Ravaged by war and the collapse of previous norms, peacetime Germans struggled to understand a world that was turning West and embracing industry. Many believed consumerism and a bourgeois lifestyle could offer a path to national progress. Philosopher Josef Pieper believed otherwise, insisting that we work so as to have the restful freedom to dream, create, and connect spiritually with the world. Pieper's elegant answer to alienation then has so much to say in an era when technology is again promising liberation - but somehow, will end up again leaving us doing to dishes while it writes ever cheaper poetry.
This work has been foundational for thinking about human-technology interactions and continues to be influential in the work of those like Damien P. Williams who write at the crossroads of the humanities and AI.
The article contains results from empirical studies describing the effect of generative AI on work practices and knowledge acquisition, two key elements of human flourishing.
Shop Class as Soulcraft argues that manual, skilled work (like fixing motorcycles) is intellectually rich and essential to human flourishing. Crawford is critical of the shift in modern work toward abstraction, and the separation of thinking from doing. In his view, deep satisfaction and important forms of knowledge come from engaging with the material world, exercising judgment, and seeing the tangible results of one’s labor.
This perspective is increasingly relevant in the context of AI, which accelerates the delegation of both white- and blue-collar tasks to inscrutable software systems. As AI takes over more cognitive work (analysis, writing, creativity, decision-making) as well as physical tasks, human beings are distanced not only from the work itself but from the embodied knowledge that such work develops and sustains. In other words, AI makes us dumber the more we use it.
Crawford’s emphasis on the unity of mind and body in skilled labor challenges the idea that intelligence can be cleanly separated from action. When AI assumes more of our planning, problem-solving, and perception, we risk dislocating ourselves from the very processes that build competence and agency. The more we outsource, the less we engage in feedback loops between thinking and doing. This atrophy of judgment, attention, and intuition may erode our sense of identity, responsibility, and satisfaction in work.
The importance of human articulation face to face in language in light of the philosophical history of Alan Turing and early sociological study of mobile technology
This was an empirical study that aimed to characterize evidence of gender bias in ChatGPT. Understanding social biases in generative AI is key to understanding of human flourishing in the age of AI.
It anticipates a dystopic future in which human beings will be measured by their talents in order to predict their future and reproduction of the human species will be controlled on the basis of each human being's DNA potential. The picture shows what we fail to grasp if we try to measure reality and anticipate what individuals can do, achieve, and strive for.
In times like these, we must not forget that human flourishing can occur not only alongside the growth of artificial intelligence, but also amid suffering and destitution. Frankl reminds us in his book how resilient the human spirit is in literally willing meaning in places where one may suspect it to be most elusive. In Man’s Search for Meaning, I hope the reader realizes the inspirational infinity that is ingrained in every human which, by all comparison, makes even artificial intelligence inconsequential.
