Is AI Empowering Nincompoops to Pose and Prosper?

 

Photo by Rachel on Unsplash

We live in an era when people with the intellectual capability of a lemon and the integrity of a centipede position themselves as authors, thought leaders, mentors, consultants and the new age abomination, influencers. These are people who would be laughed out of a nursery class, sound like a sugar cane crushing machine and have the gravitas of a mill-stone. Yet, all they need to do is to turn to the array of wondrous AI tools, and voila- they turn into Booker prize level writers, Sigmund Freud type of psycho-analysts and David Attenborough kind of documentary makers! Democracy, they say, is a government of the people, by the people and for the people, which is all very well, but it needs a system based on meritocracy to really deliver the goods. 

With everyone and their uncle convincing each other in their very own echo chambers that they are all the salt of  the earth, there is no place for critical thinking or the pursuit of truthful knowledge, ultimately resulting in the downfall of us as a species that has the ability to achieve wonders beyond belief. The post-truth world that we are busy constructing doesn’t have a rosy future at all. It can ultimately only result in Artificial Intelligence taking over our planet and extinguishing the flame of human endeavour and achievement that has burned bright for hundreds of thousands of years.

When people turn to AI to do creative tasks for them, it simply rehashes what has already been created by humans. It efficiently analyses data and efficiently discerns patterns on the basis of which it comes up with something that it thinks best approximates the task assigned to it via prompt. This by its very nature is pretentious, often repetitive and not really worthy of trust. How long can this go on before AI runs out of answers and solutions it can churn out merely by regurgitating old data. We are told this will change when Agentic AI truly arrives. When Agetic AI truly arrives, why will it need to pander to the whims, fancies and caprices of human beings. It might do so on its own.

Agentic AI may or may not say the light of the day, but in the meantime we are saddled with the problem of morons masquerading as marvelous human beings. That is because the number of plainly stupid people now have an audience of fellow zombies to whom they can pitch their drivel and even profit from it, while the real work is performed by the really capable who bear the burden of the trouble caused by a gargantuan army of simpletons imagining themselves to be visionary profits.

Human beings lived as hunter-gatherers and cave dwelling beings not much better than the animals around them for hundreds and thousands of years without making any progress in their lifestyle until someone figured out that it is better to farm for food than to hunt or scour dangerous landscapes for sourcing it. Millions of idiots purveying their AI generated nonsense to their equally stupid followers will doubtless hope to do so in perpetuity. But how can an edifice based on incompetence stand forever?

Sooner or later people, even the most stupid ones will realise that they are all collectively chasing a chimera, which is not actually helping them in any real way. That will hopefully teach people to be careful about whom and what they trust when it comes to acquiring knowledge or skills that may be of use to them. The bells and whistles of technology that enable content creators to come up with seemingly slick presentations cannot forever hold their audience in thrall.

 They will have to come to their senses for their own good. Currently, they are hooked to the dopamine rush that such content gives them and are willingly letting this kind of content consumption become a dangerous addiction. The day they realise the harm they are doing themselves, will be the day that they return to the straight and narrow path of honest, diligent and genuine work that actually creates value for themselves and others.