Kevin Frazier is an Assistant Professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University. He previously clerked for the Montana Supreme Court.
New AI tools, like ChatGPT, threaten that horrible, wonderful process of trying to find the right words. Even as I typed that sentence, words suggested by my phone danced above the keyboard—passively steering me but directing me nonetheless.
These simple tools save time, right? And, they assuredly reduce typos, correct? Maybe they even help us communicate with one another by increasing the odds of everyone using similar phrases, that’s a good thing?
Soon AI tools will offer to replace our critical thinking in other contexts too. Need to decide who to vote for? In the near future you may engage with AI chatbots trained to emulate political candidates -- rather than go door to door, these candidates will develop and release bots that aim to persuade you to vote a certain way. Who needs the Iowa State Fair to evaluate a candidate in person when you can just ask “the candidate” any question you want by “talking” with their bot?
AI tools also shape what news we read and social media comments we see--in fact, they have done so for several years. And, in some cases, AI tools have taken over the “boring” parts of our jobs. Some lawyers, for instance, have turned to ChatGPT to conduct legal research and review documents.
Are these gains in convenience worth the loss? No. In fact, it’s the sort of deal that the playground bully would offer - trading you the basketball with a leak for your spot on the best swing.
The lesson is that convenience always comes at a cost.
So what are we unwilling to give up for a little more convenience? If we don’t identify the skills, tasks, and activities that are fundamental to being human, then there’s a chance that AI will not only address those core parts of being human but actually reduce our ability and willingness to do the very things that distinguish and define us. Folks in the AI safety space call this “enfeeblement” -- I prefer to think of it as a loss of our humanity.
Our willingness to embrace the added seconds or minutes or, god forbid, hours to do something without the aid of ChatGPT and other AI tools may soon fade. After all, tools of convenience have ruthlessly killed other things--like the joy of sending and receiving a handwritten letter.
So to protect our humanity we have to proactively declare what we regard as fundamentally human endeavors and fend off the urge to outsource those endeavors to tools of convenience.
This humble (and short) column will not try to list those endeavors. My hope is instead to start a conversation about the spaces we want to remain AI free--or at least to the fullest extent possible. Given the significance of the upcoming 2024 election, I think starting that conversation on the use of AI tools in democratic activities makes a lot of sense.
Should, for example, candidates be able to use AI chatbots to impersonate them? If so, should they have to provide a disclaimer that the bot is, in fact, not the candidate? May political parties release ads informed by AI tools to appeal specifically to you based on the mountains of data it has compiled about you?
I know my answers to these questions, but I want to know yours. We need to debate what makes us…well…us, if we are going to have any chance of developing norms, regulations, and laws that shield fundamental human endeavors from the dangers of convenience. What would you declare "AI Exclusionary Zones" and why? Such zones may seem like an odd thing to discuss but if we don't shield it, convenience will conquer.
Old engraved illustration of Ulysses defying the Cyclops.
Odysseus Reimagined: Nolan’s Epic Explores What Makes a True Hero
Who is a hero? More importantly: what is a hero? What attributes are universally admired, inspiring glorious stories, ballads and songs, memorials and movies, all chronicling the hero’s bold adventures?
The Odyssey, a new release written and directed by Christopher Nolan, attempts to answer that question. Based on the ancient tales The Iliad and The Odyssey, written by Homer around 800 BC, the film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, his loyal wife.
Historians have puzzled over the “Homeric question,” that is, who was Homer? We know very little about him, not even when or where he was born; seven Greek cities lay claim to him as their native son. Yet, he is considered the “godfather” of national Greek culture, and his stories are among the earliest masterpieces of literature.
Homer is sometimes romanticized as a blind poet who wandered from town to town reciting his stories. But he, who could express so poignantly the tribulations of Odysseus, was not blind to human nature. He keenly wrote of the attributes as well as the paltriness in his characters and the flaws of his great hero, Odysseus.
The Iliad is the story of the final years of the Trojan War, sparked when Helen, the beautiful wife of Sparta’s King Menelaus, was kidnapped by Paris of Troy. Because the kings had initiated a pact to defend one another, Odysseus was drawn into the fray.
After spending ten years fighting the Trojan War and finally achieving victory, The Odyssey tells of Odysseus’s struggle to return to his kingdom, Ithaca. On his way home, he encounters many dangers and delays. He is pursued by the sea-god Poseidon, must surmount Circe’s spell, and overcome the seductive charms of the enchantress Calypso, and his journey takes him another ten years.
Odysseus’s desires and struggles are universal: his longing for home, yearning for an end to his troubles, for rest after a long and difficult journey. His difficulties reflect the immemorial questions of what it means to be loyal, to belong, what it means “to be” at all. Despite his hubris, which manifests in his propensity to court catastrophe without regard for consequences, Odysseus is an authentic hero, noble and admirable, brave and dedicated.
According to the Greek ideal, a true hero must possess physical excellence and moral virtue. He must, as well, embrace his civic duty. Achieving such status requires “paideia,” a good education; “sophrosyne,” moderation in maintaining physical and emotional balance; and “arete,” an allegiance to the state.
Fictional or real, heroes’ deeds resonate through the centuries and shine a light on what is best in humanity, what matters, what will live on despite our mortality.
Is our digital age really so different from Homer’s Bronze Age? Physical beauty is still adulated, as it was then with Helen of Troy, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” (Marlowe) Power is still king, and wealth is still power.
The years of the Trojan War were harsh and violent. But were they more brutal than the times we live in? Although millenniums have passed and we now have different battlefields, Palestine, Ukraine, Iran, etc., the ravages and the wages of war remain the same: death and suffering. Humanity’s currency is the same, and so, too, is our quest for heroes.
Social scientists claim that after three generations most people are forgotten by even their direct progeny, and after four, remembered only by historical records. So, what then does last? What makes a difference? What is truly beautiful and worthwhile in life?
The universal themes embodied and emboldened by our heroes throughout the ages, the faithfulness of their hearts and the courage of their deeds, these last.
The essential qualities of a hero are manifested in Homer’s Odysseus. Steadfast integrity: “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.” His deep compassion: “Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for others’ good, and to melt at others’ woes.” (Both quotes from The Odyssey.)
Nolan’s movie may have created a more virtuous hero than Homer’s works, but the core of the nearly 3,000-year-old-story is intact and as crucially relevant today as it was then. It is the stuff of life: trauma, survival, relationships with others, finding oneself, deciding what is right, choosing a path forward, sometimes, ultimately leading to the honing of a hero.
Just as Odysseus braved storms, temptations, and trials in search of home, we too face a modern sea of civic turbulence, polarization, mistrust, and the fraying of our shared story.
As we live, we too will write our defining stories. How then might we become modern heroes?
By instigating the third Greek ideal of “arete”; embracing our civic duty. By becoming citizens who are open to reflection and debate, who are willing to act with purpose for the betterment of our nation.
In this journey, the work of renewing our democracy can be its own Odyssey, a voyage calling for integrity, courage, and steadfast commitment. Not to return home as Odysseus so desired, but to preserve our home, for the grand and worthwhile purpose of working toward an ever-better future for our country.
With others, we can shape the next chapter of our nation’s collective story.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."