{"id":6058,"date":"2026-04-03T10:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/?p=6058"},"modified":"2026-04-03T10:13:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T15:13:06","slug":"smart-people-say-smart-things-about-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/smart-people-say-smart-things-about-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart people say smart things about AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Smart people say smart things (also me) in <a href=\"https:\/\/imaginingthedigitalfuture.org\/\">Elon University&#8217;s Imagining the Digital Future<\/a> new report, \u201cBuilding a Human Resilience Infrastructure for the AI Age.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/imaginingthedigitalfuture.org\/reports-and-publications\/human-resilience-in-the-age-of-ai\/\">Read entire report here<\/a> and a bit from me below: <\/p>\n<p>Paul Jones, professor emeritus of information science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said, \u201cWhile Socrates railed against writing and reading, broad access to either wasn\u2019t available for centuries later. Even then, and even after Gutenberg\u2019s printing press it wasn\u2019t until the 19th century that most Americans were readers (and, later still, writers thanks to public schooling). And \u2013 even then \u2013 large segments of our population remained illiterate through the early 20th century.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComputer access and literacy came much more quickly. Again, with public schools playing a large part and low-cost mobile phones reaching global populations that had been previously neglected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAI, as opposed to other literacies, has immediately become available to everyone \u2013 with upgrades delivered almost daily. In fact, one must work hard to avoid being exposed to AI and most of us are \u2013 often unknowingly \u2013 relying on AI for information and advice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith AI, in its many flavors, unavoidable, \u2018what can a poor boy do?\u2019 \u2013 to quote the Rolling Stones\u2019 1968 song <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/3LnqRu5Llwo\">\u2018Street-Fighting Man.\u2019<\/a> (Singing in a rock band isn\u2019t an option, especially since amateur musicians are already using AI to compose music to their lyrics and the reverse.) The question is who is using who? And where in the partnership between man and machine does the control live?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWill we have the autonomy to become more than human, perhaps human centaurs: half rational human and half powerful speedy horse? Or are we just one step away from becoming reverse centaurs, like say Amazon drivers who are instructed at every move by their machine monitors? Their brains belonging to the horse while their bodies remain half human.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRereading <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Norbert_Wiener\">Norbert Weiner\u2019s<\/a> insightful and prescient <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Human_Use_of_Human_Beings\">1950 book \u2018The Human Use of Human Beings\u2019<\/a> 75 years after its first publication might give some hints. He predicted that machines would release people from relentless and repetitive drudgery, allowing them to achieve more goals in new ways while also warning of the danger of dehumanization and displacement resulting from such tools and systems. I recommend that book to everyone. Those less given to reading might ask your favorite AI for a summary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Smart people say smart things (also me) in Elon University&#8217;s Imagining the Digital Future new report, \u201cBuilding a Human Resilience Infrastructure for the AI Age.\u201d Read entire report here and a bit from me below: Paul Jones, professor emeritus of information science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said, \u201cWhile Socrates railed against writing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6058"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6061,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6058\/revisions\/6061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/pjones\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}