The potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on human intelligence is the pressing question of our Digital Age.
Socrates decried written language as a threat to human memory and the cultivation of true understanding. Naturally, they made him drink poison.
The printing press took the interpretation of scripture out of the hands of educated clerics. Gutenberg’s invention invited the unwashed masses to seek God on their own. Which triggered violent conflicts that consumed Western Civilization for a hundred years.
And then there’s radio, which released the demons of fascism and total war. Followed by television, whose vast wasteland tried to restore us to a state of consumptive torpor.
Looking back across history, there was never a shortage of stupidity. Or new ways to spread it. So why the angst and panic?
A recent critique by Tyler Cowen titled Does AI Make Us Stupid? challenges an MIT brain study making just such a claim. Is Cowen right? Or as Zhou Enlai once observed about the impact of the French Revolution, is it “too early to say.”
To make sense of it all, look no further than the wisdom of Forest Gump, who reminded us that “stupid is as stupid does.” Based on that aphorism and a glance at the daily news, the prize for being the most stupid-making institution of our times has got to go to College.
And not just liberal arts programs, which unleashed a plague of indebted, indoctrinated “activists” eager to punish us for our sins. Reports indicate that nearly a quarter of the 2025 graduating class from Harvard Business School remains unemployed. Be grateful for little things.
No generation ever cornered the market on stupidity. So take heart, dear reader. The best is yet to come.