What we give up

If the computer is the bicycle for the mind then AI is like an e-bike, removing the human effort required to move from one place to another. There are, no doubt, ways to use the technology without outsourcing human effort entirely, but the human as a thinking being — our capacity to think deeply, to think critically — feels at risk.

What I believe we’ve lost sight of is the value of experiencing what it means to be human and to discover ourselves… To “become” in other words. To say that there is “value” in that falls short of the point, I think. Because it’s not just that it’s valuable, but it’s critical to what it means to be a human being. What’s left in its absence is a flattening of the human experience; reducing the human mind to that of a passive consumer, one who is taught what to like, what to think, and how to feel.

But living cannot be a passive vocation. For every breath we take we are in communion with the greater world around us. Every physical interaction leaves an imprint, no matter how small or trivial it may seem, upon the world. When I leave my house in the morning the sparrow that has made a nest in our wreath bursts out and sits on the tree branch watching me. I effected this, no one else. To be passive, to not have opinions, beliefs, preferences, desires, is simply not a choice no matter how alluring that may seem and how much we are given this message.