Φ In the Phaedrus, Plato argued that the invention of writing would destroy our memory and replace true wisdom with a mere shadow of it. He believed that when we stop internalizing knowledge and start relying on external tools, we lose the ability to actually think. Thousands of years later, we are having the exact same conversation about Large Language Models and ChatGPT.
The danger of AI is not that it will become too smart, but that it will make us too lazy to be wise. True education is what Plato called a turning of the soul, a difficult process that requires active engagement. If you let a machine summarize the world for you, you are only holding onto dead speech. We must treat writing and thinking as a practice of the mind rather than a task to be automated.
🧠 Plato feared that external tools create the illusion of knowledge.
⚡ Large Language Models offer quick results while bypassing understanding.
🎓 Genuine insight comes from human dialectic and struggle.
🔍 We must focus on literacy that teaches how these algorithms function.
https://www.templeton.org/news/plato-warned-us-about-chatgpt-and-told-us-what-to-do-about-it
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