Abdicating Human-ness
In Response to a Hedgehog Review article by Matthew B. Crawford
“AI as self-erasure: Humanity's will to disappear is being installed in the omni-operating system
It’s very clear that AI is going to change our reality and prompt a rapid evolution in human consciousness. Maybe it’s a little too early to declare that the evolution will in whole be quite negative. But it’s hard for me to think it won’t be.
I suppose that on the good side this evolution has already been underway for quite some time. Building on McLuhan’s notion of “the medium is the message (or massage), Neal Postman made the fact and the nature of the evolution abundantly clear in his masterful 1984 work, “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Postman’s hypothesis, which to my mind is undeniable, was that prior to the 20th Century the human consciousness was “typographic,” and defined by the ability to comprehend, and enjoy comprehending, linear and analogical communication through the written and formally spoken word.
With the advent of mass advertising and abbreviation of most public messaging, humans became increasingly attenuated to brief metaphorical messages that could be devoid of logic but still persuasive at a cheap emotional level. Postman skips over radio in talking about the transition from written to electronic communication (which I think leaves a historical hole in his story) and jumps right to television, which completely altered our political awareness. Personality became more important than issues, and showmanship replaced articulation of convincing arguments.
Postman died in the early 2000s, so missed most of the oxymoronic electronic flowering and holocaust of the mind that the internet has become. I don’t think there’s any doubt he would have been both horrified and gratified that the themes he wrote about became so manifestly obvious in almost every social and public sphere.
But now here we are, at a stage of human existence where we are collectively abdicating our most basic human responsibility … to articulate ideas and feelings not just with others, but with ourselves. In a profound way, this represents a very real alteration, if not end, to human thought. This conclusion is my own, but it’s not only mine, nor is it new. I’ve recently seen this idea shared by several different commentaries on related subjects, citing other writers and statesmen who have said similar things. I can’t remember if Faulkner is among those who I’ve seen cited, but he certainly comes to mind now, writing as he did in a letter something very much along the lines of “I don’t know what I think until I read what I said.”
In a nutshell, that is, in fact, exactly why I write essays like this one … to find out what I think, and to provide some sort of order and framework for jumbled thoughts. By self-consciously articulating my ideas, I am able to make ideas accessible and useful. Which is to say that no matter who might eventually read what I write, my first and most important audience is always me.
But I think it’s not idle mental chattering to wonder if this notion might soon become passé.
With the advent of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, it’s possible to simply command your computer to compose an essay over any given subject. I might, for instance, request an essay about how the arrival of LLMs could damage the human ability to rationalize complex thoughts, and how it might affect our ability – as humans – to comprehend and share fundamental ideas about the meaning of what it is to be human. Which is to say instead of thinking my way through this and writing it down, I could just ask ChatGPT to assemble an essay for me?
Would that be helpful or of any substance to me? Would it clarify my thinking? It’s unlikely. The commentary produced by AI would be third person in nature, because computers are not human. Are they?
But such an essay could and would undoubtedly be used by computer users who are unmotivated or incapable of stringing meaningful sentences together.
Alternatively, there’s no doubt in my mind that AI is already in the process of becoming a tool in service to capitalism’s sacred quest of “increased productivity.” Even the most adept writers won’t be able to match the speed that LLMs will provide. Nor will flesh and blood human writers be able, or probably willing, to provide the reliably conventional and formulaic thought and expression that conforms to the milquetoast lowbrow conventionality that captains of commerce and bureaucracies prefer.
Of course it’s not just tech writing and administrative memos that will be the province of computer generated communication. No, it’s already happening that AI will dominate the visual and musical arts genres as well.
Like everybody else who has given this question any thought, I am still in the process of trying to think through what the conquest of the arts by AI might mean to the human consciousness. Again, it’s hard for me to accept that AI domination of entertainment genres and visual arts might be a positive evolution.
The one thing I may … or may not … have decided is that trying to resist AI art is another version of trying to hold back the tide with a squeegee. Which is to say the transition is already in process and inevitable.
No doubt AI domination of the arts will work in synchrony with humanity’s surrender to the machine efficiency of AI language arts and functional communication. And together, the significance of humanity will be degraded?
Yeah. I think so. But I guess we’ll find out pretty soon. And who knows? Maybe, just maybe, I’m too pessimistic, and AI will prove to be a technological fix or strategy to survive climate change?
But I have my doubts.
Meanwhile I think it’s appropriate that many very smart people are thinking about what it might mean to be human, and how we might individually and collectively adapt to retain some sense of virtuous humanity.
Among those thinking about this subject and writing about it recently is Matthew B Crawford, a University of Virginia Scholar. The following short excerpt and THIS LINK are to an insightful article The Hedgehog Review. A worthy read.
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Seated next to me was a man who related that his daughter had just gotten married. As the day approached, he had wanted to say some words at the reception, as is fitting for the father of the bride. It can be hard to come up with the right words for such an occasion, and he wanted to make a good showing. He said he gave a few prompts to ChatGPT, facts about her life, and sure enough it came back with a pretty good wedding toast. Maybe better than what he would have written. But in the end, he didn’t use it, and composed his own. This strikes me as telling, and the intuition that stopped him from deferring to AI is worth bringing to the surface.
To use the machine-generated speech would have been to absent himself from this significant moment in the life of his daughter, and in his own life. It would have been to not show up for her wedding, in some sense. I am reminded of a passage in Tocqueville where he noticed that America seemed to be on a trajectory that would have it erecting “an immense tutelary power” that wants only what is best for us, and is keen to “save [us] the trouble of living.”