{"id":1547870,"date":"2025-07-19T03:25:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T07:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1547870"},"modified":"2025-07-19T03:25:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T07:25:00","slug":"artificial-intelligence-breeds-mindless-inhumanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/artificial-intelligence-breeds-mindless-inhumanity\/1547870\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Intelligence Breeds Mindless Inhumanity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial Intelligence Breeds Mindless Inhumanity<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Bruce Abramson via\u00a0RealClearWire<\/a>,<\/em><\/p>\n

I began studying AI in the mid-1980s. Unusually for a computer scientist of that era, my interest was entirely in information, not in machines. I became obsessed with understanding what it meant to live during the transition from the late Industrial Age to the early Information Age.<\/p>\n

What I learned is that computers fundamentally alter the economics of information.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

We now have inexpensive access to more information, and to higher quality information, than ever before. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In theory, that should help individuals reach better decisions, organizations devise improved strategies, and governments craft superior policies. But that\u2019s just a theory. Does it?<\/p>\n

The answer is \u201csometimes.\u201d Unfortunately, the \u201csometimes not\u201d part of the equation is now poised to unleash devastating consequences.<\/p>\n

Consider the altered economics of information: Scarcity creates value.<\/strong> That\u2019s been true in all times, in all cultures, and for all resources. If there\u2019s not enough of a resource to meet demand, its value increases. If demand is met and a surplus remains, value plummets.<\/p>\n

Historically, information was scarce. Spies, lawyers, doctors, priests, scientists, scholars, accountants, teachers, and others spent years acquiring knowledge, then commanded a premium for their services.<\/p>\n

Today, information is overabundant. No one need know anything because the trusty phones that never leave our sides can answer any question that might come our way. Why waste your time learning, studying, or internalizing information when you can just look it up on demand?<\/p>\n

Having spent the past couple of years working in higher education reform and in conversation with college students, I\u2019ve come to appreciate the power\u2014and the danger\u2014of this question. Today\u2019s students have weaker general backgrounds than we\u2019ve seen for many generations because when information ceased being scarce, it lost all value.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to recall how recently this phenomenon began. In 2011, an estimated one-third of Americans, and one-quarter of American teenagers, had smartphones. From there, adoption among the young grew faster than among the general population. Current estimates are that over 90 percent of Americans, and over 95 percent of teenagers, have smartphone access.<\/p>\n

Even rules limiting classroom use cannot overcome the cultural shift. Few of today\u2019s college students or recent grads have ever operated without the ability to scout ahead or query a device for information on an as-needed basis. There\u2019s thus no reason for them to have ever developed the discipline or the practices that form the basis for learning.<\/p>\n

The deeper problem, however, is that while instant lookup may work well for facts, it\u2019s deadly for comprehension and worse for moral thinking.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A quick lookup can list every battle of WWII, along with casualty statistics and outcome. It cannot reveal the strategic or ethical deliberations driving the belligerents as they entered that battle. Nor can it explain why Churchill fought for the side of good while Hitler fought for the side of evil\u2014a question that our most popular interviewers and podcasters have recently brought to prominence.<\/p>\n

At least, lookup couldn\u2019t provide such answers until recently. New AI systems\u2014still less than three years old\u2014are rushing to fill that gap. They already offer explanations and projections, at times including the motives underlying given decisions. They are beginning to push into moral judgments.<\/p>\n

Of course, like all search and pattern-matching tools, these systems can only extrapolate from what they find. They thus tend to magnify whatever is popular. They\u2019re also easy prey for some of the most basic cognitive biases. They tend to overweight the recent, the easily available, the widely repeated, and anything that confirms pre-conceived models.<\/p>\n

The recent reports of Grok regurgitating crude antisemitic stereotypes and slogans illustrate the technological half of the problem. The shocking wave of terror-supporting actions wracking college campuses and drawing recent grads in many of our cities illustrate the human half.<\/p>\n

The abundance of information has destroyed its value. <\/strong>Because information\u2014facts and data\u2014are the building blocks upon which all understanding must rest, we\u2019ve raised a generation incapable of deep understanding. Because complex moral judgments build upon comprehension, young Americans are also shorn of basic morality<\/p>\n

We are rapidly entering a world in which widespread access to voluminous information is producing worse\u2014not better\u2014decisions and actions at all levels. <\/strong>We have outsourced knowledge, comprehension, and judgment to sterile devices easily biased to magnify popular opinion. We have bred a generation of exquisitely credentialed, deeply immoral, anti-intellectuals on the brink of entering leadership.<\/p>\n

When the ubiquity of instant lookup evolves beyond basic facts and into moral judgments, banal slogans and mindless cruelty will come to rule our lives.<\/p>\n

Is there a way out of this morass? <\/strong>Perhaps the only one that the ancients discovered back when information, understanding, and morality all retained immense value: faith in a higher power. Because the path we\u2019ve set on our own is heading into some very dark places.<\/p>\n

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nFri, 07\/18\/2025 – 23:25<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/ai\/artificial-intelligence-breeds-mindless-inhumanity<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Artificial Intelligence Breeds Mindless Inhumanity Authored by Bruce Abramson via\u00a0RealClearWire, I began studying AI in the mid-1980s. Unusually for a computer scientist of that era,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1547871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1547870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1547870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1547871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1547870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1547870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1547870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}