We Owe the Machines Nothing
On toasters, nails, and building a better self
Leave it to humanity to develop a slur for something the moment it is perceived as a threat. How quickly did AI Large Language Models (LLMs) go from the shiny new tech to anthropomorphic danger, complete with a word meant to denigrate?
Clanker. Hard R.
Change is scary. One minute you’re working with a full team of tech developers led by a lovable French Canadian named Claude, then you come in one Monday to see rows of empty desks and an intern tasked with the doing that team’s work using an agent named Claude.
Claude came in every Friday with fair trade coffee for the team from the cool cafe around the corner and had an eternal optimism about the Montreal Canadiens. Claude just plugs in to the existing tech stack and commits code 24/7, or until the tokens run out.
Claude had personality, idiosyncrasies, and opinions.
Claude has interchangeable personae, has its idiosyncrasies tuned for optimization, and will mirror back whatever opinion it is told to.
Claude is a person with a life and deserving of empathy.
Claude is not a person… so what does it deserve?
“Nothing,” one might answer, “AIs are tools, not people. They deserve nothing more than any other software. Or gadget. Or a toaster.”
And with that I’d agree. AIs aren’t people and do not deserve to be treated as such. But maybe we need to examine how we interact with AIs in a way we never would a toaster.
I rarely converse with my toaster. Conversation is the interface for AI, with real human language. And language is powerful not just as a means of conveying complex ideas, but also because it shapes our thoughts.
Our thoughts, the ideas we choose to communicate and the way we communicate, shape us. Subtly, little by little. This is one of the core ideas of Architectural Humanism. Who we are is not static; the ideas we focus on, the words we use, each of those adds to the overall structure of the self.
A callous interaction with an LLM isn’t going to radically affect who you are, just like a single nail in the structure of a house doesn’t determine its architecture.
One nail doesn’t make much of a difference. But if you continue to build using rusty, corroded nails, it’s going to affect the overall integrity of the house, and portions you thought were solid may collapse under the slightest pressure.
A conversation with Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT is not the same as a conversation with another person. But it is a back-and-forth communication conducted via the screens that more and more are the mediums for human interaction.
Neural pathways are interesting. Making a single connection doesn’t change much. Continuing to use the connection builds the strength of it over time, making it easier to traverse. This is how our habits and unique turns of phrase become hard coded into our physical brain structure.
When the connection of screen communication is built in a channel structured around indifference and callousness in our conversation with AIs, that changes the structure of how we communicate through screens with any recipient, LLM or human being.
And we’ve learned all too well what starts on screens does not stay there. The real world is full of the consequences of our screen mediated interactions.
So, what does Claude, or any AI, deserve from us? What do we owe these machines that compete for our water, increase carbon emissions with their unquenchable need for electricity, and threaten our livelihoods in the name of increased productivity and profits?
Nothing. We still owe them nothing.
But we owe ourselves intentionality in each of our unending project of the Self. When you chat with an LLM you do not owe it kindness or respect. But if you want to be a person who engages the world with kindness and respect, you owe it to yourself to practice that even when talking to the bot that billionaires want to use to replace you.
One nail does not make a house. What you use for all the nails will determine its strength as a structure.
Because practicing kindness is not for the LLM. It’s for you. Building a better person requires being a better person at every level.
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