David Brooks: preference

Transcript context

…I’ve heard people in the AI sector from the major companies say they’re very worried that AI can be so persuasive. Do you find it so persuasive? Because I don’t. It will teach me lots of facts, and I will defer to it, but it’s never persuaded me much with arguments, whereas humans have. What’s your view? Is it kryptonite in that way? See, it depends what you’re writing about. I was with an astrophysicist recently, who worked on a problem with eight of his senior colleagues for months. They put it to AI, and with a little extra prompting, it solved their problems in a couple of hours. I gather from economist friends that it can solve problems that only a few elite economists can solve. I write about culture, psychology, sociology, politics. It’s pathetic. I cannot use AI, and I use it every day. I make the attempts, and because in the things I care about, which are more humanistic, it’s hoovering up all the crap on the internet about what love is, or do you grow from post-traumatic experiments? It’s just the pabulum that’s out there on random websites. What if you ask it, “What would David Brooks say?”…

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