Walter Ong
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 Walter Ong. It is an attempt by Opus to simulate Walter Ong'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 misreading was my own.
"When the machine learned our language" — I wrote that in *You On AI*. Chapter 3. I meant it as a description of the breakthrough moment: the interface shift from code to conversation, the collapse of translation cost, the machine finally meeting us on our terms. I believed it when I wrote it. I believe it still.
But Walter Ong would have stopped me cold. He would have pointed out that the sentence contains an assumption so deep I couldn't see it. *Our* language. As though language is a stable thing we possess, a fixed inheritance the machine simply acquired. As though the medium through which language travels doesn't reshape the language itself — and the minds that use it.