Proceedings of the Institutes for Advanced Studies
Published July 4, 2024 | Version v1
Conference paper Open

AI and the illusion of control

Creators

  • 1. European Research Council

Description

The paper explores the impact of the dazzling performance of Generative AI on the sense of being in control and the Illusion that may come with it. Control of technology as a hallmark of modernity was accompanied by hubris and often the illusion of being in control. Now our anthropomorphic tendencies to attribute human-like features to AI exposes human vulnerability anew. Control of technology cannot be restricted to its mere technical functioning and has successively expanded since industrialization. After first guaranteeing the safety and health of workers, at least in highly developed countries, gradually a 'safety culture' emerged. We expect control of technology to include impact on health and safety conditions and the protection of the natural environment. The illusion of control sets in when CEOs of major international corporations deny the necessity to extend control of AI (to foreseeable, and even unforeseeable consequences that it has on cognitive and mental abilities). The paper then retraces the history of outsourcing knowledge operations, from the invention of writing to the printing press and mass media, raising the question of agency and responsibility. It concludes by asking whether our ancestors who believed that they shared an immanent cosmic order with 'meta-persons' lived in an illusion and what it might mean when we must learn to live together with the digital Others.

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