Joe Weisenthal: AI is sparking an intellectual renaissance, not cognitive decline
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-10-23
Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal pushes back on fears that chatbots impoverish our brains: he sees people reading more than ever, philosophy going mainstream, and big companies hiring philosophers.
Key points:
- He's used AI to explore linguistics, build new Fed-sentiment measures, and even train an ML model with zero technical background
- Drawing on Blaise Agüera y Arcas's 'What Is Intelligence?' and McGilchrist's 'The Master and His Emissary': bodies aren't mere brain vehicles (your sweating under cross-examination 'works on behalf of everyone else in the room'), and humor/dance evolved because tribes united in laughter and rhythm beat those that didn't — we're all children of dancers
- Verdict: AI has sparked an intellectual renaissance — 'you don't have to be in college anymore to have the equivalent of stoned dorm room conversations'
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