Living by Proxy in the Age of A.I.
By Bruno Chaouat, First Things.
As the fall semester approaches, professors are wondering how they should respond to the use of AI, especially ChatGPT, both in and outside the classroom. I have been mulling over this question since OpenAI launched the chatbot last November. Like many, I felt frustrated and confused. Should I ignore the new technology? Ban it? Should I punish students for using it? I concluded that I wasn’t going to waste time disciplining students who resort, or may have resorted, to AI. The algorithm that is supposed to detect cheating is not entirely reliable, at least not yet, and it can be difficult in some cases to identify whether a text is written by ChatGPT. As such, it seems impractical to enforce certain policies at this time. But this does not mean that students who cheat will not suffer the consequences of their actions.
Philosopher Günther Anders called the embarrassment and confusion one might feel in the face of new technology “Promethean shame,” as we are confronted by the possibility that our own instruments, our own inventions, can outperform and even replace us. Anders was writing in the 1950s before the cybernetic revolution, yet his analysis has never been more prescient. In Hollywood, writers and actors strike to ensure that they will not be replaced by AI. Just as machines threaten to replace material labor, the AI revolution threatens to replace cognitive labor.
What is to be done? I have a tentative answer. Any pedagogical problem is a philosophical problem in nuce and deserves a philosophical response. First, we must realize that AI, and ChatGPT, threatens more than our jobs: It threatens our humanity.
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