Peirce's concept of abduction underscores its role as the origin of insight and new ideas, enabling product teams to hypothesize effectively and allowing designers to anticipate confusion. The discussion also critiques current AI chatbots for undermining Enlightenment values of intellectual engagement and inquiry. Concerns are raised about AI capabilities diverging from established project conventions, suggesting a shift from human coding to AI-generated outputs. Furthermore, questions arise regarding AI's potential effect on societal structure if widely accessible magical powers become normalized.
Peirce believed abduction was the starting point of thought. The origin of all insight. It's how new ideas enter the room. It's what lets a product team hypothesize why a metric dropped. What lets a designer anticipate confusion before it happens. What lets a researcher frame the right question - not just analyze the data.
Professor Bell's thesis is that our current AI chatbots contradict and undermine the original Enlightenment values. Values that are implicitly sacred in our modern culture; active intellectual engagement, sceptical inquiry, and challenging received wisdom.
I know the code was generated because it was written in a way no developer on the team would. It works, it's clear, it's tested, and it's maintainable. But it's written in a way that doesn't follow the project conventions we've accepted. I know it wasn't written by a human.
But if AI becomes mundane magic, and successfully confers mundane magical powers to every average Joe, what will happen to us? Case study, anybody? When was the last time the gods dropped a Death Note on Earth?
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