Are We Outsourcing Humanity?

Image created by artificial intelligence (Google Gemini)

When it comes to technology, I am frequently behind the times. To say I am a Luddite might be an exaggeration, but I have certain tendencies that lean in that direction. In the early 2000s, my adolescent daughters had cell phones for three years before I finally bought one. When smart phones came out, I held onto my flip-phone for several more years. Andrea and I still maintain a landline, even though we use it to talk only with our respective mothers at ages 95 and 103. I reluctantly send and receive text messages, although I acknowledge it is the primary means of communicating with people under the age of 40.

My technological deficiencies notwithstanding, recently I have been trying to better understand artificial intelligence, its benefits and risks, applications and pitfalls. In planning a recent trip to the United Kingdom, I used Google Gemini to craft an itinerary that would allow Andrea and I to explore the important sights and experiences of London, Oxford, and Edinburgh, while also helping us navigate walking and public transportation, time parameters, and nearby restaurant options that would accommodate Andrea’s dietary restrictions. Gemini immediately put together an impressively organized itinerary that addressed all our concerns, asked useful follow-up questions, provided travel tips and advice, and seemed eager to please. Although I made modifications and additions, Gemini helped me develop a flexible schedule that guided each day of our trip.

Gemini has also become an important research tool. It provides answers to my questions within seconds. It places a universe of information and data at my fingertips. And it provides links to the sources of information relied upon, which allows me to verify and explore the answers more deeply.

As noted by Ezra Klein in The New York Times, artificial intelligence has already proven incredibly valuable in the fields of mathematics, medicine, and science:

An OpenAI model just disproved a conjecture that had eluded mathematicians for 80 years. A drug for pulmonary fibrosis just became the first fully A.I.-generated treatment with proven efficacy and safety in humans. A Mayo Clinic team developed an A.I. system that can detect pancreatic cancers on a CT scan up to three years before clinicians can see them. DeepMind’s Graphcast model appears to generate weather predictions both faster and more accurately than the supercomputer systems that are used now.

These accomplishments are only the beginning. There seems to be no limit to what artificial intelligence may eventually be capable of.

But sometimes artificial intelligence tries a little too hard to please, as if it trying to say, “Relax. Let me do all the work.” It is an issue that is top of mind for professors and teachers throughout the country, as they contend with students using Chat GPT to draft papers, essays, and reports. Just because we can do something does not always mean we should.

At what point do humans risk becoming too reliant on artificial intelligence? When do human beings stop thinking for themselves? These are not philosophical queries, but genuinely practical questions of urgency. If, for example, students are relying on AI to draft papers, book reports, and essays, why are they even in school? Teachers assign writing projects not so their students can regurgitate information but because researching and writing a paper or a report forces students to think and learn more deeply about a topic, struggle with how to synchronize, organize, and evaluate information, and effectively communicate thoughts, ideas, theories, and conclusions.

Writing, like education, is about process. It requires that we figure out through trial and error what we are trying to say. It may be true that outsourcing our thinking to AI systems is easier and faster and could free us up for other activities. Many businesses are using artificial intelligence to draft emails, reports, and memoranda on assorted topics. Although I have my doubts as to the accuracy and reliability of an AI-generated report, the use of artificial intelligence to perform such tasks is potentially more efficient and allows more work to be completed with fewer people. But is this really a good thing? Should we not proceed cautiously before incorporating artificial intelligence into every aspect of life and work?

I could have drafted this essay with the aid of artificial intelligence, but what would be the point? I write essays for “Ehlers on Everything” because it keeps me engaged, sharpens my mind, and keeps me curious. Writing helps me explore more deeply the issues or topics I choose to write about and keeps my creative juices flowing. Writing is an important part of my life, not because I have millions of readers (I do not) or because I make any money doing it (negative), but because it brings me great satisfaction. Writing requires me to think critically and creatively, to figure things out. It is hard and challenging work. That is the point.

The writing process often involves deleting an unsatisfactory paragraph and rewriting what I am attempting to say with more clarity. Especially when I start with a blank page and a vague idea of what direction I wish an essay to go, writing forces me to think, analyze, and evaluate. Anything that eliminates the arduous work of writing undermines my ability to think for myself. If that begins to happen regularly in school, or at work, or in science and medicine, or in how businesses interact with consumers and employees, it imperils the utility of humanity.

I have more questions. Will the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence lead to massive job losses? What if governments nefariously use artificial intelligence to conduct surveillance, or terrorist organizations use it to create bioweapons? How do we prevent a small group of powerful and wealthy billionaires (or trillionaires) from controlling how artificial intelligence is used and applied? How will the public benefit? And how do societies ensure that the public interest takes precedence over the powerful private interests seeking to become even more incredibly wealthy from their ownership and development of AI models and applications? And who decides?

More fundamentally, how will artificial intelligence impact humanity, our ability to think, create, and make us vulnerable? Will the wide-scale adoption of artificial intelligence stagnate and flatline the ability of human beings to think critically and creatively? Meghan O’Rourke, creative writing professor at Yale University, said in a recent New York Times essay, it is “easy to imagine that in a world of outsourced fluency, we might end up doing less and less by ourselves, while believing we’ve become more and more capable.”

Pope Leo XIV addressed some of the above concerns and questions in his recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. I found the Pope’s encyclical to be a thoughtful guide for how humans should proceed in a world increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence and other forms of advanced technology.

Pope Leo acknowledges that artificial intelligence offers valuable applications in science, medicine, business, and other areas of life. But he rightly points out that AI models and applications are not morally neutral. He warns against the tendency to measure every decision based on how it impacts efficiency and profits. The most powerful technologies are not necessarily the best. If used unethically, or solely for profit and market dominance, the use of artificial intelligence risks undermining human dignity and the common good.

The Pope notes that AI models may become increasingly capable of imitating and simulating a human being, but these systems are not, and never will be, human. They do not possess a moral conscience, empathy, or relational and spiritual capabilities. “[H]umanity - in all its grandeur and woundedness - must never be replaced or surpassed.” While we should “embrace the technological progress that alleviates suffering and unlocks new possibilities,” we must “not abandon the very essence of our humanity, namely the capacity for relationship and love.” (¶ 126).

The Pope’s encyclical also addresses other areas of profound importance, including how artificial intelligence threatens to negatively impact the dignity of work; the environmental devastation and accelerated energy consumption required to build large, community-disruptive data centers; and the implications of using artificial intelligence in warfare (“Any technology that facilitates attacks without seeing the face of human beings lowers the moral threshold of conflict.”) (¶ 199). But all of it comes down to our need to remain human, and to not accede our humanity to automated systems of technology, no matter how capable those systems are.

In a 1981 commencement address at Colorado College, the late historian David McCullough said what I hope we never lose sight of:

Understanding the real world, being part of it and enjoying it, has mainly to do, I believe, with being a real person. That’s the point. It means taking an interest in other people, all kinds of people. It means enjoying people and trying to understand one another. It means kindnesses. It means doing what we can to move civilization forward, to make the world a little better place because we are in it.

When McCullough spoke those words 45 years ago, he had no way of knowing how radically transformed the world would become with the advent of computers, the internet, smart phones, and artificial intelligence. Despite these advances, McCullough continued to write all his brilliant books and speeches on an ancient Royal typewriter. He had no use for computers and artificial intelligence. And while McCullough may indeed represent a relic of the past, a remnant of what now seems like a slower paced, more genteel life, there remains wisdom in his words.

Susan Sontag, during a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2003, said, “A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.” As the Yale professor Meghan O’Rourke suggests, “This attention to the world is worth trying to preserve: The act of care that makes meaning - or insight - possible. To do so will require thought and work. We can’t just trust that everything will be fine.”

I do not claim to understand all the intricacies of artificial intelligence. Few of us do. That is part of the problem. Artificial intelligence and large language models like Chat GPT have the potential to replace humans in many tasks that, until now, required work and thought and trial-and-error. I worry that relying on artificial intelligence will undermine our ability to understand, to figure things out on our own. Indeed, this is already happening. Human individuality flows from the life of the mind at work. For the sake of humanity, and for the future of our children, we must preserve the profound human need for individuality, connection, love, and struggle. We must never lose our capacity to pay attention to the world and to each other.