Atrophied Intelligence
Audio version now available.
I finally found a use for AI. If I am trying to find a way to reach a semi-famous person to invite them on our podcast or to initiate an exchange of ideas around their area of expertise, the default AI thing at the top of Google search will sometimes scrape the interwebs and come up with an email back door for me. I don’t ask ChatGTP questions. I don’t use AI platforms to write for me. I don’t trust AI search results and always click on the source material. I don’t think I am a grumpy old man who is in denial of progress and our human destiny, but then again, would I recognize it if I was?
I used to run to lose weight. It didn’t work. Running gave me a sense of accomplishment, so I would reward myself with Doritos and Dr. Pepper, and bewilderingly, the weight stayed put. Now I run for my mental health, not my physical health. I usually run without earbuds, and try to take in nature while letting my chaotic thoughts settle on a topic that needs some undivided attention. The resulting boost to my mood, confidence, and feelings of peacefulness results in a lower appetite for comfort food.
I run to feel better mentally. When I feel better mentally, I make better choices that have physical, biological benefits.
That certainly makes maintaining sobriety a lot easier. With less need to self-medicate, there are far fewer angles from which I might be pulled to drink alcohol. That might sound like an oversimplification. But I don’t think it is. I think the difference between experiencing peaceful tranquillity and raging alcoholism is having literally one or two effective techniques for processing stress and trauma that do not include ingesting a toxin.
I think of AI as defeating the purpose–like running and then eating Doritos. Sure, it can write your essay for you or give you a computer-generated answer to your human problems or try to interpret the work of experts. But isn’t the writing the point? Isn’t the working through of the problem where the solution lives? Doesn’t the gain of true understanding come from the challenge of the interpretation?
Maybe I am permanently warped by my childhood fear of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I am kind of ignorantly terrified of AI. I can see the potential for evil cataclysmic destruction, but like most things over which I can exert exactly no control, I try not to think about it much.
As for usefulness, I see AI as a better, faster search engine. And that’s it. If I want to know who won the bronze medal in fencing in the 1976 Olympics, I no longer have to find some obscure fencing website and spend an hour clicking links. For me, the utility of AI is on par with my amazement that I can call someone in Asia, and with only the miniscule annoyance of a brief delay, have a real-time conversation. Technology, from the phone to AI, facilitates a speedier acquisition of information. That’s it, really.
But people aren’t really built for speed, are we? It certainly doesn’t seem so when I’m running. We aren’t cheetahs or falcons. We are humans, and our advantage that allows us to rule over all other animals is our prefrontal cortex. Our ability to think, consider consequences, remember, learn from our mistakes, anticipate, and reason.
So why would I want to outsource my one and only advantage?
Even scarier than HAL are the more recent prophetic movies: Idiocracy and WALL-E. Those flicks explain where we are headed if we continue to outsource our prefrontal cortexes.
In her 2021 book, Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke explains that for humans, pleasure and pain are inextricably linked. We can seek pain (like by running), and enjoy the resulting pleasure (of satisfaction and a peaceful conscious), or we can seek pleasure (like the low-stakes sexual gratification of pornography), and suffer the pain later (of loneliness and dysfunctional relationships). It really is our choice.
Just like I no longer chose alcohol, I don’t choose other shortcuts, like AI, either. I would rather pay up front, and receive the reward of satisfaction.
If I took the time to launch 10,000 websites that all claim the sky is purple, Google search would start to tell people the sky is purple. Or something like that. There is nothing intelligent about AI. It is not about intellect. It is just a big database. Are you familiar with the cliche, “garbage in, garbage out?” That applies to AI. Why would I rely on something that could potentially be spewing garbage?
Don’t exercise to lose weight, do it because rapidly circulating blood carries more oxygen to your brain. Don’t get sober because your partner is nagging you about your drinking, do it because genius ideas have never emerged from a toxified cranium. Don’t develop a writing habit to check some therapeutic practice off your to-do list, do it because there is something magical that happens when we give ideas room to breathe. Don’t avoid AI because you are a grumpy aging man like me, avoid AI because the prefrontal cortex will atrophy if we don’t use it with consistency.
And with an atrophied prefrontal cortex, you won’t be very useful when humanity is trying to defend ourselves from the attack of the computers someday.
If you are ready to consider and debate uses for a prefrontal cortex that is free from toxins, we hope you’ll join us in SHOUT Sobriety.