Street Smarts and Horse Sense Now Give Way to AI

Allow me to let you in on something:

Men are not getting smarter – or, at least, better educated. An NPR story of late reports that 75 percent of students at the University of Vermont are women, and 58 percent at the University of Montana. Only 41 percent of college students nationally are men, as high school graduation rates have fallen before and during the pandemic.

This would suggest – or confirm -- that men are even less “qualified” to debate and resolve issues like abortion and guns. And global warming and climate change, too. Maybe even SCOTUS issues. (Women may not be saying so, but they have always known this.)

But, we now have Artificial Intelligence -- the foremost oxymoron of today’s society and “culture”. The

trajectory of intelligence in these times – say, since late 2015 – has been remarkably downward.

Coincidence or not, it has likely paralleled the decline in education.

Still, might AI save us from ourselves? Hardly.

“The Rise of Artificial Intelligence Is Causing the Decline of Truth” headlined a recent Wall Street Journal column by Christopher Mims. His “Keywords” piece read in part: “Creating and disseminating

convincing propaganda used to require the resources of a state. Now all it takes is a smartphone.

“Generative artificial intelligence is now capable of creating fake pictures, clones of our voices, and even videos depicting and distorting world events. The result: From our personal circles to political circuses, everyone must now question whether what they see and hear is true.”

Ponder that, would you. The forebearer of fakeness, DJ Trump softened up this nation by anointing

himself the arbiter of all things fake. No accepted truth would longer be safe. If a truth be too hard – or too inconvenient -- to take, simply call it fake.

Meantime, the “world view” of so many becomes narrower and smaller by the click. Those whose lives don’t reach far beyond their backyards are more insular in their thinking, more suspicious, more fearful, more inclined to believe conspiracists and preachers of doom. Their like-“thinking” social media communities doom-scroll and wallow in the shallow end of their shared gene pool.

More than half of all U.S. adults ages 18 to 34 use TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center, The

Wall Street Journal reports. About a third of those 29 and under say they regularly get news – whatever that is – on TikTok, up from less than 10 percent in 2020! Where will these seekers go for their “news” once TikTok is banned?

TikTok, the article goes on to say, “is creating a disconnect between how well off young adults actually are and how they think they’re doing, according to economists and 20-somethings themselves.” The condition is called “money dysmorphia,” where endless videos about the economy and consumerism influence their decisions.

And it gets worse: Whether money dysmorphia or something worse, a recent federal survey reports 27 percent of respondents had symptoms of an anxiety disorder – up from 8 percent in 2019. Extinction anxiety (from climate change), COVID anxiety, status anxiety, speaking anxiety, weed-induced anxiety, and Trump anxiety each and all are afflicting students and young adults, wrote Andy Kessler last September in The Wall Street Journal.

Like millions, my anxiety ratcheted up a few days ago when I viewed clips of the Biden-Trump “debate.” Let’s call it what it was – a debacle. Left to his own devices, not in the immediate care of his handlers, Joe was not a pretty sight. The synapses were not firing, the words were not linking up. He was red meat for the Truthless Bard of Pulp Fiction.

Circling back, it’s never been only about book knowledge and academic degrees. People once had horse sense and street smarts. And they could do critical thinking. Today, they have social media and artificial intelligence. Heaven, help us.