We are becoming cyborgs without deciding to

We sacrifice a little of our own thinking every time AI does something better for us. That sounds dramatic, but in practice it does not feel dramatic at all.

Take me as an example: I can now produce and publish iOS apps, even though I am not particularly good at Xcode. I can also read Japanese, or navigate perfectly in cities I have never been to. The combination of me and the machine has gained a cognitive ability I do not have on my own.

People used to think human–machine integration would come through implants and surgery, some combination of a Terminator and a zombie. Instead it came as a chat window. Less cool, perhaps just as dangerous.

Now we let AI remember, formulate, plan, write code and weigh alternatives for us. Each individual choice is sensible. It is faster, often better and more comfortable than doing everything yourself. That is exactly why this is hard.

If AI made us obviously worse, we would stop. But when each new step gives us more capacity, why would we say no?

That is the uncomfortable thing about stories like The Whispering Earring. The advice is good. Life gets better. And the dependence grows precisely because the system works.

Henrik Skaug Sætra and Stuart Mills describe AI as a possible “autonomous choice architect”. It can not only help us choose, but also shape which choices we see. Then the machine no longer just extends what we can do. It influences what we think about.

We sacrifice bit by bit on the altar of efficiency and convenience. The offer is almost always too good to refuse.

I do not know that it is wrong either. The trade can be positive. Who does not want superpowers? But we are running an experiment on our own cognition without knowing the sum and without any clear stopping rule.

The cyborg is not the problem. The problem is that the machine part grows with every useful choice, and that we neither know how much we have given away, nor whether we will ever say that enough is enough. The flesh, as they say, is weak.

Sources:

Kevin Warwick, I, Cyborg (2002) https://lnkd.in/e-VS5Ttc

Scott Alexander, The Whispering Earring (2012) https://lnkd.in/eTx2wHzn

Stuart Mills and Henrik Skaug Sætra, The Autonomous Choice Architect (2022) https://lnkd.in/eEUXEVR4