The Hidden Costs of Automatic Thinking
Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2025 3:59 am
Arguments about the dangers of artificial intelligence have become almost a daily occurrence. And this is a good trend, since the “release it – study it later” model is fundamentally flawed.
Fast and Bold – Pharmacological Methods
Like many drugs, the sleep medication modafinil, sold under the brand name Provigil, comes with a small, tightly folded paper leaflet. Most of it is a list of instructions and precautions, a diagram of the drug's molecular uae number data structure. The subsection titled "Mechanism of Action" contains a sentence that, by itself, could cause insomnia: "The mechanism(s) by which modafinil promotes wakefulness are unknown."
Provigil is not unique. Many drugs are approved by regulators and widely prescribed even though no one knows exactly how they work. This mystery is part of the drug discovery process, which often involves trial and error. Every year, any number of new drugs are tested in cultured cells or animals; the best and safest of these are tried in people. In some cases, a drug’s success quickly inspires new research that explains how it works, but not always. Aspirin was discovered in 1897, but no one convincingly explained how it worked until 1995. The same phenomenon exists in other areas of medicine. Deep brain stimulation involves implanting electrodes in the brains of people who suffer from certain movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease; it has been widely used for more than 20 years, and some believe it should be used for other purposes, including improving cognitive function overall. But no one can say exactly how it works.
This approach to discovery—answers first, explanations later—accumulates what’s called intellectual debt. You can discover something that works without knowing why it works, and then immediately apply that understanding, assuming that the underlying mechanism will be figured out later. In some cases, we quickly pay off this intellectual debt. But in others, we let it grow, relying for decades on knowledge that isn’t fully understood.
Fast and Bold – Pharmacological Methods
Like many drugs, the sleep medication modafinil, sold under the brand name Provigil, comes with a small, tightly folded paper leaflet. Most of it is a list of instructions and precautions, a diagram of the drug's molecular uae number data structure. The subsection titled "Mechanism of Action" contains a sentence that, by itself, could cause insomnia: "The mechanism(s) by which modafinil promotes wakefulness are unknown."
Provigil is not unique. Many drugs are approved by regulators and widely prescribed even though no one knows exactly how they work. This mystery is part of the drug discovery process, which often involves trial and error. Every year, any number of new drugs are tested in cultured cells or animals; the best and safest of these are tried in people. In some cases, a drug’s success quickly inspires new research that explains how it works, but not always. Aspirin was discovered in 1897, but no one convincingly explained how it worked until 1995. The same phenomenon exists in other areas of medicine. Deep brain stimulation involves implanting electrodes in the brains of people who suffer from certain movement disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease; it has been widely used for more than 20 years, and some believe it should be used for other purposes, including improving cognitive function overall. But no one can say exactly how it works.
This approach to discovery—answers first, explanations later—accumulates what’s called intellectual debt. You can discover something that works without knowing why it works, and then immediately apply that understanding, assuming that the underlying mechanism will be figured out later. In some cases, we quickly pay off this intellectual debt. But in others, we let it grow, relying for decades on knowledge that isn’t fully understood.