Robert K. Logan
logan@physics.utoronto.ca
The question that I have used as the title of this probe was formulated by David A. Bell, a professor of history at Princeton in an article published in the New York Times August 3, 2025. The conclusion he formulates at the end of his article is:
“A.I. can bring us useful information, instruction, assistance, entertainment and even comfort. What it cannot bring us is Enlightenment. In fact, it may help drive us further away from Enlightenment than ever.”
I am in total agreement with Bell’s conclusion but would like to add one additional argument to support his conclusion. All that AI, this very powerful tool, can provide its users with is information and knowledge that has already been formulated. Enlightenment cannot be achieved by making use of some new mixture of knowledge and information that already exists. Enlightenment can only be achieved by asking questions that have not already been formulated. It is the new questions that have not been previously been formulated that leads to new view points, to new knowledge and hence enlightenment. All that AI can do is provide a summary of all the interesting questions that have been previously formulated. It has no capacity to formulate a new question. It might prove useful if the users can identify a mystery that they find troubling to search using AI if there are others who have pondered a similar question or mystery. But once one identifies or formulates a mystery or puzzle that troubles them, they can use AI to search for others that might have formulated a mystery or puzzle similar to the one that they have formulated.
Conclusion: AI stands for artificial intelligence not for artificial imagination. Imagination, curiosity, mystery cannot be automated like the summary of information or knowledge. The hardest part of creating new knowledge is the formulation of the question and not the summary of the answers to a question.
