We're basically faced with two options:
a. Decouple the value of human life from economic output.
b. Watch as the value of human life rapidly approaches zero.
Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
31–40 of 119 posts
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#32AI breaks old sources of meaning the same way Nietzsche said the death of God broke inherited morality. When external structures collapse (roles, labels, certainty), meaning has to be generated from within. Identity becomes what you return to repeatedly (actions, habits, resonance), not what you’re labeled as. Morality becomes drift-resilience — maintaining coherence when everything shifts. Nietzsche isn’t telling us…
My spidey sense is telling me an LLM was used in drafting this comment
1000%
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#33Funny, some philosophers which wrote about how technology and AI are going to replace humanity - Deleuze & Guatarri, and Nick Land trace their thinking back to Nietzche, saying that "will to power" and "becoming" is exactly how AI takes shape and incorporates itself.
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#34We're basically faced with two options: a. Decouple the value of human life from economic output. b. Watch as the value of human life rapidly approaches zero.
b. so you mean like in Afrika
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean… what is the assumed replacement, then? Residual moral sensibilities from our obsolete judeochristian heritage?
Just as a random proposal, not even lightly thought out. In priority order with realistic exceptions: - do your best to be not dead, safe, and healthy for the next few years - do your best to make those around you not dead, safe, and healthy for the next few years - do your best to treat others around you how you would wish to be treated - do your best to treat others around you how THEY would wish to be treated.
So, the Golden Rule?
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#36Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#37AI breaks old sources of meaning the same way Nietzsche said the death of God broke inherited morality. When external structures collapse (roles, labels, certainty), meaning has to be generated from within. Identity becomes what you return to repeatedly (actions, habits, resonance), not what you’re labeled as. Morality becomes drift-resilience — maintaining coherence when everything shifts. Nietzsche isn’t telling us…
AI doesn't break any sources of meaning, it's value is in replacing journalists as middle man to access decades of silod research with more granularity.
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#38AI breaks old sources of meaning the same way Nietzsche said the death of God broke inherited morality. When external structures collapse (roles, labels, certainty), meaning has to be generated from within. Identity becomes what you return to repeatedly (actions, habits, resonance), not what you’re labeled as. Morality becomes drift-resilience — maintaining coherence when everything shifts. Nietzsche isn’t telling us…
My spidey sense is telling me an LLM was used in drafting this comment
I've not seen LLMs use the term "spidey sense" before.
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#39It uses Nietzsche to defend the very civilization Nietzsche set out to destroy.
Re: Why Nietzsche matters in the age of artificial intelligence
#40Nietzsche is one of those thinkers who did a good job of identifying a major problem of their time. Then he went on to propose a solution, which didn't work out. (The same could be said of Marx, who was also active in the middle of the 19th century. The two apparently never met.)
Nietzsche wrote as the era of the landed aristocracy was ending. A society with an agrarian peasantry and an armed land-owning class can be stable for centuries. Especially with a church that tells people that this is the way things are supposed to be.
Then came industrialization, and this long stagnation came unglued over a few decades. Industrialization replaced the centrality of land ownership and tenants with the centrality of the employer and the job. This is all well known.
Now, we see society's centrality of the job declining. What does that mean? That's the question to address as AI eats into jobs.
I'm not suggesting an answer. Recycling Nietzsche probably won't help, though.