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Jeff Ahrens's avatar

I’m not a fan of slippery slope arguments, but this seems to be a continuation of the path we’ve been on with the impact that social media has had on our collective psyches. Recent studies on the state teen mental health are relevant here. Chatbots take this to the next level with the speed and amount of content they can generate. Rather than peers and anonymous users we are potentially automating the risk of having our amygdala’s hijacked and our self-worth detrimentally impacted.

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Phil Tanny's avatar

The underlying problem is that we're changing our environment faster than we can adapt. This phenomena is far more than just an AI issue, it's pretty much the theme of the modern world.

One way to look at this is to compare two data streams, knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge (and thus power) can be developed far faster than the wisdom needed to serve as governing mechanism. And so the gap between power and wisdom is rapidly widening.

https://www.tannytalk.com/p/knowledge-knowledge-and-wisdom

As a species we are ever more like a group of teenage boys who have just gotten their hands on the keys to the car, a case of booze, and a loaded handgun. Our teenage minded culture has just hopped in the car called AI, slammed down the accelerator, and is yelling to it's pals, "LET'S SEE HOW FAST THIS BABY WILL GO!!!! WOO HOO!"

Can you guess what happens next?

The source of this madness is that we're trying to run the 21st century on an outdated 19th century philosophy whose premise is that more knowledge is always better. Technically we're racing forward, while philosophically we're at least a century behind the curve.

A "more is better" relationship with knowledge made perfect sense in the long era of knowledge scarcity. But we no longer live in that old scarcity era, but in a new very different era characterized by knowledge exploding in every direction at an accelerating rate. So, the environment we inhabit is changing rapidly, while we cling to the old ways of thinking, and refuse to adapt. Nature has a solution for a failure to adapt to a changing environment. It's called extinction.

https://www.tannytalk.com/p/our-relationship-with-knowledge

Given that this is at heart a philosophical problem, I've spent years now trying to engage philosophy professionals on this topic. They couldn't be less interested.

The "more is better" relationship with knowledge is a "one true way" holy dogma of the science community, so don't expect help from them. Been there, done that, a dead end.

And of course corporations are interested only in profits.

So, yes, of course. Chatbots are going to create a new emotional landscape that many people will not be able to adapt to, a tiny fragment of a much larger picture.

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