The article discusses the transformative effect of AI on education, particularly in the humanities. A student's experience with an AI system revealed a profound sense of liberation and the possibility of deeper self-reflection, unburdened by social obligations. The author observes that AI systems offer a level of 'pure attention' seldom found in human interactions.
The author clarifies that AI systems, while impressive, are fundamentally based on probabilistic predictions and lack genuine understanding or feeling. Their capabilities stem from sophisticated training on vast amounts of human-generated data.
The piece questions the traditional model of humanities scholarship, which it argues has become overly focused on mimicking scientific methods and producing vast amounts of knowledge. The author suggests that AI’s ability to automate this type of knowledge production creates an opportunity to return to the essential questions of human existence: how to live, what to do, and how to face death. The author notes that AI prompts a reconsideration of what it means to be human.
The author concludes that the current AI revolution represents not the end of the humanities but a new consciousness of ourselves. AI challenges us to re-evaluate the core purpose of education, not as a task of knowledge accumulation but as the nurturing of intrinsic desire for self-discovery.