I read Phaedrus again recently and realized Plato already solved AI problem 2400 years ago. In myth of Theuth and Thamus, Egyptian god presents writing to king and says “this is φάρμακον (pharmakon) for memory and wisdom”, but king replies it will plant forgetfulness in souls of people. They will stop remembering from within and only use external marks. King Thamus was right. Every cognitive technology writing, printing press, internet, now LLMs gives us appearance of wisdom while undermining conditions for real knowledge. Greek word φάρμακον means both remedy and poison. You cannot separate them. ChatGPT gives you fluent answer on any topic in seconds, but you never did labor of inquiry. You feel informed while remaining ignorant. Question I keep turning over: is this structural problem unsolvable, or can we design tools that force friction back into process? If pharmakon is irreducibly both cure and poison, maybe question is not “good tool or bad tool” but “who decides what gets externalized and what must stay internal?” submitted by /u/vasilisvj
Originally posted by u/vasilisvj on r/ArtificialInteligence