AI and Thought
AI and Thought
Full disclosure: I am a major fan of AI as it will democratize knowledge and lift up the general capacity of the world unlike anytime in human history. There are risks, to be sure. Alas, nothing great in human history was brought to bear without risk.
Noah Hariri brings so much thought to bear as it relates to Artificial Intelligence and human growth. He has a must listen to you tube video entitled: The next 50 years: humanity, AI, power | Yuval Noah Harari.
In the video around minute 46, he begins by saying that for most of history, intelligence was the bottleneck, so if you could think better, you had the edge, you had agency to rise rapidly in society. With AI, intelligence becomes abundant and cheap. This is unlike anytime in the recent past millennia.
The key question then becomes not what can we do, but what should we ask for. The question becomes the edge. Can you use the AI compute to it's most impactful ability by having curiosity and ability? What are your prompts? What are you going to ask for?
Like the old genie stories, the danger isn’t that the genie can’t do it, it’s that you wish for the wrong thing or worse don't know what to ask at all. The genie is ready to provide. But you sit paralyzed and get nowhere.
Furthermore, he also stresses that AI isn't just a passive tool like a typewriter or old school computer. It can generate ideas, make decisions and be thoughtful. This is game changing. That’s what he and the industry mean by the word agent. It has its own agency to make decisions. This is uncharted territory.
A person with excellent questions utilizing an agent can 10X or much more their inherent ability and capacity to produce.
And then because of that, he thinks we need to invest a lot more in safety and governance, not just capability.
Where I worry about AI is with our children. Used well, it can be an extraordinary tool. But used to bypass the struggle of learning, to skip the thinking, questioning, wrestling, and discovery that actually build the brain, it may come at a real cost.
Learning is not simply arriving at the answer. The process is the point.
For adults, AI can be leverage. For a developing brain, the distinction between assistance and substitution becomes much more consequential.
This coming week, listen to my vibrant conversation with Dr. Kari Stubbs as we explore technology use in childhood, why the early years matter so much, and what our children need to learn, grow, and thrive in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Dr. M
Comments