Meaning Without Experience #400

Dear friends of Daily Philosophy,

Today we reach the 400th article since the beginning of Daily Philosophy in September 2020. The website had existed for three years prior to that, but 2020 was the year when this newsletter started — 5 years and 4 months ago. This means that over the years, we’ve published 6.25 articles every month, a little more than one per week. And of course, none of this would have been possible without your support — the around 70 authors who wrote all those brilliant articles, and the over 3200 subscribers who are now reading, discussing and sharing them. Thank you all for that!

Even in this short time, we’ve seen philosophy, the Internet, and the whole of society change dramatically. When this newsletter started, there was no AI, and students either wrote their papers themselves or they had to hire expensive agencies to help them. Today, we are in a permanent, losing race to prevent them from using AI to write their work. When I google “philosophy,” the first result is a skincare shop at philosophy.com.hk. Coca-Cola is using AI Christmas ads to sell their product, AI songs top the charts, and a new series, “On This Day… 1776,” is entirely AI made, with the blessings of Time Magazine — a surprisingly good cinematic experience (despite the Guardian’s sourly review) that did not utilise any cameras, locations and not a single actor (except for the voices). In 2020, we still trained students with the premise that they’d go on to have lucrative, life-long careers as graduates with an academic degree. Today, academics are among the most endangered groups by the advances in AI, just after photographers and musicians, and the only programs that are still growing, attractive and getting funded are those that directly engage with AI topics and existential risk. When my children ask me what to study in a few years, I have no advice. Whatever we used to recommend to young people a decade ago is obsolete today. Will there still be accountants in ten years? Biologists? Professional philosophers? And how many? The safest jobs today seem to be in blue-collar work: electricians, plumbers, midwives, nurses — these won’t be as easy to replace as writers, artists, and scientists. A few will remain, of course, to oversee the AI, and in small pockets of resistance in the ever-shrinking humanities departments. ...