AI Will Make You a Dumber Writer

As if that were possible

The actual title, from the Literary Hub, was:

AI will make you a dumber writer, says science

Obviously written by someone (likely from the humanities or by AI that knew it was going to be chatting within an unaware of Science 101 domain of discourse). Science doesn’t say or teach anything — is not a source. It endeavors to repeat.

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts. When someone says ‘science teaches such and such’, he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach it; experience [Nature] teaches it.” (Richard Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, p.187)

From the humanities I learn that ‘science teaches…’ and ‘science says…’ are equivalent statements. To have even a slight grasp of one’s ignorance is to consider that Feynman is among only a few to likely had a better understanding of what science (a way of tentatively iterating towards knowing, of finding things out) is and isn’t.

Nature, the nature of things, is the only one who is always right. Humans as a source (an expert anointed by self/other) pretend to speak for Nature, to be a source who teaches or says what is true. The condition of modern humans listening to expert primates is a lethal dysfunction long term (a failure to listen to Nature who has all the answers about what works to persist long term).

We will come to love AI too, in the humanities and sciences. And meanwhile…

…as we follow the piper in our merry dance… the pace of planetary destruction will not slow. Have a nice Anthropocene.