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Notes -
Critical Social Justice in the Era of Large Language Models
https://parrhesia.substack.com/p/critical-social-justice-in-the-era
Many anticipate that AI will have the ability to engage in novel and complex philosophical reasoning or contribute to scientific progress. While AI has yet to achieve this level of sophistication, models like ChatGPT demonstrates an impressive ability to generate meaningful text. I am skeptical about the usefulness and meaningfulness of articles from certain disciplines falling under the banner of Critical Social Justice. Finding connections between abstractions or interpreting text through a postmodern critical lense isn't particularly difficult. Nor does it lend itself to error or falsification. I think traits that allow CSJ scholarship to be hoaxed will put it at risk of domination by AI-generated articles. Scholars in the future will be highly prolific, but all their work will be generated trough computers. This will become a sort of open secret. All this scholarship produced will not advance humankind because CSJ scholarship is, at best, rather useless, and, at worst, socially harmful. In other disciplines more tethered to reality, AI generating acceptable papers would mean genuine progress.
Why does it matter how much of a threat AI is to the soft sciences that CSJ resides in? Even putting aside the long-theorized threats that AI posed to truck drivers and coders vs. the current threat it poses to artists, I think the bigger issue with this idea is something you pointed out at the start: humans can already make a mockery of CSJ writings using their own brainpower. I am kind of an AI cheerleader, but I doubt that bullshitting at-scale will actually cause the field to collapse under Stephenson-esque "good crap."
At the risk of mod intervention, CSJ academics can remain irrational for far longer than you can remain sane, rational, or uncancelled. If the decade-plus-long trend of CSJ's prominence is anything like a game of Chicken, the entire field started off with their steering wheel already loosened and those infamous Toyota floor mats pre-installed.
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