I found myself thinking about Aquinas after finishing this piece. There’s something about the way AI and its ease of use captures our attention and enraptures our desire. Even for the “good things,” but it also facilitates a habitual disposition toward those things that is in some sense corrupting.
I think there is something difficult to think about with that that your piece raises. Maybe: that despite AI's ability to facilitate engagement with virtuous things, it somehow is false in the way by which we are disposed toward such things? This is an incomplete thought, but now I'm encouraged to close my computer and think about it, or maybe re-read an article of the Summa. I fear this may be a bigger question than I could even begin to contemplate here. Thank you for the thought! Big fan.
This is what is confusing: how could I have read and enjoyed this post without a smart phone? Some of my best reading now comes from different Substacks. And I learn a great deal from interviews and YouTube lectures. All of this is what I don’t want to give up. Is the challenge then just to curate your phone input?
"Is the challenge then just to curate your phone input?"
Although it varies from person to person, I think it comes down to recognizing when we’re becoming too saturated by tech, and knowing when to (and having the wisdom and discipline to) leave the screen to return to the world of real people, nature, real work/activities, etc. Easier said than done, of course!
I'd put it this way: Who is in charge, still you, or the machine? When, e.g., you notice that you'd mend to turn it off and go to bed but it's two hours later and you're still on the phone without actively choosing so -- then you're not in charge anymore.
Also, does it help you develop and grow? If so, good. Or does it maybe keep you from doing the stuff you know you should be doing in the real world, e.g. get to know your neighbors, clean your house, play with your kids, repair that piece of furniture etc.
Thanks for the article, @Peco -- I also stumbled upon that Dostojesky piece, read it, found it somehow a bit shallow, then found out it was partly AI-generated and though: well, taking THAT into account, it's actually quite something. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine fed all my substack articles into ChatGPT and told it to write an article about Ukraine in my style. The result was quite unimpressive, so I'd say there is hope that at least if you know an author, something will be missing if it comes from AI as connecting with a written text means ideally also connecting to the author's soul. I wonder what it must feel like to highly clairvoyant people to interact with AI, gotta ask one sometime :) Kind Regards Conrad
Ruth's reaction that finding out the text was AI seemed violating hits the nail on the head. It does seem deceptive and almost wrong when we are moved by something that is a machine's creation/something artificial. It would be like eating a delicious "homemade" cake by a famous baker only to find out they bought it from a factory...
I love the insertion of your own little experience in real life, while writing this piece. I think I might start doing something like that. And what a thing that is: one human being inspiring another. Somehow it feels profoundly different than one machine copying a human being.
What l about AI influenced readers? I have become aware of a trend, I don’t know how common it is, but I have read a few people online who say they do this, and they talk about it like it’s normal. These are people who read prolifically, between 50 and a 100 books a year. They track every book on an app like GoodReads then it generates some sort of report that they then read, with some interest it seems, to learn about their reading habits.
I’m not sure why I keep thinking about this, but something about it just seems off to me, there’s something of the uncanny valley there.
"Finger painters of impulse" - that's a striking image.
Your description of dabbling with AI reminds me of reading about the psychology behind Vegas slot machines, which now use buttons rather than levers, because being faster they allow more cycles per minute of play.
In The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew Crawford quotes a gambling addict from Natasha Schüll’s book on Las Vegas machine gambling: “If you can’t rely on the machine, then you might as well be in the human world where you have no predictability either.” Schüll’s book describes gambling addicts who have no interest in winning money, but rather feel relief at dissolving themselves into a relationship with the machine of the most basic nature: enter payment, receive permission to play. Press a button, receive a “spin”. Without needing to apply any skill or discernment, a sort of counterfeit 'flow state' is achieved.
Thank you for illustrating the pull in and out of the real world with the italicized interjections. A beautifully evocative piece.
Excellent Peco
BTW many don't know. AI is not a post modern invention. I worked on it more than twenty years ago...
I found myself thinking about Aquinas after finishing this piece. There’s something about the way AI and its ease of use captures our attention and enraptures our desire. Even for the “good things,” but it also facilitates a habitual disposition toward those things that is in some sense corrupting.
I think there is something difficult to think about with that that your piece raises. Maybe: that despite AI's ability to facilitate engagement with virtuous things, it somehow is false in the way by which we are disposed toward such things? This is an incomplete thought, but now I'm encouraged to close my computer and think about it, or maybe re-read an article of the Summa. I fear this may be a bigger question than I could even begin to contemplate here. Thank you for the thought! Big fan.
Thank you, Robert!
This is what is confusing: how could I have read and enjoyed this post without a smart phone? Some of my best reading now comes from different Substacks. And I learn a great deal from interviews and YouTube lectures. All of this is what I don’t want to give up. Is the challenge then just to curate your phone input?
"Is the challenge then just to curate your phone input?"
Although it varies from person to person, I think it comes down to recognizing when we’re becoming too saturated by tech, and knowing when to (and having the wisdom and discipline to) leave the screen to return to the world of real people, nature, real work/activities, etc. Easier said than done, of course!
I'd put it this way: Who is in charge, still you, or the machine? When, e.g., you notice that you'd mend to turn it off and go to bed but it's two hours later and you're still on the phone without actively choosing so -- then you're not in charge anymore.
Also, does it help you develop and grow? If so, good. Or does it maybe keep you from doing the stuff you know you should be doing in the real world, e.g. get to know your neighbors, clean your house, play with your kids, repair that piece of furniture etc.
Thanks for the article, @Peco -- I also stumbled upon that Dostojesky piece, read it, found it somehow a bit shallow, then found out it was partly AI-generated and though: well, taking THAT into account, it's actually quite something. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine fed all my substack articles into ChatGPT and told it to write an article about Ukraine in my style. The result was quite unimpressive, so I'd say there is hope that at least if you know an author, something will be missing if it comes from AI as connecting with a written text means ideally also connecting to the author's soul. I wonder what it must feel like to highly clairvoyant people to interact with AI, gotta ask one sometime :) Kind Regards Conrad
examples are, obviously, taken from my life, haha
Ruth's reaction that finding out the text was AI seemed violating hits the nail on the head. It does seem deceptive and almost wrong when we are moved by something that is a machine's creation/something artificial. It would be like eating a delicious "homemade" cake by a famous baker only to find out they bought it from a factory...
I love the insertion of your own little experience in real life, while writing this piece. I think I might start doing something like that. And what a thing that is: one human being inspiring another. Somehow it feels profoundly different than one machine copying a human being.
Dostoyevsky robot?
Invasion of the Body Snatchers?
;-o
What l about AI influenced readers? I have become aware of a trend, I don’t know how common it is, but I have read a few people online who say they do this, and they talk about it like it’s normal. These are people who read prolifically, between 50 and a 100 books a year. They track every book on an app like GoodReads then it generates some sort of report that they then read, with some interest it seems, to learn about their reading habits.
I’m not sure why I keep thinking about this, but something about it just seems off to me, there’s something of the uncanny valley there.
Very insightful piece. Thank you! God bless!
I will take advice from A/i but only if I can program it myself. I trust no others.
"Finger painters of impulse" - that's a striking image.
Your description of dabbling with AI reminds me of reading about the psychology behind Vegas slot machines, which now use buttons rather than levers, because being faster they allow more cycles per minute of play.
In The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew Crawford quotes a gambling addict from Natasha Schüll’s book on Las Vegas machine gambling: “If you can’t rely on the machine, then you might as well be in the human world where you have no predictability either.” Schüll’s book describes gambling addicts who have no interest in winning money, but rather feel relief at dissolving themselves into a relationship with the machine of the most basic nature: enter payment, receive permission to play. Press a button, receive a “spin”. Without needing to apply any skill or discernment, a sort of counterfeit 'flow state' is achieved.
Thank you for illustrating the pull in and out of the real world with the italicized interjections. A beautifully evocative piece.
Thanks, Sage!
And I too have read those parts of Crawford's book, and it's unsettling.