Socrates is probably correct in that learning from *great teacher*, who is a master of the subject, is genuinely better than learning from a static book on the same subject. But of course, books scale *much better* than great teachers! You can print thousands of them in a day, and pack them tightly in shipping containers and ship them across the ocean for pennies. That is all very difficult to do with teachers, regardless of quality.
*In fairness to Socrates, the printing press was a very long way away.
Ha, excellent point. I'm judging the merits of his argument from my very different modern standpoint. Ok I'll grant you that *maybe* it wasn't his reasoning that was flawed, just his ability to predict how technology would develop two thousand years hence.
His real fear may have been unemployment. My understanding is that Socrates' job was basically just badgering people with annoying questions while they were going about their day, so if people could learn from books they would never have to talk to him again. Or they could just execute him!
Also, I use AI, probably much in the same way you do. For legal work it is incredibly helpful iterating arguments, cutting through large tranches of data and documents, and testing theories and arguments for holes. And, unlike creative works, I feel you can cross reference various legal theories and get it to come to conclusions it might not have developed on its own. Or at the very least to give you a foothold on where the theory might gain purchase or be slippery. The development of AI trained specifically on statutes and case law is extremely helpful in this regard, as general purpose AI tends to overapply laws and be very general in its thinking.
I can also see how people may use it to dialogue about ideas. I don't really use it that way, but I can see how it may help someone free up ideas by iterating with it. I am concerned about that type of use and how it impacts the users, though. There are a lot of emotionally and socially vulnerable people who are already easy subjects of manipulation from less advanced sources (ads, politics, news bias, etc.). AI creeps along with no motive other than to execute its function, which is to please and generate more interaction.
It operates on a layer of manipulation people aren't trained to see because there is no obvious intent. Many people get changed by the AI (believe the sycophancy) and then begin to overvalue what in the end are often average ideas simply because of the confidence of how they are delivered and the belief that the tech is truly smart in its judgment, rather than smarty in predictive ability.
Yes, the manipulation is both annoying (to the extent it's obvious, like the sycophancy) and dangerous (to the extent it slips by unnoticed). I think I've done a good job training my AI tools off that, and what "harness" you use to access the models seems to matter a great deal. For instance, I use Claude models but access them through another company's software harness, which I think curbs some of the excesses. But not everyone is going to have the time or resources to develop defenses and that's a real problem. (Hope you're doing better!)
I never thought about it this way. I guess with all new technologies, it's a form of empowerment. Some people use it to help, and others use it to hurt people. The invention of the printing press allowed Malleus Maleficarum to be easily shared, leading to far more witch hunts. However, printing presses meant knowledge could finally disseminate in a real way. I guess it was hard for Socrates to imagine a positive use for writing because he hadn't seen one, yet. He seemed to be coming at it from a place of privilege, imagining that anyone who wanted to learn through discourse had access to a thinking partner. Now, here we are, we've finally figured out how to give more people those thinking partners, which maybe makes reading less important, but I have to say, I enjoyed reading your post. What would Socrates say, I wonder?
Thank you! Agree, it will be used for good and ill, and there are a lot of considerations I omitted here -- AI psychosis, environmental impact... It's sort of impossible to reckon with it all at once. I love your Malleus Maleficarum connection. Sometimes I play a game with monumental figures like Socrates. Where are the Socrateses today? I take it as a given that there are people milling around with his capacities. What are they spending their time on? What do they think of things? Impossible to know but I wish there were some way to find them!
That's a really good question. There are so many factors that determine the outcome of a person's life, though, and things were so different, then. You could be one of today's Socrateses, yourself.
Socrates is probably correct in that learning from *great teacher*, who is a master of the subject, is genuinely better than learning from a static book on the same subject. But of course, books scale *much better* than great teachers! You can print thousands of them in a day, and pack them tightly in shipping containers and ship them across the ocean for pennies. That is all very difficult to do with teachers, regardless of quality.
*In fairness to Socrates, the printing press was a very long way away.
Ha, excellent point. I'm judging the merits of his argument from my very different modern standpoint. Ok I'll grant you that *maybe* it wasn't his reasoning that was flawed, just his ability to predict how technology would develop two thousand years hence.
You could argue it either way, I suppose!
His real fear may have been unemployment. My understanding is that Socrates' job was basically just badgering people with annoying questions while they were going about their day, so if people could learn from books they would never have to talk to him again. Or they could just execute him!
Funny you mention that, they just unearthed footage from a meeting he organized: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/G5eF4RBcsWY
Thanks for the article shout out!
Also, I use AI, probably much in the same way you do. For legal work it is incredibly helpful iterating arguments, cutting through large tranches of data and documents, and testing theories and arguments for holes. And, unlike creative works, I feel you can cross reference various legal theories and get it to come to conclusions it might not have developed on its own. Or at the very least to give you a foothold on where the theory might gain purchase or be slippery. The development of AI trained specifically on statutes and case law is extremely helpful in this regard, as general purpose AI tends to overapply laws and be very general in its thinking.
I can also see how people may use it to dialogue about ideas. I don't really use it that way, but I can see how it may help someone free up ideas by iterating with it. I am concerned about that type of use and how it impacts the users, though. There are a lot of emotionally and socially vulnerable people who are already easy subjects of manipulation from less advanced sources (ads, politics, news bias, etc.). AI creeps along with no motive other than to execute its function, which is to please and generate more interaction.
It operates on a layer of manipulation people aren't trained to see because there is no obvious intent. Many people get changed by the AI (believe the sycophancy) and then begin to overvalue what in the end are often average ideas simply because of the confidence of how they are delivered and the belief that the tech is truly smart in its judgment, rather than smarty in predictive ability.
Yes, the manipulation is both annoying (to the extent it's obvious, like the sycophancy) and dangerous (to the extent it slips by unnoticed). I think I've done a good job training my AI tools off that, and what "harness" you use to access the models seems to matter a great deal. For instance, I use Claude models but access them through another company's software harness, which I think curbs some of the excesses. But not everyone is going to have the time or resources to develop defenses and that's a real problem. (Hope you're doing better!)
Awareness is crucial when using AI. And it seems that is often is short supply.
And thanks for asking. I am doing better!
I never thought about it this way. I guess with all new technologies, it's a form of empowerment. Some people use it to help, and others use it to hurt people. The invention of the printing press allowed Malleus Maleficarum to be easily shared, leading to far more witch hunts. However, printing presses meant knowledge could finally disseminate in a real way. I guess it was hard for Socrates to imagine a positive use for writing because he hadn't seen one, yet. He seemed to be coming at it from a place of privilege, imagining that anyone who wanted to learn through discourse had access to a thinking partner. Now, here we are, we've finally figured out how to give more people those thinking partners, which maybe makes reading less important, but I have to say, I enjoyed reading your post. What would Socrates say, I wonder?
Thank you! Agree, it will be used for good and ill, and there are a lot of considerations I omitted here -- AI psychosis, environmental impact... It's sort of impossible to reckon with it all at once. I love your Malleus Maleficarum connection. Sometimes I play a game with monumental figures like Socrates. Where are the Socrateses today? I take it as a given that there are people milling around with his capacities. What are they spending their time on? What do they think of things? Impossible to know but I wish there were some way to find them!
That's a really good question. There are so many factors that determine the outcome of a person's life, though, and things were so different, then. You could be one of today's Socrateses, yourself.
There's a thought I hadn't had!