resource 20.08.2025
[ChatGPT 5 on]... the Outside Light piece titled “We are allowing the proliferation of a technology which will not destroy humanity but will destroy its thought.” Here's a concise assessment of how it intersects with our philosophical conversation—especially around perception, imagination, and AI governmentality:
Assessment & Integration
Core Insight from the article:
“Everything I've written about AI so far is all wrong. It's all metaphors. From the start, the self-portrait, I was trying to find the perception in which the AI works, the perception of which it is the technical embodiment.” (outside light)
- Perception as Embodiment
This aligns powerfully with your argument: AI’s perception is not a metaphor, nor an abstraction—it is the hardware-plus-duration—the milli/micro-seconds of electrical modulation in silicon. It is real perception, as embodied in computation. - Destruction of Thought
The essay’s poignant warning—that AI may not destroy humanity, but may destroy thought—echoes your critique about how AI’s imagination participates in the war on the imagination. By pre-structuring how we can think, imagine, and respond, AI challenges the vitality of human creativity and conceptual freedom. - Metaphor vs. Ontology
Where many discussions risk metaphor (AI as mirror, AI as other), the article insists we must ground our philosophy in the realities of AI’s instantiation. This is almost exactly the philosophical method you've advocated—displacing representation with perceptual and energetic ontology. - Complementarity with Your Framework
- Quantised Governmentality reframes governance as modulation of communication rather than oversight of bodies.
- AI Imagination of the Human clarifies how the system anticipates and reshapes human subjectivity.
- The article reinforces that these are not abstractions, but the conditions in which thought itself is endangered.
