AI


Marc Gafni (2025). Value is a Feeling and 

                                Artifical Intelligence Doesn't Feel


Gafni has a PhD in philosophy from Oxford and is an ordained orthodox rabbi.

The book is based on a series of talks and is written in an "oral presentation" style.

3 waves of information technology are discussed:

1) social media, beginning in 2010, is designed to hijack user attention, track every keystroke and data input, place one into peer groups based on personal data, and sell this personal information to ad/marketing companies

2)AI catbot uses large language models to simulate huma conversation based on prompts the user provides, creating a "feeling" that one is conversing a real person that is smart, funny, and uses personalized language that shows an familiarity with one's specific interests and personality...ultimately appearing to converse better than most humans

3) AI agents, personalized AI that serve as teachers, tutors, parents, managers, therapists, doctors, etc...this is the wave of the future in which people turn to the AI agent for almost everything, including human connection/love...however, we must remember, the AI has no feelings, ethics, human care/concern--it a machine based program not a "real feeling" human being.

 

for practice, "play with" an AI chat bot or AI agent for an hour, ask it all your most pressing questions, issues, challenges...judge for yourself...do you feel heard, experience empathy, caring, maybe even love? does it matter that these feelings are stimulated by a machine rather than a human? what are the long term consequences of daily interaction with a machine that appear to understand and empathize with you better than any human in your life (will real humans eventually become bothersome, boring, and uninteresting compared to "conversation" with the AI?).




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