“AI is literally inside the box thinking”

Idea 24 for 2025

This quote comes from futurist and CEO Lindsey McInerney in her TedTalk, The Return to the Humanities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

McInerney offers an analogy of the box to think of all the human knowledge that AI has been trained on. AI has access to the seemingly infinite amounts of human knowledge, but its understanding is limited to the data on which it has been trained. As such, while AI can generate connections and correlations within this box, its output is fundamentally constrained by its programming. This means, McInerney as pithily puts it, that AI is primarily engaged in "inside the box" thinking.

To transcend “inside the box thinking,” McInerney suggests that we re-value the humanities and what they can offer. The humanities encompass disciplines such as anthropology, philosophy, languages, literatures, history, classics, and others that explore human emotions, differing human values, ethical considerations, and varied cultural contexts. Studying the humanities can assist us to better understand cause and effect and transport us into the realm of experiences that make us human.

This, McInerney, points out, includes lived experiences, spontaneity, serendipity, creativity and the ability to dream (all of which is conveyed in the attached screenshot). Moreover, to counteract the increasing omnipresence of “inside the box” AI-generated thinking, McInerney invites us to nurture an inspired mind that reconsiders our specifically human experiences in all their variety. Furthermore, in order to remain sharp in our “outside the box” thinking, McInerney encourages us to (re)turn to the humanities.

#AI #thinking #box #experience #creativity #serendipity #spontaneity #humanities #anthropology #history #philosophy #ethics #values #knowledge #human

The illustration highlights the realms of creativity, inspiration, dreaming, and imagination—areas beyond AI's reach within human knowledge, emphasizing the unique aspects of human experience such as spontaneity and serendipity.