The Challenge of Life

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I don't know how to think about this. I think it's easy to be worried about it. As a remarkable essay by Mark Halper and he wrote it in. 2000. He tries to get at the fact that life in say 1900 compared to today was slower, more thoughtful, deeper, richer. People in 1900 had hard lives. So we've certainly lost something through the material acceleration and the technological acceleration that has taken place over the last hundred years. We have to decide where we make our stand. Where do we maintain those skills of conversation, communication, emotional connection? Those are all being discouraged by the smartphone. They will be discouraged even further by artificial intelligence. This is where

In the early 1900s, the philosopher Henry Adams expressed concern about the rapid rate of social change ushered in by new technologies, from the railways to the telegraph and ultimately airplanes. If we transpose Adams's concerns onto the power of artificial intelligence--a power whose rate of acceleration would have exceeded his wildest dreams--you might feel a bit uneasy. Listen as philosopher Jacob Howland of UATX speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about why too much leisure is at best a mixed blessing, and how technology can lead to intellectual atrophy. They also speak about the role of AI in education and its implications for that most human of traits: curiosity. Finally, they discuss Howland's biggest concern when it comes to outsourcing our tasks, and our thinking, to machines: that we'll ultimately end up surrendering our own liberty.