I don't think I said this quite clearly enough in this video but I have no idea if AI changes the structure of these problems in any significant way. It might make things better, it might make things worse, but it's also totally possible that it basically changes nothing and we'll be left in roughly the same spot, incrementally fighting to get more attention paid to the biggest problems. Problems that are big, not because we don't know how to solve them, but because they don't enter into the attentional field of the people who can solve them. Or, even worse, because solving them would be contrary to the interests of the people capable of solving them. That's already the world we live in now, and its frustrating, but I think everyone understands the shape of the problem. We just don't have ways to solve it, and I would be very surprised if AI helped with that at all. But who knows...I've been surprised before. Nilay's video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RKGWg2Ex2U ---- Subscribe to our newsletter! https://werehere.beehiiv.com/subscribe Preorder John's new novel Hollywood, Ending (out September 22!): https://hollywoodendingbook.com Learn more about our project to help Partners in Health radically reduce maternal mortality in Sierra Leone: https://www.pih.org/hankandjohn If you're able to donate $2,000 or more to this effort, please join our matching fund: https://pih.org/hankandjohnmatch If you're in Canada, you can donate here: https://pihcanada.org/hankandjohn
The AI Question that No AI Person Asks
AI FOR EPISTEMICS & COORDINATION
Civilization and technology have radically improved the human condition. Nonetheless, the world sometimes goes in directions which essentially nobody would prefer — e.g., nuclear arms races, unexpected financial crashes, predatory marketing, or ubiquitous political misinformation.
AI for science: What can it do? Can it do things? Let’s find out!
A what we’re reading spotlight
The antidote to AI fatigue — Answer.ai Solveit
Is there something it is like to be an AI?
Posted on Wednesday 2 Jul 2025. 1,593 words, 6 links. By Matt Webb.
The AI Power Systems Problem is Actually Much Worse than the Video Explains
Many Minds: Science, AI, and illusions of understanding
AI will fundamentally transform science. It will supercharge the research process, making it faster and more efficient and broader in scope. It will make scientists themselves vastly more productive, more objective, maybe more creative. It will make many human participants—and probably some human scientists—obsolete… Or at least these are some of the claims we are hearing these days. There is no question that various AI tools could radically reshape how science is done, and how much science is done. What we stand to gain in all this is pretty clear. What we stand to lose is less obvious, but no less important. My guest today is . Molly is a Professor in the Department of Psychology and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. In a recent , Molly and the anthropologist presented a framework for thinking about the different roles that are being imagined for AI in science. And they argue that, when we adopt AI in these ways, we become vulnerable to certain illusions. Here, Molly and I talk about four visions of AI in science that are currently circulating: AI as an Oracle, as a Surrogate, as a Quant, and as an Arbiter. We talk about the very real problems in the scientific process that AI promises to help us solve. We consider the ethics and challenges of using Large Language Models as experimental subjects. We talk about three illusions of understanding the crop up when we uncritically adopt AI into the research pipeline—an illusion that we understand more than we actually do; an illusion that we're covering a larger swath of a research space than we actually are; and the illusion that AI makes our work more objective. We also talk about how ideas from Science and Technology Studies (or STS) can help us make sense of this AI-driven transformation that, like it or not, is already upon us. Along the way Molly and I touch on: AI therapists and AI tutors, anthropomorphism, the culture and ideology of Silicon Valley, Amazon's Mechanical Turk, fMRI, objectivity, quantification, Molly's mid-career crisis, monocultures, and the squishy parts of human experience. Without further ado, on to my conversation with Dr. Molly Crockett. Enjoy! A transcript of this episode is available . Notes and links 5:00 – For more on LLMs—and the question of whether we understand how they work—see our with Murray Shanahan. 9:00 – For the paper by Dr. Crockett and colleagues about the social/behavioral sciences and the COVID-19 pandemic, see . 11:30 – For Dr. Crockett and colleagues’ work on outrage on social media, see this . 18:00 – For a recent exchange on the prospects of using LLMs in scientific peer review, see . 20:30 – Donna Haraway’s essay, 'Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’, is . See also Dr. Haraway's book, . 22:00 – For the recent essay by Henry Farrell and others on AI as a cultural technology, see . 23:00 – For a recent report on chatbots driving people to mental health crises, see . 25:30 – For the already-classic “stochastic parrots” article, see . 33:00 – For the study by Ryan Carlson and Dr. Crockett on using crowd-workers to study altruism, see . 34:00 – For more on the “illusion of explanatory depth,” see with Tania Lombrozo. 53:00 – For more about Ohio State’s plans to incorporate AI in the classroom, see . For a recent essay by Dr. Crockett on the idea of “techno-optimism,” see . Recommendations , by Adam Becker , by L. A. Paul , by Miranda Fricker Many Minds is a project of the , which is made possible by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation to Indiana University. The show is hosted and produced by , with help from Assistant Producer and with creative support from DISI Directors Erica Cartmill and Jacob Foster. Our artwork is by . Our transcripts are created by . Subscribe to Many Minds on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also now subscribe to the Many Minds newsletter ! We welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions. Feel free to email us at: manymindspodcast@gmail.com. For updates about the show, visit or follow us on Twitter () or Bluesky ().
The AI We Deserve
Critiques of artificial intelligence abound. Where’s the utopian vision for what it could be?
What we (don’t) talk about when we talk about AI
Everybody’s talking about it; everybody’s tired of talking about it. Why aren’t we making more progress in the discussion?
AI is now unpopular. That may not make a difference.
Building Political Superintelligence
Amidst fears of dystopia, a blueprint for how we use AI to reinvent the way we govern ourselves
The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Human Thought
This research paper examines, from a multidimensional perspective (cognitive, social, ethical, and philosophical), how AI is transforming human thought. It highlights a cognitive offloading effect: the externalization of mental functions to AI can reduce intellectual engagement and weaken critical thinking. On the social level, algorithmic personalization creates filter bubbles that limit the diversity of opinions and can lead to the homogenization of thought and polarization. This research also describes the mechanisms of algorithmic manipulation (exploitation of cognitive biases, automated disinformation, etc.) that amplify AI's power of influence. Finally, the question of potential artificial consciousness is discussed, along with its ethical implications. The report as a whole underscores the risks that AI poses to human intellectual autonomy and creativity, while proposing avenues (education, transparency, governance) to align AI development with the interests of humanity.
Mathematicians are grappling with the possibility that AI might eclipse them
I talked to 20 mathematicians about rapid AI progress in their field.
How Americans see AI impacting human skills; its role in science, matchmaking, religion and more
Majorities don’t want AI to give advice about religion or love. But many say AI should help forecast weather, search for financial crimes, develop medicine and more.
