Will We Preserve the Sources of Human Learning? by Zena Hitz


By obscuring or destroying the primary sources of knowledge, large language models create the illusion of an embodied and active collection of everything we know. But without examining and interrogating the human originators of recorded knowledge and wisdom, one cannot fully develop one’s own understanding.

ANNAPOLIS—We find by learning with and from others that knowledge and understanding are the product of one’s own efforts. Someone else’s knowledge of a mathematical theorem cannot be passed on to me without my trying to understand it for myself; and my understanding is not transmitted to another without their effort. We learn at different rates and, moreover, another person can view the same thing very differently than we do. Since this clash of perceptions cannot always be reconciled, we come to recognize that our own minds are unique and individual.

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