AI Coping Is Spreading Like Wildfire
AI coping is spreading like wildfire. You don’t need to be worried about the people arguing we should stop / ban all uses of the technology. Those people exist already; we call them Amish. The people to worry about are the ones who pretend to be your friend. They want to help you by explaining what AI is and isn’t. They sprinkle in just enough facts and technical speak to make you trust them as an expert.
This is when they hit you with some misleading propaganda, making claims out to be settled facts, when they are still deeply contested. Look at this quote from a “Using AI in Project Management” webinar I recently sat through:
“We think as a human being we are having a conversation (with the LLM). You’re typing text and the machine is pattern matching on what it knows. Not know know, but what it has as analysis to be able to say probably this is a reasonable response.” - Mark
Mark combines factual statements with some derogatory humor. “You’re typing text and the machine is pattern matching on what it knows” is a fact about how LLMs work. It’s also a basic fact about how humans work. We spend years in school learning how to properly structure sentences and complex ideas.
“We think as a human being we are having a conversation.” Mark is only correct if we limit a conversation to being between two humans, but the real definition of a conversation is a back and forth exchange of news and ideas. We’ve all seen videos where a human has a conversation with a pet dog or bird. We also know that many different species communicate back and forth with each other. So as long as there is a back and forth, we are effectively having a conversation with the LLM.
The pinnacle of this subtle misleading propaganda is the statement “Not know know, but what it has as analysis to be able to say probably this is a reasonable response.” The transcript here doesn’t cover the chuckle and grin that was provided during the “know know” part, but Mark was making it clear that LLMs were inferior based on his perceived current shortcomings of the technology.
The reason this is so dangerous is that it gives people a false sense of confidence about barriers that likely don’t exist. Philosophers and medical professionals of many disciplines have debated for centuries about how we should define critical thinking, reasoning, consciousness and knowledge. These debates are likely to continue for centuries more. There are no laws of physics that say we cannot replicate these biological properties using metal based machines.
Here’s the test you can use.
Whenever someone is presenting an idea, as a fact or hard truth, ask yourself whether that area of science is settled and whether this person is an expert in it?