Human Hybridization with Artificial Intelligence: The Myth of Thoth Revisited

Technology is widely recognized as a key driver of economic growth. However, it has always generated anxiety throughout history, and Prometheus' punishment for stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to humans serves as a timeless reminder of the tension between the benefits of technological changes and the ethical implications and fears they engender. Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be no exception to this rule.

Often perceived as cutting-edge technology, AI combines pioneering ideas and technologies from the 1950s, leveraging more recently the unprecedented scale and performance of parallel processing and the ability to access and process vast amounts of data. It will make machines perform better than humans and replace them for specific tasks. However, as humans worked more efficiently in tandem with machines to perform physical tasks after relying on their muscles and draught animals, IA would rather augment than replace human intelligence. Amid rapid progress, even if it stirs up debates and inspires science-fiction dystopias, the fear of complete human replacement is considered more a myth than a reality. Still, as for the introduction of steam power machinery in the manufacturing process during the Industrial Revolution, the development of IA will undoubtedly cause significant disruptions in the workplace and labor market during the Information Age.

The real breakthrough with AI is that machines are no longer programmed; they learn by themselves from data—their training fuel. Since Descartes, thought and reason have been perceived as the essence of human nature. For the first time in history, machines have mimicked the cognitive and decision-making abilities that used to be the prerogative of humans. The real question then becomes whether AI will make us smarter or dumber, individually and collectively, as organizations.

Yet this question has been asked before. Professor Raphael Gaillard , neurologist and last elected member of the French Academy in April 2024, reminds us in his book "The Augmented Man" (https://lnkd.in/eiTSW5ZD) that "we've already experienced a great intelligence hybridization with the advent of writing and reading, marking our passage from prehistory to history. Depositing our knowledge outside ourselves through writing and reappropriating it through reading was not so different from what technology promises us with AI."

In The Dialogues of Plato, the Greek philosopher mentions the scribe Thoth, credited by the ancient Egyptians as the inventor of writing and who gradually became seen as a god of wisdom. Plato uses the myth of Thoth to demonstrate that writing leads to laziness and forgetfulness. In the story, Thoth remarks to King Thamus of Egypt that writing is a wonderful substitute for memory. Thamus remarks that it is a remedy for reminding, not remembering, with the appearance but not the reality of wisdom. Future generations will hear much without being properly taught and will appear wise but not be so.

Although Prof. Gaillard alerts on the risk of an increase in mental health issues, it would be premature to conclude on the concerns that AI may raise around cognitive decline. In any case, as he rightly points out, we can agree that the adventure of writing was a success for humanity. And let's remember that what makes AI learn is its ability to be increasingly proficient at reading and understanding human language. In essence, intelligence is now viewed as a multifaceted trait that goes beyond traditional cognitive abilities and reflects a more holistic capacity to thrive in a rapidly changing world.

It does not mean, however, that King Thamus was wrong. Admittedly, as books after the invention of writing, making IA another extension of our brains will make us more efficient and productive and probably appear wiser—at least compared to those not using those innovations. But arguably, as sure as people experience more difficulties in reading maps and have lost the global spatial perspective since the generalization of GPS on smartphones, intelligence hybridization with IA will also create a dependence that will undoubtedly make us look even less smart than we are today, having lost some skills acquired in the past if, for whatever reasons, we would become deprived of these augmented technologies in the future.