This is a great post. Going to do a short, badly articulated response here, mostly as a way to commit myself to doing a longer, more coherent post on the topic.
But, broadly, all three risks are really new flavours of old concerns, and this is a good thing! It means that there's already a long line of thinkers who have useful things to say about the issues.
Finally, challenges to humanism arguably go back to Copernicus, but they really kicked off with Darwin, who set the charges for demolishing the idea of "human free will as the highest authority" by showing that humans were really just, as Neitzsche put it, "clever animals." This can seem very pessimistic, but it doesn't have to be. Essentially, by getting rid of "human free will" as a fixed thing, you lose a bit of mysticism, but open up a lot of creative possibilities.
I've always really liked the pragmatists, and especially Richard Roty, on this stuff. I'll try and flesh his ideas out if and when I get round to the post, but he gives a really good flavour of them in this quote:
"Nowadays, to say that we are clever animals is not to say something philosophical and pessimistic but something political and hopeful – namely, if we can work together, we can make ourselves into whatever we are clever and courageous enough to imagine ourselves becoming. This is to set aside Kant's question What is man? and to substitute the question What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?"
Really interesting. I agree that these risks to human agency have been around for a long time, though maybe they are especially severe with advent of AI? I’ve also been meaning to read Blood in the Machine.
Looking forward to your longer post on this topic.
This is a great post. Going to do a short, badly articulated response here, mostly as a way to commit myself to doing a longer, more coherent post on the topic.
But, broadly, all three risks are really new flavours of old concerns, and this is a good thing! It means that there's already a long line of thinkers who have useful things to say about the issues.
Cogntive enfeeblement goes back to at least Socrates, who worried, correctly, that the invention of wiritng has a terrible effect on memory: https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-1/socrates-on-the-forgetfulness-that-comes-with-writing
Job displacement goes back to the industrial revolution. As you sort of hint at in the post, the concern is less about the technology itself, and more about who gets to control it and how it's deployed. I keep meaning to read Brian Merchant's Blood in The Machine about this: https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-award/books/2023/longlist/blood-in-the-machine-by-brian-merchant/
Finally, challenges to humanism arguably go back to Copernicus, but they really kicked off with Darwin, who set the charges for demolishing the idea of "human free will as the highest authority" by showing that humans were really just, as Neitzsche put it, "clever animals." This can seem very pessimistic, but it doesn't have to be. Essentially, by getting rid of "human free will" as a fixed thing, you lose a bit of mysticism, but open up a lot of creative possibilities.
I've always really liked the pragmatists, and especially Richard Roty, on this stuff. I'll try and flesh his ideas out if and when I get round to the post, but he gives a really good flavour of them in this quote:
"Nowadays, to say that we are clever animals is not to say something philosophical and pessimistic but something political and hopeful – namely, if we can work together, we can make ourselves into whatever we are clever and courageous enough to imagine ourselves becoming. This is to set aside Kant's question What is man? and to substitute the question What sort of world can we prepare for our great grandchildren?"
Really interesting. I agree that these risks to human agency have been around for a long time, though maybe they are especially severe with advent of AI? I’ve also been meaning to read Blood in the Machine.
Looking forward to your longer post on this topic.