A prosthesis over a healthy limb

⊕This quote became a mind-worm for me because Beauman introduces the idea of an anti-prosthesis through such a vivid image. He deftly uses it to name the fear of intellectual rot I have as a knowledge worker in the AI world. He suggests the consequence of this: dehumanization. But in my mind, it also makes space for hope. That if AI is used consciously and intentionally, it can extend, not enfeeble.[AI is] like a prosthesis fitted over a perfectly healthy limb so it could shrivel from disuse inside the plastic casing. When [Karin Resaint, an AI researcher]’d done her masters, she’d believed that artificial intelligence was about computer minds ascending into person-hood, but this was more about human minds decaying out of it.

I thought of this after reading Matheus Lima’s Using My Fucking Brain.