What Nietzsche might make of the state of AI

Friedrich Nietzsche famously lamented that “God is Dead” in a few of his texts. His meaning was that the modern world, science, etc. made it harder to believe in God, leaving a painful hole in our souls. A meaning and purpose-shaped hole. If I were to inhabit Nietzsche’s persona (but definiltely not his moustache) for a moment, I feel like his take on the current trajectory of AI might be: “The Specialness of Humans is Dead”. If he were alive today, he might observe us collectively kvetching about whether machines can do everything humans can do. Whether AI can be truly intelligent, creative etc. I read many people writing how AI isn’t really intelligent. How it will never be able to do certain tasks, like create true art, humour, creativity etc. I am not so sure. If you find yourself writing a sentence that starts “AI will never be able to…”, I suggest you take a pause. I certainly understand how it is painful for us to see machines doing things that we thought were the domain of humans alone. Painful not just for the practical reason of worrying about human employment. Not even just about what our purpose is if we don’t have to do jobs. I think the deepest issue is that “if a machine can do everything a human can do, maybe we humans aren’t so special after all.” I feel like people are happy to point out that what machines do is just repeating things. That machines aren't truly creative etc. But they are perhaps less willing to turn their gaze on themselves, on the human race, and try to understand whether humans are really creative/ intelligent, and if so where that creativity/ intelligence comes from. Happy weekend everyone. #unthink #unask #unlearn #AI