This reflection stems from a re-reading of my post on the Boltzmann Brain (see The Boltzmann Brain – an epistemological provocation). While the process today is evolving very rapidly, I believe it makes sense to analyze it from an evolutionary perspective.
The use of AI is certainly an effective support, but we must distinguish between contexts. Enhancing research within an environment of high-level expertise is one thing; using it to obtain basic answers by ‘the youth’ is quite another. The latter prevents the formation of a critical spirit and the necessary ‘fatigue of learning’. Without this granular foundation of skills, more complex elaborations become impossible.
Demographics are unforgiving. Soon, the figures trained on the fundamentals will disappear, replaced by those who never had to struggle to learn. Considering the ‘average’ person, it is easy to predict an immense cognitive impoverishment that will lead to the final decay of our civilization. Technology will remain standing, but without the updating of fundamental principles—the theoretical foundations upon which it is built—it will become obsolete and insufficient.
This is not just the fault of scientific research. The reasons why we still use fossil fuels, rare earth batteries, or nuclear fission do not depend solely on technical limits, but on choices of power that go beyond the official narrative.
I do not believe there is adequate awareness of the ‘toxic’ role of AI. The global project is clear: to create a ‘cerebrally’ undifferentiated anthropic mass, useful as a voting weight and workforce for as long as it costs less than machines. Indeed, I believe that ‘bipedal mammals’ are already cheaper than automation today, yet they are still endowed with a residual self-determination (really residual, as demonstrated during the Covid period).
There is also a parallel with religions. Religions do not have to be rational: the more unbelievable a story is, the more it is believed. They function very well because they provide ‘trusted’ answers, not true ones. No one wants the truth; people just want to be told they are not the only ones thinking something. Social platforms thrive on this. In the same way, AI algorithms provide the answers they ‘must’ provide, based on non-transparent priorities. I do not blame the software, which is just a statistical routine, nor do I blame those who write it. The Puppet Masters sit on the upper floors and manage the triggers.
How to save ourselves?
There is probably no salvation for us ‘standard bipeds’. But history teaches that civilizations always rise from their ashes, perhaps rediscovering a glorious past after centuries of oblivion. I trust in this cycle for humanity. In the meantime, I only hope that the time I have left “non mi sia grave” to borrow from Leopardi.
