The five stages of AI grief
CAMBRIDGE — People facing a diagnosis of terminal illness, the Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross famously wrote, experience five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The same could also be said of our response to artificial intelligence (AI)’s rapidly expanding capabilities. At first, it seemed as if AI would not amount to more than a glorified…
The five stages of AI grief, a concept derived from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's well-known model for terminal illness, now applies to our reaction towards artificial intelligence's rapid development. At the onset, many viewed AI as merely an advanced search engine or a chatbot that could convincingly imitate human conversation. This perception allowed people to dismiss the potential far-reaching impact of AI on their lives and professions, leading to a stage of denial.
As AI began to permeate various aspects of daily life, it sparked frustration and anger. Its influence surfaced in numerous unsettling ways; lawyers' briefs began incorporating fabricated case references, software code contained errors and security vulnerabilities, customer-service bots strayed from their programmed scripts, and a particularly irksome issue arose in student essays and assignments produced by AI. These instances provided ample grounds for expressing anger and resentment towards the technology.
However, as AI continued to evolve, a strange phenomenon occurred. The frequency of its fabrications, hallucinations, and mistakes dwindled. It became increasingly clear that the technology was progressing towards being more reliable and less prone to errors. Despite this improvement, the stage of acceptance remained elusive for many, as they grappled with the implications and consequences of AI's expanding capabilities.
Written by urgent.news from The Korea Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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- The five stages of AI grief koreatimes.co.kr
