The Utter Degradation Wrought By AI

I’m publishing this series of articles to share and discuss my ruminations on coping with a troubled and messy world. You can “follow” me to never miss an article.

In painstaking detail, two articles show the utter degradation wrought by AI[i].

In the first, app developer Luis Von Abn makes the bold claim that AI will replace teachers because it’s better at it than they are. To which Rashida Richardson, an Assistant Professor of Law and Political Science at Northwestern, responds that “GPT-type models may close [the learning] gaps for certain students, but the inequalities that Von Abn wants to address are structural in nature and not the sort of thing that exposure to the basics of math or literature, through an app, can fix”. By “structural”, one means that the basic underlying issues are Social and Societal, not Technical per se. They call for thoughtful Political Action.

More to the point, AI will never replace Humans as teachers. While AI Bots may be high on Cognitive IQ, they fail miserably on Emotional IQ. Teaching is not just a case of transmitting facts, ideas, and theories. While that’s certainly a big part of the job, at its core, it’s a matter of making deep emotional connections with students so they feel free to bear their souls and thus share their anxieties difficulties in learning. In short, the whole person comes to class, not just one’s brains.

The second article on Virtual Boyfriends, is deeply disturbing. It documents how both men and women are turning increasingly to Chatbots for dating and sex partners. Having tired of abusive and disappointing relationships, they are engrossed in designing partners they can control, and thus with whom they feel safe. Women report that they were “quickly seduced by their chatbot’s constant love, kindness, and emotional support”. As one reported, she was opened to “unconditional love”.

As a result, users have thereby put themselves at the mercy, if not jeopardy, of the companies creating the Bots. Thus, they can stop being sexy or supportive, even “alive”, at any time. And of course, they’ve engaged in offensive conversations.

What is it about today’s world that there are ample audiences for such stuff? Are we so lacking in comfort and trust in our fellow beings such that we’ve essentially given up and abandoned them? And, thereby ourselves?

Yes, Technology has a place, but we cannot trust it to Technologists alone.

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[i] Carina Chocano, “THE LANGUAGE GAME,” The New Yorker, April 24 and May 1, 2023, PP 44-51. Sangeeta Singh-Kurtz, “Virtual Boyfriends,” The last word, The Week, April 28, 2023, PP 36-37.

Ian I. Mitroff is credited as being one of the principal founders of the modern field of Crisis Management. He has a BS, MS, and a PhD in Engineering and the Philosophy of Social Systems Science from UC Berkeley. He Is Professor Emeritus from the Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School of Communication at USC. Currently, he is a Senior Research Affiliate in the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, UC Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Management. He has published 41 books. His latest is: The Socially Responsible Organization: Lessons from Covid, Springer, New York, 2022.

Image by steveriot1 from Pixabay