The rise of artificial intelligence
In recent years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has fascinated and engaged humanity in a way I have never witnessed in my life. It arrived as an uninvited guest, but it feels as though we have been persuaded, or perhaps brainwashed, to accept it as an inevitable future, full of progress and light.
Doubts about authenticity
I was struck by something mythologist Michael Meade said in a podcast. He pointed out that we live in a world that is becoming less and less real. He said that AI represents the pinnacle of the unnatural, as the name "artificial" suggests. "Artificial" means not real or genuine.
The line between real and fake
To some extent, I agree. But it seems too simplistic to simply see large language models (LLMs) as unnatural or disingenuous. These models are built on language; language is the tool Mead himself uses to communicate emotion. Some might argue that language itself hides reality; it is created not only to express and explain human emotions, but also to shape behavior, condition thought, and underpin the structures of culture, society, and community.
*LLM (Large Language Model): A type of artificial intelligence (AI) that is designed to understand and generate natural language used by humans.
Ethical and philosophical questions and the acceptance of AI
So how should we embrace this technology, which we are beginning to see as an essential tool for the future? What would our ancestors have thought about creations that imitated us, learned from us, but lacked compassion?
A personal reflection on AI
In my case, my initial use of AI was driven by curiosity and the belief that it would significantly improve productivity. I still believe in that potential, but my initial enthusiasm has waned as I recognize the deep ethical, philosophical and psychological complexities.
A ray of hope
But there was a silver lining: AI has forced me to dig deep into my own ethics, philosophy and worldview, giving me an opportunity to rethink what it really means to be human and reflect on the most important things in this life.
