AI: The New Invisible Hand?
Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” posits that individuals pursuing their self-interest will unwittingly serve the greater good — markets will regulate themselves, as if by some hidden, benevolent force. In the age of AI, we face a new “invisible hand” that belongs not to human nature but to the algorithms that shape it.
AI acts mainly in secret, subtly nudging us in specific directions, personalizing our feeds, and anticipating our decisions. It is the ultimate invisible hand. The silent architect orchestrates the flow of information, shapes public opinion, and decides what we want before we do. While Smith’s hand is guided by millions of individual choices that add up to a kind of equilibrium, AI’s hand is guided by a select few. Algorithms can be customized to maximize engagement and often corporate profit rather than societal equilibrium (Smith trusted in the self-correcting nature of the market, but with AI, self-correction becomes paradoxical). Rather than guiding individuals toward the common good, AI steers us toward outcomes defined by the underlying code and data written by unseen designers with motives that might as well be an unseen fist, no hand.
Unlike Smith’s invisible hand, which trusted the will of many, the AI hand cloaks the intent of the few, nudging us down paths we might not choose if we indeed saw them.
More thought-provoking thoughts:
MINDFUL AI: Reflections on Artificial Intelligence
Thought-Provoking Quotes & Reflections on Artificial Intelligence (🔹Only for a short time, $0.99🔹)
New Book Release (Only for a short time, $0.99): Beyond the Algorithm: An Attempt to Honor the Human Mind in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Wittgenstein Reloaded) (🔹Only for a short time, $0.99🔹)
Deutsche Ausgabe: Jenseits des Algorithmus: Ein Versuch, den menschlichen Geist im Zeitalter der künstlichen Intelligenz zu würdigen (Wittgenstein Reloaded)
