For a long time, I have struggled with how to deal with AI. There are some very valid objections circulating about the new medium, especially as it pertains to minors. But somehow this discussion did not seem to get to the core of the matter. Like AI itself, it lacks depth.
I know AI can be bad for minors, but it can also be horrible for adults. There is something deep and mysterious inside these algorithm-driven applications that no one completely understands. For this task of probing, AI is useless.
We need something personal and human to understand the aggression that we feel from this fast-moving innovation that is invading every aspect of our lives.
The Need to Ponder
Thus, I stopped, disconnected from everything and thought about this AI revolution. I wanted to do that which AI cannot do: think and ponder.
I needed to get away from the clutter of so much commentary and hype. I wanted above all to avoid asking AI about AI. It took some time to disengage, but gradually, some ideas emerged that helped me formulate a response that might take several articles to develop. I also used notes from meetings of the Brazilian thinker Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira on this subject, when it was still in its early stages in the eighties.
This silent pondering set in motion considerations that I hope can contribute to the debate of regaining our humanity.
Exercising Our Highest Faculties
Indeed, I think dealing with AI involves regaining our humanity. We need to rethink how we address our technology, especially as it comes to dominate sectors of our time and culture.
Let me begin by saying I have no problem with machines doing grueling and tedious work. Technology has always helped in these tasks. They tell me AI can do some of these tasks.
However, I think the problems of AI run deeper than just doing repetitive work. AI intrudes upon areas that do not belong to it.
We are composite beings made up of body and soul. The most important element is the soul. We exercise the soul’s highest faculties through reasoning, pondering and judgment.
Using these functions should, in turn, orient and guide the will to do what is good, moral and beautiful. We are most human when we put to use these highest faculties of intellect and will that often take time to work out. We wallow and debase our humanity when we give in to our unbridled imagination, sensibilities and passions.
I contend that AI tends to supplant the speculative, reflective and contemplative tasks that define our humanity. It vastly favors the instant, the superficial and the exercise of fantasy.
Frenetic Intemperance
This attack on thought is nothing new. The speed of our industrial society has long imposed a brutal pace of life. It has produced a nausea for reflection, a shallowness of thought and a wearing away of all that is most human.
These factors have facilitated what might be called a “frenetic intemperance,” giving rise to individuals who demand instant gratification, whatever, whenever, wherever, regardless of the consequences.
I think AI takes these processes, set in motion by the industrial and online worlds, and intensifies them. It quickens and puts them on steroids. With AI, we are forced to run faster and ever more breathlessly to keep up with the flood of data and interactions it imposes on us. AI spits out sloppy data, insipid dialogue and endless artificial commentary that our laziness will not bother to correct, nor will our minds seek to process fully.
I cannot help but feel that this action is a violence against our humanity. The AI revolution accelerates the pace of life to the point that it tends to destroy the organic thought processes that help us live calm, reflective lives. It takes away our opportunities to think and ponder, replacing them with distractions at the click of a mouse.
What AI Can’t Do
Some might find uses for AI that they deem beneficial. My commentary is not about what AI can do. I do not wish to enter into this utility debate because so much of the popular AI scene consists of hundreds, even thousands, of wasted hours spent on trifles that make up the lives of so many—instant answers, silly videos and virtual relationships. What AI can do is blot out so much of what is important in life.
Thus, I am above all concerned with what AI can’t do. God created us for pondering, wondering, meditating and analyzing so that we might better know, love and serve Him. What we cannot expect from AI is that it will inspire the higher faculties of the soul that impel us to seek after our final end in God. These tasks will be left undone.
Thus, we cannot expect culture to flourish. Josef Pieper writes that the leisure of thinking, pondering and celebrating together what God has given us is the basis of culture. “Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, Pieper writes, the ability for nonactivity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture and ourselves.”
This time spent in silence and contemplation fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world, and, above all, the sublime things in Creation. Indeed, religion is born from this leisure. Pieper concludes that “the greatest menace to our capacity for contemplation is the incessant fabrication of tawdry empty stimuli which kill the receptivity of the soul.”
In an AI world, such activities are deemed useless. It does not fit into its algorithms or chat sessions. But these are the things that make life worth living. I do not want to live in an AI-driven world without pondering and wonder.
Photo Credit: © GamePixel – stock.adobe.com
First published on TFP.org.