2026/01/01 by Ashley E. Gorham
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Banner #Digital Economy and Work Transformation #Digital Education and Society #Ethics and Social Impacts of AI #Jargon #Nothing #Politics #Skepticism #Spell #Tragedy (event) #Wish
paper · doi:10.1017/s0034670526100849
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/06/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The public release of OpenAI’s generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022 was, in the jargon of political science, a “critical juncture” in which AI’s potential was made manifest to ordinary people. Following the initial enthusiasm, however, came a strong undercurrent of skepticism about the human costs of AI advances. In 1958, Hannah Arendt presciently observed: The modern age has carried with it a theoretical glorification of labor and has resulted in a factual transformation of the whole of society into a laboring society. The fulfilment of the wish, therefore, like the fulfilment of wishes in fairy tales, comes at a moment when it can only be self-defeating. … What we are confronted with is the prospect of a society of laborers without labor, that is, without the only activity left to them. Surely, nothing could be worse. 1