Stephen Downes

Some realistic thinking about the role of AI in philosophy: "With a little human guidance, you can crank out the kind of papers that make up 95% of what we publish in a few hours. Soon (already?), human guidance may not even be necessary. Do I find this depressing? Just the opposite. Sure, I built my career on this skill, honed it for decades, and now a computer can do it in a hundredth of the time. In some ways, it even does better work than I ever could. But this was always a goofy way of making a living. And, in truth, it's always been one of the worst things about the job." It really depends, I think, on what you valued about the work. If it was for being recognized as deep and erudite, then AI isn't for you. But if what matters to you are the questions themselves, AI might be what you need. Imagine, for example, AI solves the problem of consciousness. It's a loss only if your job was based on perpetuating the question. "What do we lose if LLMs kill the journal system? Nothing but some heavy ass chains, and a few weak heuristics for assessing CVs quickly." Via Justin Weinberg, who offers a feeble response defending the continued counting of beans.