The Black Mirror

The Black Mirror: Volume 8: Artificial Intelligence (originally published as Hidden Price Tags: An Eastern Orthodox Look at the Dark Side of Technology and Its Best Use: Volume Eight: Artificial Intelligence: AI, Generative AI, and AGI) C.J.S. Hayward C.J.S. Hayward Publications Website: https: //cjshayward.com Ordering: https: //cjshayward.com/hpt8 Hidden Price Tags Volume 8: Artificial Intelligence joins others in Hayward's series connecting spirituality and technology; this one narrowing the focus to AI and its promises, failures, and need for mindful applications. C.J.S. Hayward is no novice at technology. He takes the time not just to install and use it, but to think about its greater impact and the reasons why a seeming advancement may prove to be something else entirely, promoting detrimental assumptions, thought processes, and habits that clash with spiritual intention. ""The more things change, it seems, the more they stay the same."" So Hayward discovers as he carries readers into his experiments with realizations that prove especially thought provoking. These reference other thinkers and spiritual writers, contrasting notions of technology and progress while presenting Hayward's own experiences and resulting decisions from them. Hayward's reflections on ChatGPT, for example, and how a product claimed to be intellectually stimulating actually is the opposite, creates thought-provoking reading for spiritual-minded readers who arrive with their own questioning processes intact and engaged: ""Advertising copy for ChatGPT claimed that it could stimulate the imagination, and I looked at it for a second and said that it could probably do that used a certain way, but the more likely outcome would be that people would have it do their thinking for them."" Hayward's ability to connect the dots in thinking about the pros and cons of AI as it relates to values, spiritual enlightenment, and everyday living is powerful-and often unexpected. Readers might not expect discussions about virtue to appear in a book about AI, for example, but there are plenty of opportunities within the overall theme for broader discourse and critical thinking, which Hayward provides with a combination of scholarly reference and psychologically astute insights. The result nicely compliments his prior books, offering a specific focus that delves into the nitty-gritty of technology's applications, promises, and ultimate impact on a spiritual thinker's life. Hidden Price Tags Volume 8: Artificial Intelligence is particularly highly recommended for group discussion and debate, as its contentions are designed to spark critical thinking and highly attuned dialogues in groups ranging from library book clubs to spiritual and philosophical circles. In the brave new world of generative AI, Hayward offers a prophetic voice and an assessment of hidden aspects of the project that the hype will never tell you: jobs are not the only thing artificial intelligence is costing us.