Daniel Dennett: 'Why civilisation is more fragile than we realised'

A less cynical way to think about the postmodern tech revolution is that it hasn’t completely subsumed the real, brilliant, chaotic world, but merely emphasized it as vital and precious. Artificial intelligence, in my view, continues this tradition. The only singularity it can truly achieve is one that understands humanity at its most inhuman (and ... See more

More subtly, it could result in a superintelligence realizing a state of affairs that we might now judge as desirable but which in fact turns out to be a false utopia, in which things essential to human flourishing have been irreversibly lost.

For the foreseeable future, the ongoing technological explosion will be driven by humans using previously invented tools to invent new ones; there won’t be a “last invention that man need ever make.” In one respect, this is reassuring, because, contrary to Good’s claim, human intelligence will never be “left far behind.” But, in the same way that w... See more

Technology has always been a double edged sword, bringing us longer and healthier life spans, freedom from physical and mental drudgery, and many new creative possibilities on the one hand, while introducing new and salient dangers on the other. However, the means and knowledge will soon exist in a routine college bioengineering lab (and already ex... See more

In its desperate hunger for clicks, much of the media has decided to endorse a maximalist interpretation of what AI might do. I’ve cataloged them before: disrupt every industry, eliminate poverty and need, send us off of into the stars, end death. Or, alternatively, threaten everything we’ve built, provoke dystopia, exterminate humanity. Take your ... See more

I think that the appearance of generative AI with its seemingly magical abilities to unleash the creative beast lurking inside all of us has broken our brains a little bit and it has become difficult to think straight when it comes to the intersection of the technology and humanity and what being creative involves.

I think that the appearance of generative AI with its seemingly magical abilities to unleash the creative beast lurking inside all of us has broken our brains a little bit and it has become difficult to think straight when it comes to the intersection of the technology and humanity and what being creative involves.

I think that the appearance of generative AI with its seemingly magical abilities to unleash the creative beast lurking inside all of us has broken our brains a little bit and it has become difficult to think straight when it comes to the intersection of the technology and humanity and what being creative involves.