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Don't You Think It's Time To Start Thinking?
(wordsmith.social)
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this post was submitted on 15 May 2026
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AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
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Something I've come around to in recent weeks is the idea that with every single technology, there is a cost beyond materials and work that comes in the form of de-skilling. We invented writing and lost oral traditions. In this case I'm ruling that as a "good choice", but part of the problem is that it's almost never a conscious choice. Setting aside the high material costs of LLMs, e.g., the de-skill cost is clearer than ever. I hope that the sentiment goes against them because if we do willingly de-skill by accepting this so-called AI into our work, when it inevitably all comes crashing down will enough of us still know how to do without them? That's what I worry about, these days.
Then we reinvented oral traditions through illiteracy and social multimedia. I read an Atlantic article that talked about how we've been living in an oral age for some time now, and it has stuck in my mind ever since.
Even though it's technically written communication, texting, slack, teams chats, and platforms like Twitter have much more in common with oral societies than ones based upon written text
and this leaves out oral platforms such as YouTube, podcasts, and TikTok. Having a debate about something on Twitter is more akin to getting into a verbal spat or an oral debate than it is to long-form letters sent back and forth between two disagreeing parties, or people publishing pieces making arguments in newspapers.
I think it also aligns with the American environment of increasing illiteracy. Some teams messages I receive daily are obviously orally dictated speech to text. My company may be an exception but there is a large emphasis on long meetings where people are forced to regurgitate written communications and parts of documents live.
I apologize a bit because this takes this thread in a completely different direction, but once you realize we live in an oral age it's basically impossible to unsee.
Okay, so I can take onboard the idea that the written word has become an amalgam of speech-to-text bullshit and internet newspeak has eroded the quality and lucidity of our discourse, but the only thing I'd take away from you is that when I speak of an oral tradition, I'm referring to a cultural body of knowledge that is transmitted orally which often involves long group sessions of oratory importantly based on rote memorization. What we do orally in our culture does not compare to the depth and richness and (this is key) the mental faculties that accompany such a cultural tradition.
I agree that it hasn't been going on long enough to be considered a tradition yet, but I think over time it may develop into one
almost out of necessity
because there is no alternative with a functionally illiterate populace. (Besides the seemingly obvious one of educating people back into literacy.)
In the same article, they speculated that LLMs may be the revenge of the written word and may lead to a change. But having to work with LLMs
practically by force
I see it differently.
LLMs allow people routes around reading and writing. They aid illiteracy. They summarize and elaborate almost like a lossy compression or decompression algorithm for the written word. They allow you to take a single sentence and pretend that there was more thought behind it than there truly was, and they digest written language and produce things that allow you to be more comfortably illiterate. Functionally, they're a hack to allow orally oriented people to pretend that they're more literate than they are.
Yeah I like the take that LLMs are a fascist artifact. They reduce language, our most valuable way of connecting with others, solving problems, sharing knowledge, etc. into a thing you pay not to think about and for output that is frequently wrong and cannot know when it's wrong.
Yea.
The writing/reading vs oral one is interesting to me. Obviously we’re both on one side of that transition, and so biased by that experience. And I certainly would like to have been exposed to more of a traditional oral approach to knowledge. But like you I think it’s a reasonable choice on balance because it can naturally complement what came before. Writing can extend the reach of what one can gain access to and memorise and then share and engage with orally. While engaging with a text orally, by speaking it out loud or to an audience while you’re completing the writing process can likely aid the reader quality of the written text. If used correctly I suppose.
The point being that maybe there are technologies which necessarily involve more or more categorical de-skilling than others. And maybe that’s a property of technologies that can be assessed and tracked.
I think the main problem with the technology of writing (combined with the loss of oral traditions) is that now all the knowledge is an object which can be destroyed, rather than a living memory. Arguably this has stopped being so much of a danger with the massively redundant nature of print and digital media, but we've been burned before - library of Alexandia, e.g.
One thing I like about an oral tradition is the inherent communitarian aspect of that medium, the idea that in order to gain knowledge you had to go talk to people and they'd speak it to you, mind-to-mind. Building not just strength in a community upon transmission, but the kind of understanding that comes from having it explained to you by someone who knows you. Learning from strangers and books often falls short of a true mind-meld. And the verbal skills you get from living in an oral tradition are something we can only guess at.
I'm content with written words though. They're some of my favourite things about life, actually.
For sure!
My only addition to the communal dimension you highlight, in line with my previous comment, is that a communitarian dimension can certainly develop around written text. You can get to know someone by their books and writings, and if you’re game to write your thoughts too, they may know you too. Not to mention letters and other more casual written formats.
Mass media, including the internet generally, even before social media, undercuts this dynamic, I think, through a saturation of both our social and content (a word I chose over “information”) bandwidths. A giant pipe of algorithmically curated content doesn’t leave much room for even noticing the author let alone forming a communal bond. Consumerism over conversation, one could say.
Additionally, moving the causal conversational exchanges online likely disincentivises real life communal engagements around written texts, such as book clubs, fan gatherings etc.
Which is all a hand wavy way of speculating that writing before the internet may have been something different than afterward with respect to how eroded the social dimensions of oral traditions have been. Of course there are trade offs again, especially with reach and connectedness. But once doomscrolling became the norm, I feel like a real categorical shift occurred.
Anyhoo, don’t let me chew your ear off! Very much appreciate the chat!
Cheers, yeah. Maybe we just need pen pals. :)