Can you use AI to think better or think more critically? Philosopher Pia Lauritzen says no. The second we give up to the shortcut use AI, we are letting go of the very basic condition that forces us to think.

When we ask if machines can think, the first question should be: why do humans think? Why do we think?

For Pia, it is fairly simple. We think because we know there is something we do not know. We have a problem. There is a gap. A gap between what I know and what I want to know.

So I have to start thinking. That is why I ask these questions and that is why I put up with this pain in my head of trying to figure something out that I do not know.

The machine does not have that problem. It does not know that it does not know.

It is like an animal.

It does not know that it does not know.

Of course it is a matter of how you understand thinking. But if you consult the old thinkers and not just the engineers and technologists, then you will have a really hard time finding anyone who would say that a machine could ever think.

And if it cannot think itself, why should it be able to help us think? We are the only ones who know how to do that.

This is the core problem. AI feels helpful. It removes the discomfort of not knowing where to start. It fills the blank sheet. But that discomfort is not a bug.

That discomfort is the feature. That discomfort is what thinking is.

And it is at this point that I am reminded of the scene in Con Air. Define irony.

Please enjoy the show.

Cheers,

Mark & Jeremy.

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