The Stoic Skill AI Can’t Replace
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What insights do the Stoics offer about modern technology?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. If you dropped one of the Stoics, you know, Marxist or Seneca or Epictetus or Cato into the modern world, they'd be shocked by a lot, right? Culturally, they'd be shocked by the technology, cars and planes, the phones in our pockets, our instantaneous communication, how fast we can travel, the endless stream of news. I mean, I don't think they'd be shocked by the fact that society had changed and evolved. Like they understood a lot about change. It's one of the fascinating themes in meditations, how often he returns to the idea of change, how inescapable something like change is.
I guess I'm curious what they would think of artificial intelligence, right? What would they think of AI? Marcus Aurelius would be shocked to watch videos of himself generated by AI where he has a 12-pack. He's just absolutely shredded. I don't know. It's an interesting question, right? What would they think of this tool? Obviously, I tell a story and... Wisdom that is sort of a fable about AI, the idea that technology can do your thinking for you, that there's some way to get wisdom other than a lot of work. I think they would obviously dispute that. But this idea of wrestling with technological disruption, wrestling with change, wrestling with... The idea of magical solutions, you know, world changing innovations.
What would the Stoics think about that? It's obviously something I think about. I think about it as a parent of young kids. I think about it as a person who runs a business. I think about it as a writer. I think about it as a person who has a question and wants an answer to that question. And, you know, I type it in and then I think about whether I can trust that answer. Anyways, I got asked to do this podcast a couple of weeks ago. It's called Beyond the Prompt. It's hosted by Henrik Werdelin. He was an entrepreneur and started a bunch of cool companies. And then Jeremy Utley, who's a lecturer at Stanford, who I actually know through RC Buford at the Spurs. And they asked me some of these questions, and I was sort of trying to think about what the Stoics would have to say here.
And I thought it was interesting enough that I wanted to bring it to you. So you can listen to the whole podcast over on Beyond the Prompt. I'll link to that. But in the interim, here's just the Stoic parts. What I wanted to try to answer is like, How do we use these tools without being dependent on them? How do we stay disciplined in a world that I think is actually going to increase the amount of distractions being thrown at us? How do we separate what's true from what's false? What's bullshit, right? How do we not just keep, but sharpen our judgment, our character, our ability to think clearly? That's what I'm going to talk about here. So if you're wondering who those voices are, that's Henrik and Jeremy, but, um,
What we're talking about is Stoics and AI, and I thought you would like this conversation.
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How would Stoics perceive artificial intelligence?
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What insights do the Stoics offer about modern technology?
0:00–3:58
2
How would Stoics perceive artificial intelligence?
3:58–7:49
3
What challenges do we face in navigating technological disruption?
7:49–11:22
4
How can we maintain discipline in a distraction-filled world?
11:22–12:03
5
What strategies help us distinguish truth from falsehood?
12:03–12:37
6
How do we sharpen our judgment and critical thinking skills?
12:37–18:17
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Daily Stoic
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