I really appreciated this article, particularly how you emphasized disassociation and agency. This piece gave me words and concepts for what I have also been asking questions about / struggling with as I think with machines. Where my thinking ends and AI begins is becoming increasingly difficult to parse the more I use it, and I don't yet feel moored by a clear ethical framework to navigate this. I’m still unsure whether we’re treating AI with undue exceptionalism, or whether something genuinely distinct and urgent is happening now. One thing I hadn’t yet thought about was how you emphasized AI is situated within a longer history of deskilling and compartmentalization; Marx’s contributions on alienation and Ander’s ideas around promethean shame and human/technological obsolescence came to mind for me here. I completely agree that professional subjectivities are in need of “repair” and am trying to explore this more fully as a community planning professional myself.
I found myself particularly engaged by your description of technology’s “obscureness” and the role it plays in what I think you are describing as social and ecological injustices. I think you touch on two distinct modes of obscureness – cognitive and political.
Speaking to the cognitive, I appreciate your point about how the status quo of technological design further separates us from each other, material life and nature, but I question if there is not always something that can never be fully “known” between humans and non-humans. I question if we can ever escape some degree of unknowing or achieve total transparency; I suspect our technological practises will always have an element of this. Notably, humans already live with internal, non-conscious, non-transparent intelligences (e.g. the unconscious mind is critical to habit formation and learning consolidation) and yet the human mind can nevertheless persist as an integrated agent. Relatedly, I think part of what is so seductive about thinking with machines is its offer of what feels like coherence, which is at once intimate and unsettling. And this is, as you note, ripe grounds for monetization and exploitation by capitalist interests, with profound consequences for our mental health.
The larger problem for me, and something you touch on in reference to social media coercion, the material conditions of technological production, and data weaponisation, is one of political economy. We are not only disassociated from each other, material life and nature, but also from agency over who builds, owns, profits from, and imposes these machines. Addressing this is in the realm of ethics and governance. Your piece left me asking myself - if, in theory, it was possible to think with machines in an undeniably ethical and democratically governed way, what risks would remain?
Thank you for such a thoughtful and challenging piece—I’m grateful for how much it’s given me to sit with.
Thanks for shining your light, Eleni. I take such comfort that there are minds and hearts such as yours - it gives me the strength I need to add my voice to the resistance, especially on days where it feels like we're trying to sweep the tide back with a broom.
Agree so hard! It seems even worse, because the little we do know of the 'workings' of AI is quite disturbing.
It seems indisputable at this point that the tech broverlords have outright stolen most of what comprises the LLMs that power the AI, which means the entire thing is built on an unethical foundation.
We also know that these LLMs overwhelmingly comprise content from ultra-capitalist, individualistic societies such as the USA, which prioritise the views and values of certain demographics: White, heterosexual, male, domination of nature, etc. This content is then translated into foreign languages and so the AI can thus respond to user prompts in language that seems native to the user, but with cultural assumptions and values that are not local and authentic to that user. If we use AI tools in ways that result in a lack of trust in our own thoughts, values and experiences, where does that leave users from cultures with very different existing values?
I'm exceedingly unimpressed by where post-capitalist values are leaving the USA - I definitely don't want to see this deadening dissociation spread by stealth to other cultures!
AI reminds me of a hammer; absolutely great at a certain set of tasks, but appallingly harmful for most others. I worry what could be irretrievably lost before this is obvious to everyone.
I really appreciated this article, particularly how you emphasized disassociation and agency. This piece gave me words and concepts for what I have also been asking questions about / struggling with as I think with machines. Where my thinking ends and AI begins is becoming increasingly difficult to parse the more I use it, and I don't yet feel moored by a clear ethical framework to navigate this. I’m still unsure whether we’re treating AI with undue exceptionalism, or whether something genuinely distinct and urgent is happening now. One thing I hadn’t yet thought about was how you emphasized AI is situated within a longer history of deskilling and compartmentalization; Marx’s contributions on alienation and Ander’s ideas around promethean shame and human/technological obsolescence came to mind for me here. I completely agree that professional subjectivities are in need of “repair” and am trying to explore this more fully as a community planning professional myself.
I found myself particularly engaged by your description of technology’s “obscureness” and the role it plays in what I think you are describing as social and ecological injustices. I think you touch on two distinct modes of obscureness – cognitive and political.
Speaking to the cognitive, I appreciate your point about how the status quo of technological design further separates us from each other, material life and nature, but I question if there is not always something that can never be fully “known” between humans and non-humans. I question if we can ever escape some degree of unknowing or achieve total transparency; I suspect our technological practises will always have an element of this. Notably, humans already live with internal, non-conscious, non-transparent intelligences (e.g. the unconscious mind is critical to habit formation and learning consolidation) and yet the human mind can nevertheless persist as an integrated agent. Relatedly, I think part of what is so seductive about thinking with machines is its offer of what feels like coherence, which is at once intimate and unsettling. And this is, as you note, ripe grounds for monetization and exploitation by capitalist interests, with profound consequences for our mental health.
The larger problem for me, and something you touch on in reference to social media coercion, the material conditions of technological production, and data weaponisation, is one of political economy. We are not only disassociated from each other, material life and nature, but also from agency over who builds, owns, profits from, and imposes these machines. Addressing this is in the realm of ethics and governance. Your piece left me asking myself - if, in theory, it was possible to think with machines in an undeniably ethical and democratically governed way, what risks would remain?
Thank you for such a thoughtful and challenging piece—I’m grateful for how much it’s given me to sit with.
Thanks for shining your light, Eleni. I take such comfort that there are minds and hearts such as yours - it gives me the strength I need to add my voice to the resistance, especially on days where it feels like we're trying to sweep the tide back with a broom.
Agree so hard! It seems even worse, because the little we do know of the 'workings' of AI is quite disturbing.
It seems indisputable at this point that the tech broverlords have outright stolen most of what comprises the LLMs that power the AI, which means the entire thing is built on an unethical foundation.
We also know that these LLMs overwhelmingly comprise content from ultra-capitalist, individualistic societies such as the USA, which prioritise the views and values of certain demographics: White, heterosexual, male, domination of nature, etc. This content is then translated into foreign languages and so the AI can thus respond to user prompts in language that seems native to the user, but with cultural assumptions and values that are not local and authentic to that user. If we use AI tools in ways that result in a lack of trust in our own thoughts, values and experiences, where does that leave users from cultures with very different existing values?
I'm exceedingly unimpressed by where post-capitalist values are leaving the USA - I definitely don't want to see this deadening dissociation spread by stealth to other cultures!
AI reminds me of a hammer; absolutely great at a certain set of tasks, but appallingly harmful for most others. I worry what could be irretrievably lost before this is obvious to everyone.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and looking forward to reading what you come up with regarding the last question.