When I was young and starting out with computers, programming, BBS’ and later the early internet, technology was something that expanded my mind, helped me to research, learn new skills, and meet people and have interesting conversations. Something decentralized that put power into the hands of the little guy who could start his own business venture with his PC or expand his skillset.
Where we are now with AI, the opposite seems to be happening. We are asking AI to do things for us rather than learning how to do things ourselves. We are losing our research skills. Many people are talking to AI’s about their problems instead of other people. And they will take away our jobs and centralize all power into a handful of billionaire sociopaths with robot armies to carry out whatever nefarious deeds they want to do.
I hope we somehow make it through this part of history with some semblance of freedom and autonomy intact, but I’m having a hard time seeing how.
I have to disagree. The only reason computer expanded your mind is because you were curious about it. And that is still true even with AI. Just for example, people doesn’t have to learn or solve derivations or complex equations, Wolfram Alpha can do that for them. Also, learning grammar isn’t that important with spell-checkers. Or instead of learning foreign languages you can just use automatic translators. Just like computers or internet, AI makes it easier for people, who doesn’t want to learn. But it also makes learning easier. Instead of going through blog posts, you have the information summarized in one place (although maybe incorrect). And you can even ask AI questions to better understand or debate the topic, instantly and without being ridiculed by other people for stupid questions.
And to just annoy some people, I am programmer, but I like much more the theory then coding. So for example I refuse to remember the whole numpy library. But with AI, I do not have to, it just recommends me the right weird fuction that does the same as my own ugly code. Of course I check the code and understand every line so I can do it myself next time.