A Treatise on AI Chatbots Undermining the Enlightenment

Watsonmentionedin AI Slop: Unendlicher SpaßNovember 04, 2025

Von Alard von Kittlitz Aus der ZEIT Nr. 35/2025 Was passiert eigentlich, wenn die KI das Internet überrennt? Dann landen wir im dunklen Wald der Bot-Armeen. Das Internet ersäuft in Unfug, und es gibt längst einen Ausdruck für diese Art von Inhalten im Netz: AI Sl

2plyrepliedAugust 13, 2025

Meh. The Age of Enlightenment died decades ago. We are in the Age of Entanglement now.

Eleanor KonikrepliedAugust 13, 2025

I love seeing AI put in a historical context other than the Industrial Revolution & the Luddies. I also love seeing articles that are in conversation with one another, and riffed off of yours in my latest article: www.eleanorkonik.com/p/on-truth-m...

brid.gyrepliedAugust 12, 2025

For the more demanding users, an AI agent integrated into a PKM that relies on evolving rules from the knowledge base, or an MCP server in Claude Desktop, would be even more comprehensive. It's something i'm working on by the way, as a philosophy teacher.

brid.gyrepliedAugust 12, 2025

If chatbots could not only stimulate our critical thinking but also inspire most of us to enjoy it, that would be amazing. It would be a revolution of the mind, even more radical than the Enlightenment. For those who already have a feel for it, a good prompt or chat style does t

brid.gyrepliedAugust 12, 2025

I completely agree with your analysis, but the limiting factor isn’t just the current design of chatbots, it’s also the fact that most people dislike the discomfort of having to think and question their beliefs. The inertia of the mind is a formidable opponent.

Maggie AppletonrepliedAugust 12, 2025

Yes in the essay I show how I use Claude styles to switch into critical mode. I also have a bunch of common prompts saved as snippets in Raycast.

IvorepliedAugust 11, 2025

Don't you have such a switch avaliable via Tana or whatever you are currently using?

mediajunkierepliedAugust 08, 2025

instant follow

BrettonrepliedAugust 08, 2025

Great article! I’m tired of hearing about how AI is making us all dumber. If you understand how it works, it can be a really useful way of developing your own thoughts. Every LLM needs the following line underneath the input area: “Remember: YOU are Sherlock Holmes, and this

Hibai UnzuetarepliedAugust 08, 2025

I find it challenging to “have the cake and eat it”, because labs have lots of resources precisely to succeed in becoming necessary prostheses, and the state of mind to challenge yourself is so opposite to the one we experience when we offload.

Hibai UnzuetarepliedAugust 08, 2025

When I try to go deeper into this question I always end up on some sort of power structures explanation. What would models built by a teacher or librarian look like, except that those wouldn’t have the necessary resources to do it.

LightsongrepliedAugust 08, 2025

I'm absolutely going to implement a "Harsh Claude" prompt when necessary. On a related note, as an educator I've long been arguing that this "critical interlocutor" role remains one of the strongest reasons for maintaining "human" teachers amidst the wave of EdTech initiatives

Erlend Sogge HeggenrepliedAugust 06, 2025

Love the idea; hope you can do a collab with @anthropic.com on this ????

Evan FuturerepliedAugust 06, 2025

Really good piece Maggie. Insidious is the right word for it. It's the same criticism we often hear about San Francisco, the echo chamber. Building skyscrapers on foundations of sand. It's risky for thinking, but it's often what you want when being creative. The improv techni

brid.gyrepliedAugust 06, 2025

Ai is becoming so popular because the regular internet has become so shitty.

OskarrepliedAugust 06, 2025

But: is there even a way to add a style from the mobile app or mobile web interface? I can’t find it (possible my style list is too long for the web interface). This should be a setting from the profile, along with the general user preferences prompt. @anthropic.com - have Claude

Maggie AppletonrepliedAugust 06, 2025

Oh this revision looks good! Will give it a try. The one I had was edited by Claude, and of course it added a bunch of softening qualifiers like "gently encourage the user."

Maggie AppletonrepliedAugust 06, 2025

I found it's easy to prompt ChatGPT and Claude into being more critical. They can be harsh in a good way – the kind of harsh you need when your ideas/work sucks a bit. But I think this critical character shouldn't be something users have to prompt engineer themselves. It should

Maggie AppletonrepliedAugust 06, 2025

Didn't mean to write a whole essay, but got on a roll. Started off responding to an NYT op-ed that made good points: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/02/o... But it was missing a technical understanding of why models are like this – namely, RLHF. Humans want approval and rate complimenta

Mentions around the web