I think it's important to cut through the marketing enthusiasm and techno-evangelism that is propelling "generative AI" to the forefront of seemingly every aspect of American culture right now. It's not truly generative, as you point out, being perhaps more accurately named "regenerative AI" given the manner in which it blends and processes the data it has ingested into the intellectual equivalent of the "pink slime" from which Chicken McNuggets are formed before being battered and deep-fried.
My approach to AI - and to technological change in general - has long been shaped by the work of two of America's great cultural critics, Wendell Berry and Neil Postman.
In 1992 Postman wrote a book called Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, and in 1998 he gave a speech called "Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change" - available here: https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs492/papers/neil-postman--five-things.html - that is an excellent capsule overview of his position in the book.
I don't think that AI is beneficial for our society; I've learned to be deeply suspicious whenever someone extols the convenience of something or tells me that it will revolutionize the way something is done without any cost to the doer. There's always a cost, and I fear (not without reason) that the cost of AI will be the loss of our free will.
I think it's important to cut through the marketing enthusiasm and techno-evangelism that is propelling "generative AI" to the forefront of seemingly every aspect of American culture right now. It's not truly generative, as you point out, being perhaps more accurately named "regenerative AI" given the manner in which it blends and processes the data it has ingested into the intellectual equivalent of the "pink slime" from which Chicken McNuggets are formed before being battered and deep-fried.
My approach to AI - and to technological change in general - has long been shaped by the work of two of America's great cultural critics, Wendell Berry and Neil Postman.
In 1987 Berry wrote an essay called "Why I Am Not Going to Buy a Computer" - you can find it here: https://classes.matthewjbrown.net/teaching-files/philtech/berry-computer.pdf - that includes his proposed rules for the adoption of a new technology.
In 1992 Postman wrote a book called Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, and in 1998 he gave a speech called "Five Things We Need To Know About Technological Change" - available here: https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs492/papers/neil-postman--five-things.html - that is an excellent capsule overview of his position in the book.
I don't think that AI is beneficial for our society; I've learned to be deeply suspicious whenever someone extols the convenience of something or tells me that it will revolutionize the way something is done without any cost to the doer. There's always a cost, and I fear (not without reason) that the cost of AI will be the loss of our free will.
Man, it's moments like this that I'm so glad you follow (and comment on) my work. Thank you for sharing those links, which I'm looking at now!