AI's Little Victories Add Up to Huge Defeat
A malign pincer grips our weary souls as I peck out these words in the bleak dawn of early 2025. You feel it too. That dull ache in your ribcage ain't a cardiac event. It's the life force being throttled out of you by a twin-pronged assault from on high and below.
At the societal level, governments today are squelching any search for truth that conflicts with their narratives, which means that the more boldly bogus their narratives (What grooming gains? What gain-of-function?), the more squelching they need to do, until we're back in Soviet Russia, wondering how we're in the Gulag merely for pointing out obvious things ("There's no food") or asking honest questions ("Why is Stalin such a dick?"). I railed about this strangulation of truth last week. Hopefully, this threat has abated for Americans.
But the other threat hasn’t abated and is picking up pace like a cocaine addict’s straw moving across a mirror. Its claw is ripping into our existential vitals: the relentless advance of soulless artificial intelligence into every cranny of our days.
AI slithered in all coy and helpful: keeping our cars from skidding with anti-lock brakes, rerouting us around pile-ups, buffing up our sloppy spelling, finishing sentences as we type emails. All quite handy and efficient, right?
Until your tires hit black ice, or the GPS detours you through Chicago's worst neighborhood, or you’re fumbling for words mid-chat like a stroke victim, or your ability to spell deteriorates until you're like tough man author Mickey Spillane who said his character Mike Hammer drinks beer instead of cognac because he can't spell cognac.
AI gives us tiny conveniences but takes away our humanity in massive, unseen chunks. The tangible benefits blind us to the intangible costs.
It's a classic hemispheric head game.
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Eric Scheske
