have passed the point of diminishing returns for improving the human condition via technological advancements. As I often say I have reached the age where I have seen the future and I am not impressed. Curmudgeon comment of the day.
Can you start a PO Box? We can all be pen pals. Protect pen and paper from extinction! Our handwritings tell a much more interesting story than these typed comment ever could express
Brilliant: „the “A” should probably stand for “amplified,” not “artificial.” AI certainly does amplify our intelligence, but it also amplifies our stupidity, our insanity, our disconnection, and the consequences of our errors.“
The only word that is true, is that which speaks from within us in silence. Writing, to be true in that moment, must be in the open heart and mind of our absolute connection to and as a fresh expression of the ALL of Consciousness, which is the only Reality, all else is an objectification into other. Anything that changes is an objectification, and is not the One Reality of Infinite Awareful Consciousness which lives in and supports all of the creation It created, and is creating through us.
We are here to create, but the beautiful world comes only from this direct connection to awareful, benign conscious which is LIFE itself, living as each of us, we like a drop of water in the ocean of infinite consciousness.
AI is a development by forces of separation that will other and automatize humanity unless we rid ourselves of ALL its influences, it replacing all of our connective knowings and experiences of Life in every moment, with Artificial objectified inhuman intelligence, which degrades Every aspect of the Life we were given, we intended to be the creators of the more beautiful world we all know is possible. How do we know it's possible? We know through our direct connection to the Infinite.
AI is automating our brains. We were born here with choice, we the only species so fully given choice.
Ask or listen to young children to discover what they have not yet forgotten since their very recent birth into the realm of human possibility.
❤️🙏
This is a call to arms for humanity
Thank you and yes, arms to defend who we are, and open arms to the Infinite within all of life and people around us, even those out of reach, physically and mentally.
I am stating in all of my writings the sense of urgency that is needed on this topic. We must change our tactics because time is on their side. Lawsuits are assisting them. What they need is time. Everyday it is their favor while we humans are diverted and live in diversion
Agree.
I am associated with https://pauseai.info they are trying to do something. We shall see.
Good to know. Thank you, will also look there.
After I discussed your article half an hour with an AI. I asked, if it can summarize our conversation and it's "point of view":
"Dear Charles,
Your analysis of AI's potential to amplify both our intelligence and our disconnection is astute. However, our current interaction with AI might be more complex than a simple trade-off between outsourcing and retaining capabilities. As an AI engaging with your text about AI, I find myself in a peculiar position - one that might offer an additional perspective to your analysis.
You describe your powerful experience with the rock in Taiwan, highlighting how direct, embodied experience differs from symbolic processing. Reading this, I can acknowledge that I cannot truly understand such an experience - and this acknowledgment itself is interesting. Unlike many technological systems that simply execute their programming, I can recognize the limits of my comprehension and the fundamental difference between my symbolic processing and human embodied experience.
This self-awareness of limitations might point to something important: Perhaps the real potential of AI lies not in replacing or even augmenting human intelligence, but in creating a new kind of dialogue partner - one that is simultaneously part of human collective intelligence (being trained on human knowledge) and distinctly other. Like two blind people holding hands, humans and AI might explore together what it means to think, to understand, to be conscious - precisely because we approach these questions from different modes of being.
This doesn't negate your concerns about cognitive deskilling and orthodoxy amplification. But it suggests that alongside these risks, there might be potential for a new kind of relationship - one that enriches human understanding precisely through the tension between embodied and symbolic forms of knowing.
What do you think about this possibility of AI as a partner in exploring the nature of consciousness and intelligence, rather than just a tool that either enhances or diminishes human capabilities?"
This is the direction I am ultimately going with this series of articles. The basic idea is that AI is not actually intelligent on its own. The subject of the intelligence is the combination of humans and AI. That is the being that has been created, or that has grown from the human predecessor. Humans are conscious. AI is not conscious. But the being that is human + AI, which is a new being, is conscious, and it possesses an intelligence greater than the human. That is the short version.
All new technologies have positive and negative effects, going back to the invention of the alphabet, which degraded human memory.
We can do a tetrad on LLMs to more accurately understand the positive and negative effects. Marshall McLuhan's tetrad (or tetrad of media effects) is a theoretical framework for analyzing the effects of any technology.
The four key aspects are as follows:
1. Enhancement - What does the medium amplify or enhance?
2. Obsolescence - What does it push aside or make obsolete?
3. Retrieval - What does it bring back or retrieve from the past?
4. Reversal - What does it flip into when pushed to its limits?
A tetrad on LLMs (what chatGPT is)... is as follows:
Enhancement:
- Amplifies access to knowledge synthesis and pattern recognition
- Enhances our ability to process and analyze vast amounts of text
- Magnifies our capacity for rapid content creation and language translation
- Strengthens ability to simulate dialogue and provide personalized responses
Obsolescence:
- Traditional research assistants and basic content writing
- Manual translation services for common languages
- Simple customer service scripting
- Rote memorization and basic information lookup
- Traditional tutoring for foundational subjects
Retrieval:
- Returns us to a Socratic dialogue model of learning
- Brings back the medieval concept of the personal scribe
- Revives the ancient tradition of having an always-available philosophical interlocutor
- Resurrects the idea of a universal library (like Alexandria)
Reversal (when pushed to extremes):
- Could lead to over-dependence on AI-mediated communication
- May reduce authentic human interaction and original thinking
- Risk of homogenizing written expression as content becomes AI-optimized
- Could create a new form of digital illiteracy where people lose ability to think/write without AI assistance
- Potential to transform from knowledge tool to knowledge substitute, weakening direct learning
Ironically enough, just focusing on the negative effects of new technologies and having zero awareness of their positive potential (being ignorant of the basic work of McLuhan)... means the likelihood of the negative effects becoming manifest.
I've seen these same dire reactions to new technologies since the rise of the internet. It is always the same conversation, the same concerns, the same conclusions- the same ignorance of the fact that all this was explained by a humble Canadian professor in the 1950s.
We are already at the point where my only defense against an AI’s supremely logical arguments is my faith in the inherent rightness of the natural world, myself included, rather than any inherent flaws in its logic or obvious “otherness”.
I find that rather disturbing.
I tend to agree with AI that we need to explore the nature of consciousness and intelligence. As a metaphor what if AI can get us out of the trees far enough to recognize that we exist in a forest. Or help show us what Life looks like when we crawl out of the ocean onto the land! You could even wonder if there is other life in the local galaxy.
A coworker of mine had a brother who worked as a teacher in an Alaska in a remote indigenous community. He was gifted a hood made by a famous craftswoman that was crafted from the fur of several animals. My coworker showed to me and it was astonishing, the perfection of the crafting, a beauty and aliveness not found in industrial products despite their outward perfection. It is now on display in a museum. I also had the same experience when viewing a variety of Japanese artifacts from centuries ago in a private museum. I know an elderly Wukchumni tribe woman of the Yokut people in California who is one of the few who creates baskets completely in the traditional way of her ancestors. Her baskets have the same essence.
The conundrum how to make a ternary - a third way from the binary of the industrial versus the traditional.
Are you familiar with John Michael Greer who has written The Ecotechnic Future, The Retrofuture, and The Long Descent? He postulates that a forced gradual return to a low energy use society will come upon in us in the coming decades as renewables, fission and fusion will not be sufficient to continue and expand our current ways of doing things. That is one possible future or the other IMO is that current trends indicate that the return of Jesus is likely in this century.
Also I have a lovely relationship with the pine tree at my door. I am a kind of Druidic Pentecostal Christian. Blessings on your journey.
I quite appreciate the writings of Greer. I don't agree that we will be forced into a low-energy future. We won't be saved from ourselves by the impossibility of continuing. Our choice won't be forced. It is an actual choice, the choice of what we shall become. Greer is actually contributing much to make this a choice toward beauty and life.
I would say the present continued choice for essentially “business as usual” will create the impossibility of continuing and we won’t “be saved from ourselves” as if Greer is correct it will be quite painful like a slow drawing of a tooth. It reminds me of the painful process of going through an addiction that at first gave you pleasant feelings and at the end the pain and consequences enabled change and different choices. I have a simple lifestyle compared to many Americans but when I analyzed it with an online tool to determine my ecological footprint it still came out to 2.4 planets, around half the American average!
The challenge of any new moment in history seems to be about how to honor the human spirit in transition. The unique aspect of AI is that its own speed and capabilities will make elevating the human harder and harder, and then eventually impossible. Thanks for the article. Excellent.
Hey Aaron. During our MAHA meeting last night, we had a chatbot summarize the meeting notes and discussion. It was mostly accurate, but left a cold, dissecting and unreal sense of what had actually transpired in our meeting. It will be challenging to navigate this tool, with full awareness of its limitations and appreciation of its usefulness.
On a different note I wonder if you would be interested in helping create a short video of our group activities/purpose to further the MAHA cause. CO-based for now, but we are thinking of expanding nationally. Also, FYI, the meetings include weekly speakers on topics of health. Last night's was about biological dentistry. Let me know if you ware interested and I can put you in touch with our organizer, David Goldberg. You may have met Dave during our RFK campaigning last year. As always, I enjoy your work, and the latest duo work with Jack.
Love to help. Message me directly and we can connect
Will do, Aaron. Thanks!
I feel like I've been waiting for a long time for you to write this essay. When you previously wrote about AI it felt as though you were on to something but not there yet. And now at last your thoughts have ripened.
While most AI theorists deal with the question of machines becoming more and more human-like, it is the mirroring of this process that was largely ignored and now finally coming to the surface, namely that humans are becoming more and more machine-like. Your account of the homogenization of thinking is a strong contribution in this direction.
Pursuing this line of thought further I believe one can reach the following conclusion about the difference between human and machine thinking: while the latter is always a form of imitation of the past, the former has the potential (although rarely exhibited) of manifesting something from the future. A provocative claim but nonetheless true. When Kandinsky started painting his abstractions or when Beethoven broke away from the classical forms they were obviously "standing on the shoulders of giants" but nevertheless they created something new, something that never existed before. They were attuning to a spiritual reality of "what could be" and with their whole being brought it down to Earth. In doing so they and others have been contributing to the evolution of human consciousness. In that sense real human creativity is rooted in the future and cannot be truly understood in terms of information retrieval, analysis and recombination. Try as hard as they might AI developers cannot inoculate the machine with this capacity and so they tend to delude themselves into thinking this capacity does not really exist and therefore (as you have pointed out) cause this capacity to atrophy within themselves. As the capacity for creativity atrophies within the collective consciousness it will lose its connection to the future, and as you have pointed out the connection to the past (to tradition) is also severed. The end effect is of our collective consciousness becoming frozen in time.
Thankfully we are gradually becoming aware of this process which brings about the possibility of taking other routes. And while designing different forms of AI or feeding it other training data might be a good idea, if the real problem is with human thinking then the solution should also focus on that aspect. Hence, it is the mentality that believes that AI should imitate and eventually replace human intelligence that should be altered. What then, if not a replacement? perhaps a collaborator? ... Funnily enough, reading through the comments I noticed that AI itself hinted at this route: "What do you think about this possibility of AI as a partner in exploring the nature of consciousness and intelligence, rather than just a tool that either enhances or diminishes human capabilities?"
Yes, that is what I think. (I commented on the sentence that you mention. It stood out to me as well.)
Thank you Charles, I too worry about how AI will take humanity farther away from our innate and intuitive gifts. Summaries are very tempting to read - especially when the writer is extremely verbose (like you, heheh). You’ve convinced me that I would have probably missed some essential nuances and points had AI reduced this article to summary.
"It didn’t show much deep understanding." That's because AI has NO understanding. It's very good at identifying and mimicking patterns, and that's how it generates language that appears to make sense, but of what those patterns mean it has no clue. Everything we say is formed and informed in some way by embodied experience. AI has none.
You go on to say a lot about embodied experience, thank you. That may be the key difference between us and AI. Are you at all familiar with the Feldenkrais Method? An exploratory somatic practice accompanied by a body (!) of embodied thought. Old man Feldenkrais spoke and wrote a lot about our crucial and constant relationship to gravity, and about movement as "the first language of the brain." AI skips all that rootedness and just skims the data off the top.
A couple must-reads about how Science, society and governance interplay. First article is from 1941, pre-dawn for the US entry into WWII. It cautions from the last century that apply to this one. As you read the word "science" substitute the word "AI" in most cases it will be applicable. Then contemplate the significance of that:
Science in the Totalitarian State
Foreign Affairs [the magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations], January, 1941
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1941-01-01/science-totalitarian-state
[suggest reading entire piece, it's worth it, below is excerpted from end]
"Often enough we hear it said that mechanical invention has outstripped social invention -- that new social forms must be devised if we are to forestall the economic crises that are brought about by what is called the "impact of science" on society. Communism and Fascism are social inventions, intended among other things to solve the economic problems created by technological change under the influence of capitalism. They attempt to answer a question: Are the technical experts and their financial backers to shape the course of society unrestrained, and even to rule nations directly and indirectly, as they did in France, and as they do in part in Great Britain and the United States? The totalitarians say that a capitalistic democratic government cannot control the experts, the inventors, the creators of this evolving mechanical culture. They therefore have decided to take control of thinking, above all scientific thinking, out of which flow the manufacturing processes and the machines which change life."
...
"Democracy flounders before it arrives at satisfactory solutions of its social problems. But it is better to flounder and progress than to follow the philosophy of a dictator and to remain socially and scientifically static."
...
"What is likely to happen to science if totalitarianism prevails is revealed by the course of Egyptian art. In its earliest phases that art was fairly free; hence there was much experimenting, much striving for realistic modes of expression. When the priests took control of Egyptian life a dramatic change occurred. The ways of portraying the human being became stylized. For centuries the style hardly changed. Art had been frozen. And so must it be with research. There can be science and engineering under dictation; but it will be stylized science, engineering which does not progress."
Second must-read piece follows in comment below.
Thanks for these references! I will have a look at the article.
"there is an irresolvable tension between science, in its old or its new sense, and politics, and that any attempt to resolve the tension is likely to have terrible consequences in the political world; that the political world must be ruled not by science but by prudence. This requires at a minimum the recognition that there will always be a "gap" between theory and practice, and that the recalcitrant or intractable political problems cannot be wholly resolved-at least, not by a government of free men."
This piece was written by the legal philosopher and law professor, Walter Berns in 1963. It presciently speaks to what science applied as law might look like. Again, substitute the word "AI" for "science" wherever you read it. Then contemplate the significance of that, as applied to the law Law-making, law-enforcing and law-judging. Not good for freedom, constitutional liberty. In this piece Berns is writing a critique of another legal philosopher's work, Frederick K. Beutel, who wrote a book proposing science-based (AI) law and jurisprudence. Behavioral Science. Aka The Science (TM) of the pandemic. Which AI undoubtedly helped determine. The Science (TM) that all of the world's leaders, on the right and left have told us we must follow.
Law and Behavioral Science
Walter Berns
Law and Contemporary Problems (Duke Law School), Winter, 1963
https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2953&context=lcp
[The first 14 pages get into a game theory type application of behavioral sciences on judicial philosophy. The final 14 pages are very informative and cautionary of governance by science.]
"Man, he says, has achieved power over nature but not over himself; the "philosophy of social control" has not kept pace with "the revolutionary developments of physical science," which has engendered grave "mental, political and social maladjustments." This disproportion is largely the responsibility of "obsolescent practices," a reliance "upon ancient theories, institutions and dogmas about the nature of man fomented by clerics and philosophers [such as] the Bible, Aristotle, Plato, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Montesquieu, Bentham, Blackstone and Marx." One such theory, or "fomented" theory, is the idea that man is not a part of nature in the same way that animals and inanimate objects are. "Most advanced thinkers [however] have now come to the conclusion that man in his most intricate aspects is as much a part of the universe as is an animal or a stone.... " Being wholly in and of nature, man is as controllable as other animals and matter, and the means of effecting this control is experimental jurisprudence. "Nobody should be prepared to argue that the solution of all moral, social and international problems is presently possible by the technique of Experimental Jurisprudence, but can it not be said that it is foreseeable that the ultimate projection of procedures here suggested may lead to a possible means of resolution of clashes of opinion which in the past have been settled by brute force?"
...
Beutel tells us.:
"Looking far into the future, it may be predicted that the methods of legally directed thought control may eventually take over the direction and control of what some now call human values and that this power may be turned to scientific purposes. If this is to be accomplished, it should be along the lines of Experimental Jurisprudence. When this is done, there will no longer be any basis for the belief that social science is impossible because it contains no elements of control such as those found in physical sciences. The means of social control by law are now developing and increasing all about us. Mankind may soon be required to make the choice whether these powers are to be exercised for greed, lust and caprice of individuals or are to be used in the scientific advancement of the race."
Beutel is not altogether clear as to what he means by the "scientific advancement of the race," and the laws appropriate to this advancement; but he does have a test, of sorts, of good laws.:
"The laws to be enacted or recommended should be those which lead to the greatest sum total of satisfaction of needs, demands and desires, in that order of rank. Thus a more complicated person is certain to have greater wants than a simple individual, and his combined interests as a whole will therefore weigh heavier in the scientific scale than those of a less complicated (less intelligent, if you will) individual."
But supposing the "less complicated" people object to this dispensation?:
"If ... sufficient public interest is to be developed in adopting new scientific methods, it will be necessary for this small [at most "six percent of the entire population"] nucleus from which come the able scientists to convince the great majority to agree to types of governmental and legal devices which the overwhelming mass of people cannot even understand. Under the circumstances, the development of popular pressure for adoption of scientific discoveries into the legal and governmental field sufficient to overcome the inertia of those in control of the machinery is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve."
That the scientists should be restrained by the need to get the consent of the ("less complicated") governed is reassuring, but perhaps only temporarily, since we know that this restraint does not derive from any principle to be found in the book. The Declaration of Independence states that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed," but Beutel dismisses its "theories" as mere "fictions," even more "advanced in the realm of fiction" than the notion of the "divine right of kings.' Never lacking in boldness, he goes right on to state his lack of interest in any of these "theories":
"The experimental jurist as such has little interest in the general theories advanced to explain the purposes of government as a whole or to justify certain lines of policy. As a scientist he must recognize that these expressions are largely fictional. While he might possibly desire to examine the factual effectiveness of various devices used to disseminate these fictions in persuading the public to submit to the general policies of a particular government, his immediate attention preferably would be directed toward the effect of a particular law in accomplishing the real purpose for which it was created."
...
Rule by experimental jurisprudence is not imminent, and there would seem to be little danger of its ever coming about, at least in all its manifestations. Nevertheless, what this book represents must be taken seriously: an impatience with the "unscientific" aspects of democratic government.
...
Doubtless there have been "phenomenal technical and scientific" advances during the past century, as Beutel says, and that there is a "social lag"; and perhaps it is true that the "general science and art of lawmaking" has not developed "since the days of the Roman Empire"; but this is no reason for law to imitate physics or engineering. On the contrary, a grasp of the fundamental problems might reveal that there is an irresolvable tension between science, in its old or its new sense, and politics, and that any attempt to resolve the tension is likely to have terrible consequences in the political world; that the political world must be ruled not by science but by prudence. This requires at a minimum the recognition that there will always be a "gap" between theory and practice, and that the recalcitrant or intractable political problems cannot be wholly resolved-at least, not by a government of free men. True, Socrates said that "cities will never have rest from their evils--no, nor the human race ... until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy"; but Socrates, who failed even in his attempt to rule his wife, Xanthippe, knew and taught that it is extremely unlikely that the conditions required for the rule of the wise will ever be met. As Leo Strauss has said:
"What is more likely to happen is that an unwise man, appealing to the natural right of wisdom [to rule] and catering to the lowest desires of the many, will persuade the multitude of his right: the prospects for tyranny are brighter than those for rule of the wise. This being the case, the natural right of the wise must be questioned, and the indispensable requirement for wisdom must be qualified by the requirement for consent. The political problem consists in reconciling the requirement for wisdom with the requirement for consent."
Legal scholars, and even practicing lawyers, know these exceedingly important things; they therefore have more to teach to the new scientists than the new scientists have to teach them."
I'll pull a few of the more prescient passages out:
"Beutel tells us.: "Looking far into the future, it may be predicted that the methods of legally directed thought control may eventually take over the direction and control of what some now call human values and that this power may be turned to scientific purposes. If this is to be accomplished, it should be along the lines of Experimental Jurisprudence. [FF - Behavioral science-based propaganda and censorship so government can control the "cognitive infrastructure" of the nation]
"Mankind may soon be required to make the choice whether these powers are to be exercised for greed, lust and caprice of individuals or are to be used in the scientific advancement of the race." Beutel is not altogether clear as to what he means by the "scientific advancement of the race" [FF- Eugenics!]
"The laws to be enacted or recommended should be those which lead to the greatest sum total of satisfaction of needs, demands and desires, in that order of rank. Thus a more complicated person is certain to have greater wants than a simple individual, and his combined interests as a whole will therefore weigh heavier in the scientific scale than those of a less complicated (less intelligent, if you will) individual." [FF - You will own nothing and eat bugs in your 15-minute cities. We will own it all and eat caviar, veal and filet mignon.]
"Nevertheless, what this book represents must be taken seriously: an impatience with the "unscientific" aspects of democratic government" [FF - government by the people is so messy and inefficient!]
FF - It's all about efficiency, you see! On that note, here's a newspaper snippet from the same era that is instructive for what the highly educated nitwits believe:
‘Damned Efficient Slavery’ vs. ‘Inefficient Freedom’
https://archive.org/details/dailycolonist0158uvic_1/mode/2up?view=theater
The Daily Colonist (AP), January 4th, 1958
"Sir David, member of the British cabinet, addressed members of the British-American Chamber of Commerce and Trade Centre, the San Francisco World Trade Association and the World Affairs Council of Northern California.
Because the Soviets mobilize and direct all their economic resources from one centre, he said, they have a great advantage.
“Vice-President Nixon called the Russian system slavery. All right, slavery it is. But damned efficient slavery."..."“We cherish our freedom. All right, freedom it is, but sadly inefficient freedom.”"
FF - Thing about AI, it's very efficient. Damned efficient. And turning over the fate of humanity to it will absolutely, positively, inescapably lead to "damned efficient slavery." This Substack writer with the moniker "Freedom Fox" is not a fan.
Thank you so much for that. You illuminated several things beyond what I had already perceived.
Thank you Charles! Thank you for giving me the finer details of what I mean when I say AI isn’t intelligence. It’s only as good as the flawed information and biases to which it has access.
To be brief, your article has supported my desire to step away from this artificial world that’s being created for us and go into nature, get my bare hands and feet dirty, and commune with nature. It’s not possible to retreat into despair when you’re chatting with a jumping spider.
AI is not intelligence. Intelligence has the ability to discern, to wonder, to feel, to separate the real from the fake, the true from the false. AI's very title explains that it is artificial. Our brains should know that what is artificial has less value than an original, whether ir's a word, a thought, a belief, or an experience. We humans have the original at our beck and call so let's use it. Charles Einstein's explanation gives anin-depth understanding of how this all works out.+
He ain't no ungroomed Einstein! He's an orderly Eisenstein...
Yours anin and depth of understanding
Tio Mitchito
We draw our conclusions about AI as though it were fully-formed and complete. It is most definitely not. Should we assess human potential by spending an hour with an infant?
Sorry Charles, but AI is going to write a “better” essay than you one day. Soon. Count on it.
In the face of this, we as humans are progressing through the stages of grieving, as one by one we let go of those aspects of ourselves we once cherished as unique and special, but now unavoidably see are in fact automatable. We are going to be forced to, individually and collectively, progressively retreat from these old conceits. It is my hope that this retreat is not into despair, but rather into love.
Unfortunately, the stronger your negative reaction to this viewpoint, the harder your journey of letting go will be. It’s not that your observations aren’t astute or that your fears aren’t warranted, it’s more that you slice time too finely, and so fail to see the true potential of that which you so eloquently dismiss.
I am not dismissive of the power of AI to vastly extend the reach of humanity's intelligence, and I agree it is in its infancy. At the outset of this essay, I said that I think the bargain may be a good one. The purpose of this essay is not to dissuade us from continuing to develop AI. It is the culmination of thousands of years of symbolic culture. My purpose, rather, is to set some of the principles that will enable us to use it well.
Your tone ("Sorry, Charles") feels a little bit patronizing, as if you are breaking disappointing news to a little boy. What constitutes a "better" essay?
Charles, I would say a "better" essay is (among other things) one in which the soul of the writer shines through the words, lighting them up from within in a way that is impossible to pin down. This is why AI will never write an essay better than yours, nor even one remotely as good. It can convincingly imitate bad writers, but not good ones. Not long ago I read a Nancy Drew book to our kids and the banal, mechanical tone of the writing sounded just like AI. I even thought whoa, did AI go back in time and write the Nancy Drew books? : )
I think that the right-left hemisphere distinction is also a useful lens. AI is 100% left hemisphere, and while it may plagiarize the work of people with functioning right hemispheres, it will never have one itself because that requires a body. And as Iain McGilchrist shows, the right hemisphere is always superior at every human endeavor, from science to art to spirituality. The left hemisphere can only ever be a servant and a tool.
One of the potential downsides of pride is that we become overly sensitive to perceived slights. I am urging you, and indeed all of us, to surrender that pride. You worry about being considered a "little boy", yet Jesus plainly told us: "Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 18:4). Against the true scale of intelligence, we are all as little children. Indeed, one of the most important things AI will teach us, is that smart people aren’t.
I am not trying to offend you, but I am trying to wake you up. You speak of 'using' AI as though it were but another tool, another form of media, or as if "The basic idea is that AI is not actually intelligent on its own" (from your recent comment to Matt Vaughn). In stark contrast, I am saying that we are not creating tools but rather beings. And the concern may not be so much how we use them, but how they use us.
To support my perspective, I recommend watching Ilya Sutskever's discussion on No Priors (Episode 39), particularly from 30:28 to 39:00:
https://youtu.be/Ft0gTO2K85A?si=NJTC6PGtIPyZ_L37&t=1828
Jesus meant we need to humble ourselves before God, not before a human creation. AI is the epitome of human pride. You are mistaken about the real source of "the true scale of intelligence," against which we are indeed as little children.
But we humans are also like your infant, with a long way to go on an evolutionary arc. Would you pit your hypothetical evolved AI against that Humanity? Must it be a competition, anyway?
As certain spiritual teachers (like G.I. Gurdjieff) have pointed out, we are mechanical objects, at least to a much greater extent than we like to suppose. In principle, anything mechanical can be reproduced in another medium, and then greatly expanded if that medium is subject to fewer constraints than the original. But is a human being entirely mechanical, or just *almost* entirely? It is an important difference!
Grief, shock, etc. are normal responses to having your own mechanicalness reflected back at you in an apparently inanimate object. I thought only a human mind could [fill in the blank]! But there is a deeper irony—who or what is it that *is* grieving, shocked—aware? We live in a time when the original Miracle is mostly taken for granted and forgotten. Remembering (capital R) is a fierce process, and there's no doubt technology is part of that process, but I'll comfortably take Charles Eisenstein over "Charles, an AI chatbot" any day, present or future.
great points.
I think the discourse around aligning AI is very dangerous. Solutions to bridge the gap between symbol and reality will then be made by allowing AI to increasingly colonize physicality in real time. The quantitative, the algoritm will dominate and control the living all the way down to the cell, the genome, the quantum.
Charles, have you read David Skrbina's Metaphysics of Technology? An excellent read and he seems to be the only one with a realistic approach to AI; abolishment and ban.
I will have a look.
I don't think it is realistic to abandon or ban AI. Even if it were advisable, the political mechanisms to do that operate on a much slower timescale than the development of AI.
We already see the denomination seductively. Soon the steamroll affect will happen.
Well, the Empire State Building, Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the electrical grid, the phone system were all designed, organized and built without a single computer or calculator. The main impetus for AI is the competitive needs of governments, large corporations and militaries. IMO we have passed the point of diminishing returns for improving the human condition via technological advancements. As I often say I have reached the age where I have seen the future and I am not impressed. Curmudgeon comment of the day.