AI Gives Fast Answers, Which Can Turn Into False Confidence
We have always had new advances in technology, and then had to adapt to them. AI is the latest big test.
With AI, we are all still adapting to how to use human judgment alongside such a powerful tool.
We have to also beware of our own tendency to be overconfident in our judgment, and how AI can feed that.
We will adapt over time, just as we have in the past. But be mindful of the journey there.
There is well-documented evidence that for most of time, humans had “two sleeps.” The initial bedtime was shortly after dusk, for the practical reason that it was often difficult and unsafe to try to do things in the dark. People often woke between 11 pm and 1 am, socializing, praying, doing domestic chores or … growing their families. Then there was a second sleep that lasted until dawn.
We learned later that the gift of the pre-industrial era was that we had a built-in “human token” limit, which was daylight. Candles were expensive, and dusk to dawn became a non-negotiable quiet period. Even if our bodies were built for two longish sleeps instead of one continuous one, the overall structure of every 24-hour period was contained. It forced rest on our brains, even if lack of light created that quiet.
AI, like every significant technological advance, will require a period of adaptation.
After more than a century of access to artificial (electric) light, we have to force ourselves to rest – and to wake up. (Notably, many of us still wake up in........
