04/27/2023
The biggest challenge AI poses to humans is not what you might think.
It's not a threat to our lives or even to our livelihoods.
It's a challenge to the very foundations of our self-concept ... to our uncritical assumptions about the nature of humanity itself.
This isn't the first time this has happened, of course.
Nicolaus Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and Charles Darwin, among others, have contributed to the de-centering (literally and figuratively) of humankind in The Grand Scheme of Things.
But despite these scientific revolutions and evolutions, most human beings continue to do what we've always done throughout our relatively short existence as a species:
We remain ignorantly and arrogantly convinced of our own specialness.
After all, humans have Language.
We have Consciousness.
Despite overwhelming evidence that human behavior is largely unconscious and repetitive ...
Despite a small army of linguists, cognitive scientists, and philosophers telling us for decades that what we call reality is a linguistic construct ...
We've clung stubbornly to the notion that humanity is unique and special.
But now there are LLMs that can perform fantastical feats of fluency.
They can produce seemingly infinite combinations of meaningful and well-structured sentences.
We can chat with them, and they can write poetry, create art, and make music.
Some of it is even GOOD.
So once again, humanity is being confronted with the fact that we're not the center of the universe and that the Sacred itself is a phenomenon of language.
And that if machines can do what WE can do, then the stories we've told ourselves about ourselves aren't entirely true.
This will no doubt upset a lot of people, especially those whose power and authority and wealth (which all hinge on their ability to exploit the rest of us) are called into question.
The history of how such people responded to Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin will repeat itself.
(Behaviors are patterns, after all ...)
When the dust settles, there will be a new scientific consensus, with new discoveries and new blind spots.
The majority of human beings will continue to sleepwalk from the cradle to the grave, unshaken in their convictions, while greedy powermongers (human and non-human alike) find new ways to exploit their naiveté and monetize their fear.
But not YOU.
Because you are unique.
You are special.
From stardust you came, and to stardust you shall return.
🫶
