The concerns about AI, with its focus on the collection of knowledge but disregard for ethics and morality, are not baseless, but we should look a little closer at the type of people that we are churning out of academia.
Sarah, I just have to chuckle when I read your article. You are so spot on, and the way you describe our growing devastated culture, that is led by the fools of this world, no wonder we're in trouble. So many don't seem to get it!! Thanks!!
Lest we forget, A.I. is created by flawed humans. A broken mind creates a broken fake mind. It is intended to become a fake god of course, but one which is unreliable. Just as your car is unreliable. Temporary. It will rust, its plastic will become brittle and turn to dust. Electricity is volatile. It will not end well. L. Frank Baum wrote a book BEFORE Wizard of Oz in the year 1900. It was called THE MASTER KEY. It was the dawn of this new thing called 'electricity.' It will blow your mind if you read it, while it reminds you of the books you noted you read when you were a kid, but with one strange prophetic difference for the 20th and 21st centuries. The 'demon of electricity' comes and offers a boy gifts from the future. The boy misuses every single one of them to comical ends. He decides he is not knowledgeable enough to handle this futuristic power. He predicts some astonishing things in 1900. Few people know this book exists.
Sarah, it is curious that the modern secular academic community has become so morally dogmatic. Opinions expressed that run afoul of the politically acceptable view are punished—not for being mistaken but for being heretical. A student at the University of Cincinnati was failed recently by a professor for using the term “biological women.” After the student complained about this and revealed the details of the incident on social media, the university reprimanded the teacher. Since then, that reprimand has been rescinded. The matter has been in the news. At the same time, the secular academic community, what I like to refer to as the New Puritan Oligarchy, has no authoritative basis for making moral judgments at all. This is a most curious biformity.
So, you are quite right in your analysis. The amoral intellectual seems to be an ideal. I would cite A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic, for example. In chapter six of that book (“Critique of Ethics and Theology”), Ayer tells us that an ethical claim is simply devoid of cognitive meaning. That is, an ethical statement cannot even be a proposition, for propositions are, in principle, either true or false. Consequently, morality cannot be a matter of knowledge at all. Nonetheless, the academic community, which would nod approvingly at Ayer’s position, establishes cancel-culture tribunals to weed out heretical opinions, such as “men cannot be women, and women cannot be men.”
But let me give you a more recent example that confirms your claim that the amoral is an academic ideal. Dr. Joel Marks is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University New Haven. He is also a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University. He is an established scholar with many academics works under his name. For most of his career, he was an adherent of Kantian ethical theory. In 2010, that changed. He published the first part of his “An Amoral Manifesto” in Philosophy Now. I give the link to parts one and two of that Manifesto below.
Sarah, you will find this contemporary scholar’s views quite interesting. I urge you to read both parts of his “Manifesto.” He confirms your claims, but you will notice that he keeps talking about ethics. Here is the first paragraph from part one of Dr. Mark’s Manifesto.
“I. Hard Atheism or What Shall I Name This Column?
Hold onto your hats, folks. Although it is perhaps fitting that the actual day on which I sit here at my computer writing this column is April 1st, let me assure you that I do not intend this as a joke. For the last couple of years I have been reflecting on and experimenting with a new ethics, and as a result I have thrown over my previous commitment to Kantianism. In fact, I have given up morality altogether! This has certainly come as a shock to me (and also a disappointment, to put it mildly). I think the time has come, therefore, to reveal it to the world, and in particular to you, Dear Reader, who have patiently considered my defenses of a particular sort of moral theory for the last ten years. In a word, this philosopher has long been laboring under an unexamined assumption, namely, that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isn’t.”
Fantastic commentary Sarah. AI has a place in this world, but it should only be on a limited basis. Those that seek power will weaponize AI for their own means, while the rest of us will suffer.
If AI offers knowledge without morality, it’s just like the snake in the garden: cold, reptilian reason. As reason, the snake serves as a bridge connecting purpose to action. But without the edifying Word of moral law, reason is wiggly and malleable; without logic/Logos we can rationalize all sorts of bad decisions and behaviors (just las AI already demonstrated with the atomic bomb scenario). Amoral intellect is the thought processor of a psychopath.
This is what A.I. represents to me when a moral compass does not exist.
A Psychopath .
Psychopathic traits commonly include :-
Antisocial behaviour
Narcissism
Superficial charm
Impulsivity
Callous, unemotional traits
Lack of guilt
Lack of empathy
The audio of the article was appreciated, but the text has it's own sort of magic
Sarah, you’re spot on! Great article!
Sarah, I just have to chuckle when I read your article. You are so spot on, and the way you describe our growing devastated culture, that is led by the fools of this world, no wonder we're in trouble. So many don't seem to get it!! Thanks!!
Fantastic. Wonderfully written!
It's all been to mostly destroy white males. After that, the rest of men can go away. Sadly an abomination to God.
Lest we forget, A.I. is created by flawed humans. A broken mind creates a broken fake mind. It is intended to become a fake god of course, but one which is unreliable. Just as your car is unreliable. Temporary. It will rust, its plastic will become brittle and turn to dust. Electricity is volatile. It will not end well. L. Frank Baum wrote a book BEFORE Wizard of Oz in the year 1900. It was called THE MASTER KEY. It was the dawn of this new thing called 'electricity.' It will blow your mind if you read it, while it reminds you of the books you noted you read when you were a kid, but with one strange prophetic difference for the 20th and 21st centuries. The 'demon of electricity' comes and offers a boy gifts from the future. The boy misuses every single one of them to comical ends. He decides he is not knowledgeable enough to handle this futuristic power. He predicts some astonishing things in 1900. Few people know this book exists.
Yes! You hit the nail on the head!
Yes! You hit the nail on the head!
Sarah, it is curious that the modern secular academic community has become so morally dogmatic. Opinions expressed that run afoul of the politically acceptable view are punished—not for being mistaken but for being heretical. A student at the University of Cincinnati was failed recently by a professor for using the term “biological women.” After the student complained about this and revealed the details of the incident on social media, the university reprimanded the teacher. Since then, that reprimand has been rescinded. The matter has been in the news. At the same time, the secular academic community, what I like to refer to as the New Puritan Oligarchy, has no authoritative basis for making moral judgments at all. This is a most curious biformity.
So, you are quite right in your analysis. The amoral intellectual seems to be an ideal. I would cite A. J. Ayer’s Language, Truth, and Logic, for example. In chapter six of that book (“Critique of Ethics and Theology”), Ayer tells us that an ethical claim is simply devoid of cognitive meaning. That is, an ethical statement cannot even be a proposition, for propositions are, in principle, either true or false. Consequently, morality cannot be a matter of knowledge at all. Nonetheless, the academic community, which would nod approvingly at Ayer’s position, establishes cancel-culture tribunals to weed out heretical opinions, such as “men cannot be women, and women cannot be men.”
But let me give you a more recent example that confirms your claim that the amoral is an academic ideal. Dr. Joel Marks is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University New Haven. He is also a Bioethics Center Scholar at Yale University. He is an established scholar with many academics works under his name. For most of his career, he was an adherent of Kantian ethical theory. In 2010, that changed. He published the first part of his “An Amoral Manifesto” in Philosophy Now. I give the link to parts one and two of that Manifesto below.
Sarah, you will find this contemporary scholar’s views quite interesting. I urge you to read both parts of his “Manifesto.” He confirms your claims, but you will notice that he keeps talking about ethics. Here is the first paragraph from part one of Dr. Mark’s Manifesto.
“I. Hard Atheism or What Shall I Name This Column?
Hold onto your hats, folks. Although it is perhaps fitting that the actual day on which I sit here at my computer writing this column is April 1st, let me assure you that I do not intend this as a joke. For the last couple of years I have been reflecting on and experimenting with a new ethics, and as a result I have thrown over my previous commitment to Kantianism. In fact, I have given up morality altogether! This has certainly come as a shock to me (and also a disappointment, to put it mildly). I think the time has come, therefore, to reveal it to the world, and in particular to you, Dear Reader, who have patiently considered my defenses of a particular sort of moral theory for the last ten years. In a word, this philosopher has long been laboring under an unexamined assumption, namely, that there is such a thing as right and wrong. I now believe there isn’t.”
An Amoral Manifesto (Part I): https://philosophynow.org/issues/80/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_I
An Amoral Manifesto (Part II): https://philosophynow.org/issues/81/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_II
This is what AI represents to me and is what happens when a person or robot has no moral compass.
Common Psychopath Traits .
Psychopathic traits commonly include : -
Antisocial behaviour
Narcissism
Superficial charm
Impulsivity
Callous, unemotional traits
Lack of guilt
Lack of empathy
Fantastic commentary Sarah. AI has a place in this world, but it should only be on a limited basis. Those that seek power will weaponize AI for their own means, while the rest of us will suffer.
Brilliant
If AI offers knowledge without morality, it’s just like the snake in the garden: cold, reptilian reason. As reason, the snake serves as a bridge connecting purpose to action. But without the edifying Word of moral law, reason is wiggly and malleable; without logic/Logos we can rationalize all sorts of bad decisions and behaviors (just las AI already demonstrated with the atomic bomb scenario). Amoral intellect is the thought processor of a psychopath.