The other week, in a New York Times op-ed piece titled “Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy the Way We Think,” an assistant professor of Philosophy at University of California Irvine named Anastasia Berg observed that the current headlong embrace of AI is precipitating a decline in higher-order reasoning. Err, rather, in the very ability to reason. 

Unsurprised that her students used AI resources she specifically disallowed to complete a take-home final, Berg shared what might be described as mounting dread with a colleague. Who provided Berg (and us!) with a stark and ominous status update: “Our students are about to turn subcognitive.”” 

Berg continues: “At stake are not just specialized academic skills or refined habits of mind but also the most basic form of cognitive fluency…..This means they will lack the means to understand the world they live in or navigate it effectively.”

Frightening prospect. Rings true to lived experience. Surpasses even the quaint decades-old Devo notion of de-evolution.

Dismiss this as just more handwringing over AI if you must – as others have noted, there’s a brisk pundit business in shouting about “AI dread.”

Of course, there’s an even more lucrative business generating “AI slop.”

At present, the difference between human endeavor and AI emulation registers most vividly in the arts. You don’t need advanced musicology training to recognize that a sonata or some “Bossa Nova Chill” playlist is an elaborate forgery, served up by a studious bot charged with creating this particular version of slop. Even when the ear is momentarily beguiled, the heart is not: There’s something eerily hollow about these works that’s redolent of the faux-Bach studies offered as lesson material to pianists -- see “Teaching Little Fingers to Play.” (Which was, of course, also about teaching little ears to listen.)

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.