A new technology is emerging, but the concerns remain the same. Discussions about artificial intelligence and its potential impact on critical or general thinking continue unabated. And they are mostly negative. AI would take away our ability to think. We would forget how to write essays or research knowledge.

The same thing was said about Google. In 2008, Nicholas Carr wrote an article in The Atlantic with the telling title Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Seventeen years later, we are still here, and Google has become a tool we take for granted, using it every day without even thinking about it. But over the last three years, when ChatGPT entered the scene, the same moral entrepreneurs crawled out of their holes again, warning that AI will make us stupid and that civilization as we know it today will irretrievably collapse if we don’t take immediate, radical, uncompromising steps to prevent it. And the media jumps on it because they sense danger or scandal, and politicians because they can finally demonstrate decisive action. A win-win-win situation for moral entrepreneurs, journalists, and politicians.

But the excitement is artificial and repeats itself every few decades or centuries. Two thousand years ago, for example, the Greek philosopher Plato was no fan of the then novel technology of writing and widespread literacy:

When people learn this, it will plant forgetfulness in their souls; they will stop training their memory because they rely on what is written down and no longer remember things from within themselves, but with the help of external signs.

The famous story told by Socrates about the Egyptian god Theuth (or Thoth), which appears in Plato’s Phaedrus (c. 370 BC), struck the same note.

Theuth, the god of wisdom, inventor of numbers, geometry, astronomy, dice games, and even writing, presents his inventions to the Egyptian king Thamus. Theuth praises writing as a great gift for human knowledge and memory.

But the king refuses and criticizes:

Writing does not make people wiser, but only ‘seemingly knowledgeable’. They would forget their own memory because they rely on external signs instead of preserving knowledge within themselves. Writing only gives the appearance of knowledge, but not true understanding.

There was also skepticism in the Middle Ages when books first appeared. Some scholars considered printed books (after Gutenberg) to be dangerous because too many people would have access to knowledge, which could lead to the spread of false or dangerous ideas.

When books began to be printed en masse, there was a fear that the flood of reading material would overwhelm the mind. The term “reading addiction” originated in the 18th century: there was a fear that young people in particular would become effeminate or seduced by reading too much. And that women would become hysterical.

With the advent of newspapers, warnings were issued about the rapid flood of information; with radio, that people would listen instead of thinking for themselves; with television, that it would make people stupid and passive; and with the internet and smartphones, that it would destroy concentration and memory.

What can we learn from this? With almost every new medium, the initial reaction is fear that it will corrupt thinking, memory, or society. Later, it becomes normal—and the concern shifts to the next medium, and the next generation of moral entrepreneurs, journalists, and politicians tries to profit from the situation.