AI is Not Your Friend

AI is not your friend. There’s big trend in the making to not only interact with AI in more human ways, but to consider these tools as something like a human. While I personally believe (but it remains to be seen) that these technologies can likely one day elevate to the level of sentience, we need to be really careful about blurring that line between AI model and personhood.

It’s not about the machines. They’ll be fine. It’s about how we understand our own humanity. It’s about how we relate to other humans. It’s a matter of recognizing that there is value to these inter-personal relationships that we have treasured, struggled with, and relied on implicitly, at the very core of who we are as individuals and as a species, since long, long before we knew how to bake bread, tie shoes, or knock sticks together to make fire.

At the very core of our beings is trust in others. At the center of humanity is empathy and understanding. What happens when you stick a robot in the mix and confuse those deep seated, fundamental mechanisms of human relations? I’m talking about the AI companion trend here, among other things. I’d tell you where I think that will lead, but this post would get very dark, very quickly.

What are the impacts on a child when they grow up in an environment that blurs the boundaries of human emotion and sense of personhood? How does that impact development of relationships? What are they learning, or failing to learn, about things like empathy, connection, boundaries, respect?

With such deep principles at play, is it wise to plow headlong into disrupting those things? The impact of screens, dopamine-pumping apps, and algorithms in the last decade has been catastrophic for human well-being.

There’s a great interview Ezra Klein did with Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, where they discuss the impact these things have had on kids and education, and how we could prepare and use AI responsibly in that context. [1]

I’m also linking another post [2] from the Center for Humane Technology that briefly covers the broader topic here of humanizing AI, and the fact that it’s not just a trend being pushed for moral or ethical reasons. There’s a massive bottom line impact here, an economic force driving the messaging, lobbying, and corporate thinking about AI welfare and personhood.

Backing up and zooming out for a moment, I think it’s just very important to go clear-eyed into this future we’re building. AI will bring us phenomenal tools, enable a Cambrian explosion of creativity, and deeply transform our lives in many ways. But let’s not conflate that momentum with a moral impetus to blend the lines and tamper with the foundations of our humanity too quickly. Let’s take this part slow.

Links: [1]: https://lnkd.in/g4gW6m5y (Educating Kids in the Age of A.I. | The Ezra Klein Show) [2]: https://lnkd.in/gnqNsMui (Are We Having a Zeitgeist Moment on AI and Humanity?)