A Question Concerning Technology

    Photo by Charlota Blunarova on Unsplash Juniors  "We want you to feel comfortable...Are you comfortable?" "Yes..." "Good. It's very important that you are very comfortable." Earlier, a family of four had walked into the waiting room of the Breakthrough facility. Jeremy Sr. had been with his wife Emily Sr. and their two children, Jeremy Jr. and Emily Jr. Almost all people with children named them their junior—it was just easier this way. Emily Sr. had appeared nervous, and Jeremy Sr. made attempts to soothe her. The juniors, Jer and Em, had entertained themselves while their parents argued. After a short time a neutral voice had called Jeremy Jr. to the operation room. His mother had led him in and helped him onto the operating table in the center of the room. She had kissed him and said she loved him and then left the room. She wiped a tear from her eye, which should have been more uncommon than it was. "Jer, your comfort is v...

What I'm including below is a response I typed out in response to a newsletter from "The Rational Optimist" that was forwarded to me. Looking at the name now, I think there is a good critique that I can write about the ontology of what such a name proposes. They very much subscribe to a techno-rationalist paradigm, but more on that at another time. Anyway, here's the email I dashed off in reply... I've thought a ton about GenAI chat bots, and I've been seeing their effects on younger people for a couple years now. Here's some of my thoughts. It isn't very organized because this was pretty much off the cuff as I was thinking of different things the email brought up.  I'm very worried about what all of this generative AI is doing to people. More and more people are losing the capacity to think. I've been worried about this in my own life just with Internet search engines. It is good for our brains and bodies when things are kind of hard to do. Al...