The practical measure as to AI's function in society then is what it does or does not do to the quality of existing human life. I don't need to speculate about whether I've been displaced by AI and lost my job. I don't need to speculate if my child can read a difficult text, sans a robot helper, or judge well the helper's "advice" when it's available, or whether she can think through a problem independently. No speculation is needed to know that the noise pollution, among other environmental concerns, of a giant AI data center is driving nearby residents to desperate measures.
The human-of-the-gaps could be reframed as the human as a living and breathing creature (animal, organism, however shorn of "human" essence we want to make it), but still a creature prone to action and reaction in society, prone to powerful propaganda and ideological networks, prone to committing acts of violence, or abject passivity, when its existence is threatened, or it is made to believe its existence is threatened. The propaganda can be instituted through AI as it algorithmically shapes and conditions thought and behavior, creating algorithmically attuned creatures, as dictated through the corporate interests that create it, drive it, and that it ultimately serves.
The practical measure as to AI's function in society then is what it does or does not do to the quality of existing human life. I don't need to speculate about whether I've been displaced by AI and lost my job. I don't need to speculate if my child can read a difficult text, sans a robot helper, or judge well the helper's "advice" when it's available, or whether she can think through a problem independently. No speculation is needed to know that the noise pollution, among other environmental concerns, of a giant AI data center is driving nearby residents to desperate measures.
The human-of-the-gaps could be reframed as the human as a living and breathing creature (animal, organism, however shorn of "human" essence we want to make it), but still a creature prone to action and reaction in society, prone to powerful propaganda and ideological networks, prone to committing acts of violence, or abject passivity, when its existence is threatened, or it is made to believe its existence is threatened. The propaganda can be instituted through AI as it algorithmically shapes and conditions thought and behavior, creating algorithmically attuned creatures, as dictated through the corporate interests that create it, drive it, and that it ultimately serves.