The $1 Trillion Question, Mortality in the Age of Generative Ghosts, Your Mind and AI, How to Design AI Tutors for Learning, The Imagining Summit Preview: Adam Cutler, and Helen's Book of the Week.
Magritte's "Son of Man" metaphor explores digital obscurity of reality. AI model collapse mirrors human isolation effects. Minds struggle without diverse input. Balancing AI benefits and genuine human connection crucial. Develop metacognitive skills to navigate this new landscape.
Generative AI promises personalized learning at scale but risks creating dependency. Complementary cognitive artifacts enhance skills; competitive ones replace them. Effective AI tutors balance engagement and autonomy, expanding human cognition without diminishing critical abilities.
Resolving a fundamental incompatibility with AI in human decision-making
When we first started working with AI, we did a survey of what people did and didn’t want AI to do for them.
Two things jumped out at us. First, the more personal a task is, the more there’s a social aspect, the less people want an AI to help. This means that people are comfortable with an AI that performs tasks for them like getting information or finding ways to save time or money. But they don’t want an AI to do social things like looking after children or being a friend. Humans like performing tasks with an intrinsic social reward themselves.
The second thing that jumped out is that people want an AI to help them make decisions like helping them to be healthier but they don’t want AI to make decisions for them like managing their health. This difference - help me decide versus decide for me - is a big deal when you consider the role of technology in our lives.
Agency is at the core of the human experience. We prize our ability make decisions, to act, and to choose our futures—individually and collectively. The act of making choices brings meaning to our lives. We live authentically by making choices of our own, not following the choices of others. And through making choices, we understand the meaning of our existence and we create our future selves. Agency provides us the power to become the authors of our lives.
The Artificiality Weekend Briefing: About AI, Not Written by AI
