Changing ... automatic use of AI
© 2024, James McLean
Contrary to the mainstream's wild acceptance of the need to make everything in business AI-dependent, we should think twice. AI has risks other than taking over the world and ruling us (although that is a risk). We risk losing our creative thinking capability.
I use a little simple AI, and probably more than I know since it appears everywhere. My Zoom account has AI assistance. As I am writing this, a bot watching over my every keystroke is prompting me to change my grammar.
As an author, I recognise the importance of writing to learn what I think.
Learning to write is learning to think. You dont know anything clearly iunless you can state it in writing. - S.I. Hayakawa
The very act of writing my own sentences requires me to think things through. There is a great deal more discipline involved in placing words on paper or screen than thinking them. Crystallising the ideas, examining the reasoning, and generating a logical sequence that connects what I know, with what is becoming apparent, is important to thinking itself.
If we accept that the discipline of thinking and writing are connected, then on a purely pragmatic level, the idea of outsourcing our writing is ill-conceived.
But I object to the unthinking adoption of AI for functions that we might do ourselves for more philosophical reasons, too. The most important one is related to the big question I often ask people: "How do you really want to live and work?" This is a big question—almost a subversive question—because it asks people to reflect on the life they want to lead instead of blindly following what others tell them.
THINKING FOR YOURSELF IS SO IMPORTANT!
We should think carefully about the world we really want, and I believe that our choices can make a difference. The widespread overuse of AI is not a pre-ordained outcome delivered from Mount Sinai.
We have already seen the results of the first great social experiment with social media, developed by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Do we want another? Think for yourself. Don't give up anything that helps you think for yourself.
What do you think about changing... our capability for thinking through 'unthinking' use of AI?
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