S6:7 EP83: Finding Wonder and Balance with Technology: AI Discussion with Seth Lewis

Today on the podcast Katie talks with Seth Lewis, a technical support specialist here to explain how we can find the wonder, beauty, and awe in technology, and specifically in Artificial Intelligence. Katie and Seth discuss how to find balance in our tech use and how we should be skeptical of any existential claims regarding AI. Seth's great advice - "when in doubt, drop the phone!" They also debate and ask big questions about whether there are any redeeming qualities to AI in our tech-saturated society - and whether this is a technology that should be stopped, harnessed, or celebrated. An important discussion for anyone trying to figure out that elusive tech/life balance!    ------ Subscribe to Born of Wonder on Substack https://bornofwonder.substack.com     Support Born of Wonder on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/bornofwonder    www.bornofwonder.com  -------   Music - Blue Dot Sessions   Martin Luther King Jr. "The Three Evils of Society" -  https://www.nwesd.org/ed-talks/equity/the-three-evils-of-society-address-martin-luther-king-jr/    Ugly Numbers from Microsoft and ChatGPT Reveal that AI Demand is Already Shrinking https://www.honest-broker.com/p/ugly-numbers-from-microsoft-and-chatgpt    The Dating Pool Dropouts https://www.thefp.com/p/young-men-who-dropped-out-of-dating-pool    Seth's Recommendation:  Praying the Bible: An Introduction to Lectio Divina  https://www.amazon.com/Praying-Bible-Introduction-Lectio-Divina/dp/0814624464/ref=sr_1_6?crid=1Q19RCHOAJRTG&keywords=praying+the+bible&qid=1695074607&sprefix=praying+the+bibl%2Caps%2C120&sr=8-6    Seth's post interview response/rebuttal:   1. The comparison of AI to the A-bomb is frequently used but misleading. The technology behind AI is more like nuclear energy which is in fact the cleanest and most potent and most sustainable form of energy we have...it is also the most potentially dangerous when applied but the advances made in that field in the past 100 years are unknown to most people because all we think about is the A-bomb. The application of nuclear to the A-bomb is just one of many, many applications and I believe we should continue advancing the application of nuclear forward because it's pros vastly outweigh the cons and it's not even close. I don't exactly believe that so strongly about AI...but mostly. I think the world is far poorer if fields that are potentially dangerous in application find their advancement forcible stunted from the outside. We could've stopped the advancement of the technology and production of cell phones (as some historically communist countries like Cuba have)...but I don't think that's the kind of society we want.    2. Some occupational correction (i.e. people losing work over an emergent technology) is inevitable. That's not to trivialize it - I'm at a lower level at a big employer, so I'm one of the people most likely to be impacted! However, the idea that if an AI can do what a human can, that means there is no more job for the human is, in part, the lump of labor fallacy - interestingly, one of the writers on substack you pointed me to points that out, too, but I didn't read his article until after our talk! In a free (or mostly free) market, even when one opportunity is lost, others are created. Grocery stores are still hiring humans even though almost all have fewer cashiers thanks to the automated/fast checkout lanes (that is a suuuuuper brief and not nuanced comparison...but it is fair).