AI skepticism in philosophy
Here is Dan Kaufman arguing, among other things, that "AI enthusiasts reject the social dimension of philosophy."
Some first reactions:
- I'm sympathetic to Kaufman's view that many philosophers vastly overrate the truth-finding aspect of philosophy, which is "much more like literature" than many professional philosophers think (or say) it is.
- But one can accept Kaufman's picture of philosophical value and also embrace generative AI for some things. Indeed, I at least approximately do accept that picture and still find many philosophical uses for generative AI that seem legitimate to me.
- Any philosopher who does Google searches in the course of their job has already accepted that "statistical aggregation software" is professionally useful.
- Generative AI could never have done some of the most important work I did as a graduate student, but it would have saved a huge amount of time in tracking down references, learning my way around an apparatus criticus, and so on.
- I don't know German, and it would have been wonderful to be able to (mostly) read Walter Burkert's untranslated work. (This point extends far beyond Burkert, and even far beyond language mastery.)
- For all the reasonable skepticism about what machines can do, it's a simple fact that generative AI does give me useful insights on my work, and it reveals things that I couldn't find in years of working with some of the best human assistance in the world. Perhaps this says more about me than about generative AI, but not all of us are the best.