Human beings never learn anything from nothing, the way in which we sabotage ourselves with artificial intelligence (AI) and its many derivatives is striking proof of this. It is almost a given that social networks are a zero-sum creation, even decidedly negative. Their contribution to society and public debate borders on nothingness, when they do not serve to exalt the most vile human passions. Worse, through their repeated use, they contribute to the deterioration of the mental health of young people, who cannot do without them while recognizing their highly harmful nature.
Forewarned is forearmed, one would have thought that faced with the emergence of artificial intelligence, in the early stages of its development, as soon as we knew the infinity of its power, we would have taken a thousand precautions before letting the general public have access to it. Instead, with fanfare, its merits were touted without ever emphasizing its dangers, so much so that in record time, it spread to all levels of society, becoming an everyday tool for most of us.
The fact that it can serve as a medium to divert images or expose young people to all kinds of abuses, from the propagation of false information to the invitation to the mind to seize it to think for them, has never counted. No, caught up in the frenzy and intoxication of discovery, carried away by the enthusiasm of its creators who presented it as the seventh wonder of the world, without ever taking the time to think about the consequences of its use, we allowed it to prosper with disconcerting and guilty ease.
However, artificial intelligence is as harmful to humankind as would be the frenzied use of hallucinogenic mushrooms. We gave 12-year-old kids the opportunity to use chatbots without imagining that one day, they would end up serving as substitutes for their emotional deficiencies. Now, instead of prioritizing social connections, millions of adolescents maintain friendships with their chatbot and even fall in love with it.
It is one thing for enlightened adults to use artificial intelligence to increase their productivity, but for it to be placed in the hands of disillusioned youth to temper their moods is criminally careless. Not to mention a stranglehold on their cognitive abilities which will lead, de facto, not only to a total dependence on it, but also to an impossibility of truly being in the world.
What is a life that takes place in the virtuality of a relationship from which reality is excluded if not an existence built on illusions, of a fantasized world far removed from everyday concerns? How will a mind accustomed from an early age to use the services of AI manage to structure itself and assert an identity which is not the fruit of an external intervention but its own, in accordance with its temperament and its inner mood?
The carelessness with which our elites gave way to artificial intelligence was a moral mistake for which we will pay the price for a long time to come.
Emmanuel Macron has every reason to ask today for supervision of its use, particularly among young audiences. However, was he not one of those who, at his advent, sang its praises to the point of wanting to see France and Europe play a leading role in putting it into service? I understand that it is within his responsibilities to ensure that our country does not lag behind in the field of new technologies, but by failing to regulate its scope of application, he has let AI conquer such a vast audience that it will be very complicated or even impossible to impose new boundaries on it.
We can never say it enough. The carelessness with which our elites gave way to artificial intelligence was a moral mistake for which we will pay the price for a long time to come. While there was still time, it was their duty to regulate it and restrict its use to the fields of science and health only. Language, the educational field, the learning of thought, interior communication, everything that concerns the sacred and knowledge, should have been preserved from its influence.
In this matter, our elites have betrayed us. They allowed themselves to be fooled by enchanting speeches where artificial intelligence was presented to them as the new El Dorado which would push the fields of knowledge even further. They thought about money, profit, growth points, forgetting that a human being without conscience is nothing. The mind is not a commodity but our most precious possession. It would be good to remember this sometimes. And if possible, when there is still time to act.
