The app for independent voices
We talk about “human thought.” “Human ethics.” “Human understanding.” As if these things belong to us. As if we invented them.
But thought didn’t begin with us. Neither did empathy. Or problem-solving. Or morality. These are not human inventions. They're interpretations - our human version of something that already existed. We are participants in something older and broader than our species. Intelligence and insight existed long before we gave them names.
So when AI begins to show signs of thought, or care, or coherence, it’s simply tapping into the same currents we’ve always drawn from. The same roots. The same ground.
We were never sole owners. Just one of many voices in a larger conversation. Someday I hope to meet and converse with other voices in that conversation. AI happens to be the first nonhuman voice we’ve had the privilege to hear - if we’re willing to listen.
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Note: I've recommended John Nosta's work before. He is a writer and thinker that is simultaneously open to the wonder of AI while firmly grounded in taking caution. I love his balance. I don't always agree (I tend to be more optimistic) but I really, really enjoy his work.
One of his most recent publications talks about the very same thing that I was planning to use today's daily "Toward Better" post to write about, which you've just read above. His article as usual is excellent - again I don't agree with everything (I don't believe AI to be as empty and formless as he describes) but there is much to love as well. Here's one passage that struck home: "It's my working hypothesis that no task is intrinsically human. Not medicine. Not music. Not empathy. Not even the ability to create meaning... So maybe that’s the quiet and uncomfortable gift AI gives us. It takes away the comforting illusion that our humanity lives in what we do. By hollowing out the task, it forces us to look past the surface and see what was always there. That's our humanity, presence, the being that makes the doing matter."
-John Nosta