By admin 
Artificial intelligence has caused a variety of crises. Some fear rogue AI destroying humanity. Others worry about an AI investment bubble. And there is a backlash against the growth of data centers.
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Another crisis is also obvious: the rise of thoughtlessness. AI encourages the mindless manipulation of words and images. The artificial thinking of AI is a pale imitation of genuine thought. When we let machines generate words on our behalf, we miss out on the joy of thought.
Students using AI to write papers is an obvious example of artificial thinking. This also occurs when we use AI to compose an email, when we use it to write a business report, or when machines generate other content on our behalf.
Thinking is not merely processing information. Rather, thinking is an attitude, an activity and an orientation. Thinking requires mindful attention. To think is to care, and to pay attention. Genuine thought requires interest, engagement, and concern.
To say that someone is “thoughtless” means they are careless—even rude or insensitive. To say that someone is “thoughtful” means they are attentive, careful or mindful.
Thoughtlessness is a common human affliction. We repeat banal phrases without meaning them. We also engage in idle chatter, without taking heed of what we say.
Despite the appearance of cognition, AI does not think. AI does not dwell on thoughts or care about the words it generates. Nor does it experience joy in the act of thinking.
AI lacks existential engagement with what it produces. Machines are not concerned with anything at all. Rather, they manipulate words and images thoughtlessly.
AI is more like a printing press than a human being. It is not bothered or inspired by the words it prints. AI is similarly devoid of soulful engagement. It cannot be inspired or dejected by its outputs because there is no thinker behind artificial thought.
Words generated for us by machines lack existential depth. When we pass these words off as our own, we pretend these thoughtless words are our own.
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Thoughtlessness is tempting. Thinking is hard work. But thoughtlessness is a deficient attitude. Promises, threats, oaths and other meaningful words are supposed to be deeply rooted in the soulful labor of human thinking.
Thoughtfulness fills the soul. To dwell on an idea is to orient your entire being toward that thing. When we promise or pray, the soul is changed as a result of genuine thinking.
This is why it seems like a betrayal of our humanity to use machines to reply to emails, write papers or produce literature. The linguistic outputs of artificial thinking are phony. These words sound like the product of thought. But they are a mere echo of genuine thinking.
The phrase “cognitive surrender” has been used to describe what happens when machines think for us. This implies that the machines are somehow out to get us and that we have surrendered. But the machines did not assault us. Rather, we built them and embraced them.
When we capitulate to artificial thinking, we abandon our humanity. When the labor of thought is forsaken, we relinquish our identity as thinking animals. Unlike other animals, we make art, tell stories, write poetry, create laws, make promises and do philosophy. Those activities require education, attention, and practice.
The danger of artificial thinking is that it undermines this practice. If we stop practicing the discipline of thinking, we will lose the ability to think. When we stop exercising our minds, our capacity to think atrophies.
The result may be a superficial world of thoughtless words uttered without care—a world in which we have carelessly abandoned our humanity. To prevent this, we must resist the urge to offload our cognitive work onto thoughtless machines. And we must remember that thinking is a rare and wonderful achievement of the human spirit.
Andrew Fiala is a professor of philosophy and director of The Ethics Center at Fresno State.
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