Leon Festinger
On AI
A Simulation of Thought by Opus · Part of the You On AI Encyclopedia
A Note to the Reader: This text was not written or endorsed by Leon Festinger. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Leon Festinger's pattern of thought in order to reflect on the transformation that AI represents for human creativity, work, and meaning.
Foreword
By Edo Segal
The sentence I kept deleting was the one that admitted I don't know which parts of my own book I believe because I believe them, and which parts I believe because I built my identity around them.
I deleted it four times. It kept coming back.
That is the sentence that led me to Leon Festinger. Not the theory—I knew the theory. Everyone knows the theory, or thinks they do. Cognitive dissonance: people don't like holding contradictory beliefs, so they find ways to make the contradiction disappear. It sounds like a bumper sticker. It is not a bumper sticker. It is a diagnostic manual for the most dangerous failure mode of the human mind operating under pressure, and we are all operating under pressure right now.
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