2023-11-16 05:44:55
The French writer and philosopher Eric Sadin, a major thinker in the digital universe, tackles generative artificial intelligence in his latest work, “La Vie spectrale”. Guest of La Matinale, he believes that his dazzling progress directly threatens the fundamental faculties of humanity, making us “vegetables”.
The future of the human being? That of a vegetable, Eric Sadin was alarmed on Wednesday in La Matinale de la RTS. “We have been experiencing a moment of very high gravity for exactly one year, on November 30, 2022, the moment ChatGPT went public online […] Seeing machines produce language is a civilizational, cultural and anthropological event of very high significance,” he emphasizes from the outset.
>> Read about it: ChatGPT: the next stage of artificial intelligence
For the essayist, who is trying to provoke a form of awakening in the face of the siren song of the techno-liberal world, the reactions of individuals and the response of society, particularly in its attempt to regulate generative artificial intelligence, miss the point. the essential.
Serious “civilizational” consequences
“What was the reaction of most people? There was, for many, a sort of fascination […] It was then to say ‘it’s cool, it’s useful'”, notes Eric Sadin, who deplores a purely utilitarian response, which has become “so much the norm, so infused in our brains” that we only see through this prism, “without grasping the civilizational consequences” of generative AI.
>> Read also: Summit on the risks of AI: “We are in a craze halfway between bliss and astonishment”
Our children, in 3 or 4 years, will ask us why they have to go to school, since there is a system that will produce texts, essays, letters, messages…
Eric Sadin
In the eyes of the philosopher, these consequences are nothing less than the renunciation of our most fundamental faculties. “What about future generations, in what constitutes us most uniquely, that is to say speaking in the first person and communicating with each other via our own words, in complete freedom?” , he asks himself. The constantly renewed creation that constitutes human language would be replaced by a regime of “cold, standardized language, which claims to be pure, perfect and without defect” (also read the box).
“It’s a nightmare in our symbolic landscape and in interpersonal relationships!” protests Eric Sadin. “I feel it coming: our children, in 3 or 4 years, will ask us why they have to go to school, since there is a system which, at a simple ‘prompt’, will produce texts, dissertations for you , letters, messages…”, he predicts.
An imposed evolution, not a social project
For him, this development is all the more damaging because it was not chosen, but imposed by a “very powerful hegemonic industry, with turnover in billions of dollars, which produces innovations for its own purposes. of profit and designs systems that are offered to the public without us being prepared for them.
“Have we, in the plurality of society, decided that systems can produce language, representation, images, music? No! It is not a social project with all that “it implies: consultation, power relations, agreements, contradiction in an organic, evolving way…”, he regrets.
Sacrificed professions
Eric Sadin brushes aside the advantages that generative artificial intelligence could bring to humanity. “There is this doxa which has spread, which is spreading: ‘Don’t worry, all these systems will allow us to better carry out our tasks; there will be substitution effects […], there will be new jobs. This was true until now, but we are living at the limit of this logic,” he analyzes, establishing a clear border between jobs formerly replaced by mechanization and those which are under threat from the progress of Current AI.
>> Read about it: Silvia Quarteroni: “Jobs will be redefined thanks to artificial intelligence automation”
Would we consider it the natural course of things that noble works, which make human action great, pass through losses and profits?
Eric Sadin
“In automobile factories, for example with the robotization of assembly lines, highly arduous jobs have been replaced, jobs which crushed bodies […], who saw people arriving exhausted at retirement age. But what we’re dealing with now […]is that professions with high cognitive skills, professions which mobilize our intellectual and creative faculties are replaced”, distinguishes Eric Sadin, who draws up a long list of activities in danger: screenwriters, translators, journalists, lawyers, professors. ..
>> Read also: Artificial intelligence causes first layoffs in the United States
“These are professions which required long years of study, professions creating pleasure in the task, self-esteem, mutual recognition, forms of sociability… And we would take it as the natural course things that these noble works which make human action great are written off? That there is a hurricane affecting all these professions with high cognitive, intellectual and creative skills? But how can we accept that?” , stands the essayist and philosopher.
The regulator, and we in society, only think of one thing: to support, to adapt. But ultimately, adaptation is submission!
Eric Sadin
Faced with such violent impoverishment, Eric Sadin does not beat around the bush. “I wanted to call a year ago for a pure and simple ban on generative AI, because it calls into question our most fundamental faculties, and what characterizes us specifically,” he said, denouncing the passage the existence of a taboo in the matter, that of prohibiting. “Because the digital industry is so considered to embody the bright horizon of contemporary capitalism that the regulator, and we in society, only think of one thing: to support, to adapt. But in reality, adaptation is a submission!”, he proclaims.
A regulation that aims alongside
And salvation will certainly not come, according to him, from attempts at regulation that several States or groups of States, the European Union in particular, are trying to establish. “Regulation is not up to the challenges […] What does the regulator say? ‘We’re going to pay the rights holders!’ […] It is still the primacy of the economy”, criticizes the writer. “For regulation, the equation is poorly posed, the terms are very badly posed. We just think in terms of advantages and disadvantages.”
>> Read also: Westerners adopt a common “code of conduct” on artificial intelligence
In his eyes, we should place the cursor elsewhere, “where these systems flout the fundamental principles that are ours, or respect them”. These fundamental principles, “we can fit them on the fingers of one hand: it is the respect and celebration of integrity, human dignity, plurality, freedom, and intelligence and of the genius that resides in each of us. Now, it is this genius that we are going to renounce.”
>> Read also: Artificial intelligence: an existential risk for humans?
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