AI Is Not a Tool
5 hours ago
- #Media Ecology
- #Technological Perception
- #AI Ethics
- AI should not be regarded as merely a tool, but as an environment that envelops users and shapes them from the inside out, regardless of careful or intentional use.
- The myth of technological neutrality remains entrenched, but evidence from smartphones and social media shows that technologies malform users, even diligent ones, by altering perception and judgment.
- Marshall McLuhan’s insights emphasize that the effects of media occur at the level of perception and sense ratios, not just content or concepts, making the 'tool' analogy inadequate.
- Ivan Illich argued that we have moved from an age of tools to an age of systems where technologies shape perception and degrade sensory experience, necessitating an ascetical training of perception.
- Pope Leo’s encyclical on AI, while acknowledging non-neutrality, still frames AI as a tool requiring vigilance, which critics argue overlooks how it transforms the conditions of thinking and choosing like a drug.
- The best response to AI is not media literacy in a cognitivist mode but ascetical training of perception to reclaim sensory experience and resist the technogenic mirages that threaten friendship and social fabric.