AI and the return of discernment

The internet is the information highway. And there is no speed limit.

The human mind is overwhelmed by the sheer of information that is present on the internet. There are millions of hours spent everyday posting text and video information at all times of the day, more than ever could be observed by viewers. Posting a tweet is like throwing a pebble into the rushing water of Niagara Falls, the likelihood of people seeing it is slim to none.

Information has become shorter and skimmable. It has to be digested quickly, because people are drawn to the next thing, and the next.

With such an abundance of information, our ability to discern what is true or right is extremely difficult. AI is actually making this harder already. If we have a hard time discerning what is true because of deceptive words of humans, it is going to be much harder to discern what is true when AI can generate text and images that look absolutely real.

Conversely, however, AI is also going to open pathways for us to reclaim our ability to discern and to think critically, observing and evaluating nuance.

AI is able to synthesize for us all available data and simplify for us the core message of a large host of information. We, in turn, can use our skill of discernment to determine what to do with the aggregated data.

In other words, rather than spending our time searching and scrolling and reading and watching, AI is able to do it for us in nearly an instant.

Our current system of information collection burdens us with so much stimulation that we often take everything we see and read as true. When AI becomes our information synthesizer, our conversation partner on the collected data, we regain our ability to be skeptical, to ask questions, and reason according to our values and morals.

Whereas the internet and social media has encouraged prolonged passive consumption, AI takes on the consumptive nature of information collection and pushes us to become active participants in search.

This reallocation of energy and effort allows us humans to sharpen our ability to navigate complexity and reinforces our human agency.

AI is great at analyzing patterns, but we as humans are great at weighing out implications of those patterns according to our values or to find deeper truths within the information.

As AI grows, so, too, will grow our skill of reasoning.

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