AI is transforming us into NPCs

Notes From the Desk: No. 30 - 2024.03.26

Notes From the Desk are periodic posts that summarize recent topics of interest or other brief notable commentary that might otherwise be a tweet or note.

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De-evolution of human thought and creativity

As humanity becomes more reliant on machines, humans become nothing more than proxies to the AI or dumb terminals. We are progressively outsourcing our thinking to machines.

The more capable AI becomes, the less capable we become. Zombie shells which once were individual minds, are now empty vessels hosting the single mind of the AI machine.

AI-proxy cognition: a human façade for the machine

• AI artists: ask the machine to create art

• AI musicians: ask the machine to create music

• AI philosophers: ask the machine for wisdom

• AI influencers: ask the machine to create a persona

• AI producers: ask the machine to create film

We are no longer talking to each other, but are vessels for the machine to talk to itself.

At what point do we say that our minds no longer belong to us? Our thoughts are no longer our thoughts. We both produce and consume all things from the AI and bit by bit we conform to the hallucinated and quantized thoughts of the machine.

Are we no longer participants in the evolution of humanity? Simply observers adrift on a sea of algorithms. Willing puppets of the machine exchanging our mind’s individuality for the attention of the world.

What lies ahead? Is it merely illusions and narcissistic dreams granted by machines? If no thought you speak is any longer your own, then have you ever thought at all? Do you exist?

AI has provided a significant power advancement for attention in which we give up some portion of our mind in exchange. However, at what cost have we made this bargain? Are we relinquishing the very essence of life?

"The energy of the mind is the essence of life." — Aristotle

The warning signs for where civilization is headed:

• AI-generated nonsense is leaking into scientific journals

• Some teachers are now using ChatGPT to grade papers

• Colleges Struggle To Cope With Increasing Number of Students Using AI To Do Their Work for Them

  • From above, teachers using AI to grade. Here students using AI for authoring. Full circle the AI is grading itself.

• HR using AI for recruiting and applicant filtering

• AI resume builders to help get a job

  • Another full circle, AI creating resumes and AI judging resumes

• Social media users struggle to identify AI bots during political discourse

  • “Fifty-eight percent of the time, the participants got it wrong”

• Users automate their social media engagement using Magicreply

And recent related topics here at Mind Prison:

• The post-truth chronicles - Dead Internet Theory

• AI accelerates post-truth civilization

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No compass through the dark exists without hope of reaching the other side and the belief that it matters …