Technology Has Shaped Human Knowledge for Centuries. Generative AI Is Set to Transform It Yet Again.
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Summary
Generative AI can condense and summarise information across a range of topics, providing answers to users based on its training on hundreds of billions of human words.
The technology can personalise outputs and providesRenditions in any required language and tone, providing information retrieval capabilities that function as a personal librarian.
It challenges the very concept of human knowledge, Authoring, ownership, and truth, and risks reducing the voices of many to the banality of one.
More evidence is needed to determine whether Generative AI promotes debate, contention, and challenge, which are key aspects of human knowledge.
It may make people information rich but thinking poor, with studies showing it improves creative thinking in some cases but not others, and may dampen critical thinking.
As an increasingly prevalent arbitrator of our information needs, AI marks a new phase in the history of the relationship between knowledge and technology.
