AI should make us uncomfortable. That is a good thing

In the beginning was the word … and then we got the slide rule and the hand-held pocket calculator.

Innovation is as terrifying as it is extraordinary. Each breakthrough pushes us deeper into a blinding light of uncertainty, striking a fear that makes us long for the comforting warmth of the dark — the familiar ignorance of the previous epoch.

When it was introduced, the abacus invoked the ire of the algorists, who would write down their sums and saw the invention as an existential threat. Calculators would lead to the decline of our mental maths acuity, the critics said.

I remember, as a pilot, hearing warnings that digital computers would be the death of us, because by replacing our hand-held circular slide rules, they would erode our analogical sense of situational awareness.

Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type in 1450 and in one fell swoop wrested control of information, reading and writing from the church and placed it in the hands of new elites. Half a millennium later, social media would close the circle and, in the immortal words of Umberto Eco, give “legions of idiots the right to speak when they only once spoke at a bar after a glass of wine without harming the community”.

Artificial intelligence is the bogeyman du jour. Depending on who you listen to, it is either our next saviour or the end of civilisation, and humankind, as we know it.

Like everything, there’s a seed of truth in all of it. And that seed grows from the same enduring conundrum of progress: technological advances can free us, or they can add another hidden level of tyranny to our lives that we never imagined possible. As our expectations rise, we take what we have received for granted in our insatiable quest for more; AI frees up our time, only to distract us; we are given the gift of endless choice and then make none because of analysis paralysis.

Attendant risks

There is no doubt that there are huge attendant risks to AI, far more than in many previous technological leaps forward, because AI is brazenly being used to maximise profits and influence. We live in a world where we have never had so much access to information and yet are so woefully, and often wilfully, misinformed.

It is a cruel paradox that we are faced with a level of capability which has so much potential to damage ourselves, our thinking, our relationships, our trust, our authenticity. This technology can create an environment where everything becomes transactional and can be fake or deliberately fabricated. It also tends to amplify.

The temptation to give up and become subsumed in this is almost overwhelming. We defend against it by reflecting on how we have evolved, how and why we act and what we do. We need to be able to recognise the peril and protect ourselves, but we also need to find ways to harness this potential for harm and transform it for good. And that begins with understanding how the battle is actually being fought.

We are in the midst of a titanic struggle of ideas, where the weapons of war are premised on disinformation, fake news and arguments that are very cleverly constructed through the careful selection of facts and the omission of others, designed to win our consent.

We are always told to make reality our friend, but it is incredibly difficult when we are faced with a continually shifting continuum designed to devalue the truth and the basic hypothesis that people are honest. If we aren’t careful, we can become cynical and trust no one, but that is as dangerous as the other extreme of being too gullible. We have to cut through the noise: AI is being used to weaponise the pathos, inflate the apparent ethos of arguments, and simultaneously downgrade the role of factual logic.

But recognising this is not enough. The problem is that there’s no moment of stasis, a Eureka moment where you can say, “This is it, I’ve got it”, because, like riding a bike, you have to keep pedalling to stay upright. We have to keep evolving, engaging with and sifting the new information that we come across to calibrate our own knowledge. It’s a case of strong opinions lightly held; otherwise, we risk becoming dogmatic.

Critical thinking

This is why education is so incredibly important at this juncture. Learning how to think critically, how to form opinions and, especially, how to communicate clearly and authentically are all becoming vital skills in the thick of the battle of ideas. Our future literally depends on it.

Politics has become an increasingly centrifugal force, dividing people by identity while charlatans and rogues deny the obvious. AI often helps to fan the flames of misinformation, playing to the human weakness of confirmation bias — our tendency to search for, interpret, favour and recall information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs. This is dangerous because it creates echo chambers, reinforces stereotypes, leads to poor decision-making in business and politics, and fosters overconfidence, ultimately limiting critical thinking and perpetuating false beliefs.

But what if AI could be the unifying centripetal counter-force we need? Used responsibly, AI could help marshal resources to create arguments that are factual and logical, but that also appeal to our emotional insights and are uttered by people whom we trust. These could have an irresistible gravity, nudging people toward healthier, safer, and more pro-social behaviours and pulling humanity together to reduce inequality, confront climate change, and build a sustainable, just future. Not just for us now but for the generations that come after.

Schumpeter’s theory of creative destruction has never had a more powerful engine. AI could be the greatest catalyst yet for devising solutions to our problems at unimaginable speed, scope and scale, empowering humanity to control its own destiny in ways we have barely begun to conceive.

To make that happen, though, will take intention, effort and a willingness to put up with discomfort. Unlike the warm, narcotic embrace of prejudice and ignorance, which promises immediate comfort while mortgaging our future, building an inclusive society that benefits all of humanity will come with hard trade-offs and difficult conversations.

AI is powerful, yes, but ultimately, where it takes us will depend on our decisions in the here and now. And honing our ability to think critically and humanely in a world increasingly shaped by technology is the key. DM