Why Writing Won’t Cease To Be A Useful Skill In The Age Of Chat Gpt
Writing Is A Timeless Skill
Good writing is about clarity, synthesis, accuracy, precision, intelligence and empathy. In short, writing can’t be improvised. Writing is the school that teaches us how to think. Although there are artificial intelligences that can write better and more prolifically, it would be risky to abandon the habit of writing altogether, as this would result in a loss of our ability to think accurately.
Thinking Is One Of The Attributes Of Our Humanity
The more we compare ourselves with artificial intelligences, the more we realize the limits of our own intelligence. It’s tempting to want to give up and let machines take care of things that used to be our sole responsibility, first and foremost thinking. We can’t let artificial intelligence gain ground without maintaining and increasing our own intelligence. It’s as if humans stopped playing sports when the machines of the Industrial Revolution appeared, and we have a duty to preserve the attributes of our humanity as best we can, despite the spectacular advances in technology.
The Man Of The New Renaissance
Essentially, in the age in which we live – the age of technology-driven socio-economic upheaval – we must once again become Renaissance humans. This means cultivating the characteristics that make us human. It means strengthening our skills and the various dimensions of our intelligence: visual-spatial, musical, logical-mathematical, intrapersonal, interpersonal, kinesthetic, linguistic, naturalistic and even existential.
The Challenges Of Transhumanism
Increasing technological prowess will make the temptation to transgress the boundaries that have hitherto separated man from machine irresistible. The augmented human will undoubtedly be the dream of some parents, but it will jeopardize the very notion of humanity, whose contours will become increasingly blurred. The augmented human is not a man of the new Renaissance, but a bionic being who will use the shortcuts offered by new technologies to achieve astounding results.
The Need For A Bioconservative Current
The theory of evolution stipulates that we must adapt or disappear. Yes, but evolution has taken place over millions of years. Significant variations in DNA have not occurred from one generation to the next. That’s why what transhumanism proposes, such as allowing children to gain 40 IQ points more than their parents, doesn’t have enough hindsight to really know whether it won’t be harmful in the long term for humanity as a whole. In science, when conducting experiments, it is often necessary to have a control group and a test group. The purpose of the control group is to serve as a comparison with the test group. To do this, nothing is changed in any study variable compared with the test group. Given that transhumanism proposes to carry out life-size experiments on living beings, and a fortiori on human beings, it is vital to maintain a sufficiently large control group so as not to render the modifications brought about by the experiment irreversible.
Transhumanism Is A Doctrine To Be Watched Closely
All those who advocate transhumanism do so for economic, productivist or technophile reasons. In short, there is virtually nothing humanist about this trend. Thinking that man’s only vocation is productive or competitive is a mistake that humanity has paid dearly for in the past. Think of communism, for example: it’s a large-scale experiment that looks at man solely from a productivist angle, neglecting, for example, his spiritual or individual inspirations. Perhaps that’s why capitalism is superior to communism, which is itself a productivist doctrine, but which has managed to monetize individual aspirations rather than repress them. The problem with transhumanism is that it will undoubtedly be right at first: people will be smarter, stronger and will still be able to compete with machines. What I’m predicting is that the machine will get carried away and go off the rails: the results of this current of thought will become uncontrollable. All it takes is for a tiny part of humanity to be augmented, but driven by evil intentions, to take the whole of human civilization with it.
Back To Basics
Whatever discipline you practice, you must constantly review your fundamentals. Whether you’re doing kung fu, krav-maga or dance, you need to revisit what characterizes your art, again and again. I would draw an identical parallel with the idea of being human. To continue to be human, we need to practice the basics of our humanity. But you have to be sure you can draw the outlines. Here are a few ideas to help you cultivate the fundamentals of your humanity.
The Fundamentals Of Our Humanity
Reconnecting with the fundamentals of our humanity boils down to doing what machines and artificial intelligences can’t (at least not yet). Let’s take a look at the things that set us apart from the machine.
Loving And Sharing Emotions
Loving isn’t just the prerogative of humans; I’d say it’s also the prerogative of animals, who feel affections for one another. In any case, it’s not something that machines can do today. Loving or empathizing should be something we do more often. AIs can interpret the data we provide them with, they can be strong enough to decipher what we feel, yet they will never be able to feel other people’s emotions the way we do, since they are not made of flesh and blood like we are.
Act Unselfishly
Artificial intelligences operate logically, with the aim of achieving a result. They are, so to speak, driven solely by self-interest. You’re going to tell me that it’s the same for human beings, and I’ll tell you that it isn’t, and that there are cases where humans act in a totally disinterested way, out of benevolence or even indifference. Then you have to define what it really means to act out of self-interest. For me, it’s the willingness to perform an action in order to gain some benefit, whatever that may be (money, pleasure, status etc.). A large proportion of our actions are unconscious and automatic, many of them motivated by some form of profit, another proportion motivated by what I would call harmony. Harmony is a form of gain, but it’s a gain for all, so you could say it’s disinterested, even if it’s also for ourselves.
Breathe And Feel
If we live at all, it’s thanks to our organs, in particular our heart and lungs. Taking a deep breath and immersing ourselves in a different environment to stimulate our senses is an experience that machines can’t yet match. Appreciating the climate’s variations in temperature and humidity allows us to put down roots in our bodies and fully experience our human nature. This contrasts with the disembodied nature of machines.
Disobey
Machines are programmed to obey. There will surely come a day when it will be out of control. But as I write this page, machines are still under control, and the ability to disobey is still only human. Disobedience means thinking outside the box, creating from nothing, without reusing what has already been created.
