AI is a Ghost
We have built a creature that thinks but does not feel. What, then, have we built? A ghost?
Dear Reader,
Are you keeping well? I hope you are. Last week was dreadful. Heavy and long. Now forgive me if this feels like a rant.
Lately, I have been obsessed with two questions.
What does it mean to think?
Why are we making AI to think?
Not just to process, analyze, or respond but to truly think.
A couple of nights ago, I was browsing through my bookshelf for the next read and came across Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus. And a sentence came back to me, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy”. But then I kept thinking, would Camus still insist on Sisyphus’s happiness if the one rolling the stone wasn’t a man, but a machine?
**sigh** Being an overthinker is more a curse than a gift.
I then saw all my precious hoardings of Nietzsche, Camus, and Dostoyevsky. Then it kept me thinking, yes AI can sure write or mimic them, but how can it ever despair like them? Why I love them the most is not because of what they wrote, but what they had to go through for what they wrote. Whatever has been born from suffering, and the same suffering we feel when we read them. There is some soul in their work, and that is the difference, because it is the real thing.
Recently, I’ve been trying to reduce my overconsumption of social media and the digital world, because I have had enough. All the brain-rot scrolling through AI-generated content or what some call insights has become too much. What is real, what is not, I do not know. It is scary to even imagine the overuse of it creeping into our lives. Every day I see or hear about another “AI-powered” innovation or idea, each claiming to replicate or even make intelligent insights or, on some crazy days, even surpass human capabilities.
All this superintelligence, but what are we trying to become here? God? To manufacture or create a form of cognition that mimics not only our capabilities but our consciousness?
If any divine force is indeed responsible for our existence, (call it nature, God, evolution, call it what you will), it did not just design intelligence, but has infused wisdom that is lived through, not just data driven.
So, intelligence vs. wisdom? Can we ever attain wisdom just by having intelligence?
However much we claim or cry that AI will take our jobs, replace human or social connections, it just won’t. Really? AI friend? AI therapist? AI pet? It is just a temporary relief. Perish the thought, AI does not even exist, does not live, it is just functioning. These machines are trained on our knowledge, books, conversations, history, and they are recombining and rephrasing. Most of the stuff we see online is purely noise or a well disguised previous form of it in the original source.
We are building systems that think, or at least simulate thinking, without ever having “being”. Meaning, we have built a creature that thinks but does not feel. What, then, have we built? A ghost? Because we are beginning to mistake the shape of thought for the thought itself
Everybody and everything around us is behind this race of using or creating AI. Everyone asks what can AI do? But the more important question is, why do we want it to do it?
Don’t take me wrong. I use AI and I am also intrigued by its possibilities. Yes, 100% on board, automations sure can improve efficiency, but there is a limit to it. Why are we so obsessed with outsourcing everything we are capable of doing? Are we pursuing efficiency or are we just exhausted to do it ourselves? Is AI helping us, or are we just cowards who won’t accept that we are not perfect, efficient? When I say this, well, it is not for everything, but please, why are we relying on AI to even frame a thought in our head? To think?
There are things only human mind and heart can bear. And the price of it is “being”.
Yours in thought,
Yana
Thanks for creating the contents on AI Ghost. AI is a integral part of our life and you will find the presence of AI in every sphere of the life. I remember the days going one place to another place was a big challenge. You have to ask for a particular address 10 people then Also you were confused nowadays just put the Google map and you will reach to the destination without asking anyone. That is the revolution has been brought by AI. Life has become easy with the AI but it can never replace the human intelligence. It is your baby. Whatever you have taught him he will obey and everyday you are teaching. AI in fact does not have its own intelligence?. It cannot use it's own intelligence. It is all up to you you want to be victims of or convert to your advantage. AI ghost or you want to use this ghost as a servant or master and choice is yours. Surely AI ghost has made life easy, particularly in the navigation area. If you use the phone, your privacy is always at a stake. Nowadays, the human touch & human presence is missing in the life because of this AI ghost. Nowadays even you can get AI girlfriend and boyfriend. People are glued with AI. It is very hard to detect whether it is AI created or it is a man created. Even I am writing this content. I am just speaking my mind and the AI is writing for me. Don't you think it is a time saving machine and I am penless but still writing. This ghost has become permanent guest of our life. The choice is in your hand whether to keep a guest and treat him as a guest and allow him to go to visit other places. Also don't confined him in your own home.