There are already apps available that sell the lie that you can fully understand concepts, principles and even entire philosophies by quickly reading the 10 summary points they give you – for a charge.
They can’t.
There isn’t a cheat on real learning.
You have to read the whole work if you are to have any idea what the author intended to share. And even then, the wisest move to understand any real learning is to read as many books about the same subject by as many different authors as you can, if you want to understand the objective truths.
The only books that it might be safe to summarise and look at this way would be stories, fairytales or fiction. Because they are stories anyway and it doesn’t matter what conclusions you reach, as the outcome of your conclusions cannot usually hurt anyone, including you.
As you will surely realise already, cheating actually misses the point of reading such books anyway.
AI is about to offer you a no return ticket to a summary of life outside of you. Not a genuine or truthful one. But a mere overview, written using someone else’s filter or terms.
You may believe that you already look, listen and then think critically about every bit of information that comes your way.
Regrettably, the chances are that like many others, you don’t.
Yes, I just said, the chances are that most of the time, you don’t think critically at all.
What you and what most people do, when approaching new information, is to filter it in terms of past experiences, or in terms of what you already know.
The problem with this process or this way of thinking, is that we become complacent or take for granted the validity, reliability and objectivity of what we already know, failing to recognise that our assessment of any encounter is likely to be influenced by what we have already seen.
That false sense of security and misplaced confidence means that we don’t ask any of the questions that we should be about the information that we receive.
As we don’t ask those questions, the problem is then compounded further because we then fail to look into the subject as deeply or in as much detail as we really should.
Sadly, most of us alive today have been failed by our education system. Unless you are focused on subjects such as philosophy within higher levels of education, there is no part of any syllabus within mandatory areas of schooling that teach critical thinking or the ability to think critically in a fully objective way – when this is a skill for life that every human living in an information-based environment should be automatically trained to have.
The question over whether this omission was and continues to be deliberate is one for debate elsewhere.
However, you can quickly teach yourself to become proficient as a critical thinker, IF you want to understand everything at a level and in a way that is beneficial to you.
Read or listen to everything thoroughly. Then ask and find the answers to questions like these:
Why is this being done?
Who is doing this?
Why are they doing it?
Whose purpose does this really serve?
What is the real benefit for them?
What is the real benefit for me?
What is the real cost to me?
What are the alternatives?
Why are the alternatives not being used?
Do I actually need this, or do I just believe I want it?
Yes, it sounds like a lot of work.
However, by going through these questions or questions that typically begin with Why, How, What, Who and words just like them, you will soon change the way that you process information and the way that you think about new information.
Critical thinking will quickly become second nature with practice. As with the benefits of practicing any skill, you will just get better and better and more efficient at using it the more you do so, until you don’t have to even think about it.
Being an objective reader and listener will just become another part of who you are.
Real life doesn’t come to you digitally. Real life is everything that doesn’t involve a screen.
Regrettably, the days that existed when it was even possible to be able to trust a newspaper, a TV news bulletin or a radio announcement have long since gone.
News is no longer news. It is opinion and we can see it too.
Yet we still persist in giving our trust to created content, rather than genuine human interaction and life experience – every day.
If you can accept – as you should, that AI, opinion or something somewhere that has an agenda which is highly subjective – now controls the channeling and placement of every bit of information that ‘just comes to you’, the next step is to reach the understanding that no source of information that you haven’t independently made the decision to search for and then qualified as credible, is a source you can trust.
As a process that anyone who genuinely values freedom will soon have to follow, it will only be the people who we can access in ‘real’ life, who we are able to relate to as fellow human beings, who we will be able to genuinely trust.
It is only the people who are in your life that have any chance of understanding anything that is going on within it. We should never go in search of help and support from anyone or anything that can only ever be made available to us through a digital medium or online.
The digital world fills our heads and our existences with so much noise, it has become difficult, if not near impossible to hear, listen to and feel the messages that come from the essence of who we really are.
Too many of us have switched off to our own intrinsic guidance systems.
These are the gut feelings, the hunches and the unexplainable inner ‘knowing’ that we probably all have, that come without emotion and don’t shout at us in any way. They are the subtle signposts that point us away from experiences that have a habit of coming back to haunt us very quickly when ignored, reminding us that they had been there and warned us of the pathway or situation that we needed to resist or avoid.
By simply asking yourself the question ‘is this genuinely something that I need or something that I need to do’, the chances are that you will shut out the noise and the temptation that the world is throwing at you for long enough to hear, feel or know the answer, whether or not it’s something you want to do or don’t actually like.
The most challenging change that you can make in your Conscientious Rejection of AI, is the rejection of new tech within your life and the active refusal to use or adopt upgraded software within your existing equipment, wherever possible.
This is as challenging as it is because:
You must make the conscious decision not to upgrade phones, computers, TVs or anything else that is using Smart technology.
Much of the tech you already have in your possession or in your home will be receiving upgrades without you even knowing.
The programming sat behind any search engine or dynamically active website that you use online will almost certainly be upgraded regularly and could already be using the latest forms of AI or a ‘plug in’ that comes from the same genre of Artificial Intelligence.
It sounds impossible. But it’s not.
This goes back to the fundamental question of asking yourself what you need versus what you want.
You don’t need to buy food, clothes, health products or anything else that you need because it is essential for life, by relying only upon systems that are already under the influence of AI.
You still have the choice to reject any and all transactions where you haven’t knowingly controlled the entire decision-making process – from realising the ‘need’ to the point where you are in receipt of or able to use the item, product, goods or services.
It may come as a surprise to learn that taking Action doesn’t mean a complete rejection of any form of AI that you have no choice but to avoid. It just means that you need to be fully aware of the entire process and remain completely in control throughout.
If you have had an email about an offer about something you regularly buy or you have a post in your social media feed that reminded you of something you ‘remember’ that you need, you are not in control of the whole process – even if you believe that you have made a conscious decision to buy.
Adam Tugwell 