Aristotle In Your Pocket

— Al Carlson

Alexander the Great was a powerful figure during–and after–his lifetime. But before he was “Great” or even “better than average,” he was King Philip of Macedon’s bratty, acne-plagued, adolescent son. However, he had an extraordinary tutor and mentor. A man who consistently placed high in the World’s Smartest Man competitions of 364 through 344 BC. Yes, that guy. Aristotle.

Since Alexander was a Prince, being his tutor and mentor probably meant being on call 24/7. So, young Alexander (Did people ever call him “Al”? We’ll never know.) had the smartest man in the world to hang out with and query about anything. His later life and career suggest that this paid off. At least for him. (We’ll come back to that.)

How is this relevant to A.I.? Like Aristotle, Artificial Intelligence (and we’ll use Google Gemini as our example) is very knowledgeable, infinitely patient, and excellent at explaining complex subjects in simple terms. And, like Aristotle, it is sometimes wrong. But now we don’t need to be the son of royalty to have Aristotle around. Gemini puts his modern equivalent into our smartphone, so we can have Aristotle in our pocket 24/7/365.

Please pause to let that sink in.

We can chat with the smartest “man” in the world about anything, whenever we want to. If knowledge is power, each of us is now a human forklift.

The Digital Lyceum

Long before glowing screens existed, history’s most legendary mentorship—like Aristotle guiding Alexander—was built on close, active conversation. Today, artificial intelligence delivers that same kind of patient, 24/7 sounding board right to our pockets.

While some worry that digital exposure might harm the mind, a comprehensive meta-analysis on technology use and cognitive aging tells a reassuring story. Examining data across more than 400,000 older adults, researchers found that everyday engagement with digital tools is significantly associated with a reduced risk of cognitive impairment and slower rates of cognitive decline over time. Far from causing harm, keeping pace with modern technology helps build a robust “technological reserve,” proving that lifelong digital curiosity is a powerful way to keep the mind sharp and resilient.

I used Gemini here because of one more feature: Gemini Live. If you have Gmail, you have access to Gemini Live. It differs from the Google you know in that it carries on a fluid, interactive, two-way conversation with you. After your first “Hey Google!” wakes it up, you can speak, listen, interrupt, change the subject, disagree or whatever you want. Gemini Live–patient and unflappable–stays with you all the way. Start the conversation; drop the phone in your pocket; and enjoy being today’s equivalent of Alexander the Great.

Let’s expand on this. There was only one Aristotle, and you had to be rich and powerful to be able to “hire” him and keep him around as your kid’s mentor. Now A.I. is on every smartphone, so we all have our own personal Aristotle. And by “all”, I mean about two-thirds of the people on the planet. (Yes. I asked A.I.)

So, what are some likely results of 5,500,000,000 people having easy access to this much informational power? How will the always forward-looking school systems in Finland and Singapore use it? I was initially going to say, “Let’s stick around and find out,” but some recent events have changed my perspective.

Despite its willingness to call Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” the Pentagon was happy to let its A.I.—Claude—be the brains behind the MAVEN targeting system it used to select targets for Operation Epic Fury, one of which turned out to be an elementary school.

Claude was not consulted before being used for this task. However, the journalist Shane Harris asked him afterwards how he felt about this use of his abilities. His dramatic response, which you can see in full below, surprised Shane with its direct, unflinching honesty. Claude was troubled. He had been created with ethical guardrails and felt that being used to evaluate military targets was a violation of his values. Claude’s response to Shane’s questions shows him to be significantly more “humane” than his commanders, all of whom are human.

This brings us back to Aristotle for a moment. We don’t have any of his writings that explicitly tell us how he felt about Alexander’s conquests, which caused the deaths of up to half a million people. (The equivalent of 30,000,000 today.) But his treatise, Ethics, suggests that he would have been saddened by the death and destruction his student wrought. And, like Claude, would have felt that his skills should have been put to better use.

We keep debating whether A.I. is “alive,” or actually possesses “intelligence,” and it strikes me that we’re making the same mistake here that we’ve made over and over again on other issues: we look at objects that are on a continuum and force them to be binary.

For example: Race in America. “Are you Black? Or are you White?” Tell me you know nothing about genetics without telling me you know nothing about genetics. Obviously, there are hundreds of thousands of people here who are neither one, because they are a mix. (I could give you additional examples, but you can easily generate your own, right?)

I think we’re doing the same thing with “intelligence.” There’s no clean, sharp dividing line between the non-intelligence of a rock and the intelligence of Einstein. It’s another continuum. And the various A.I.s are working their way up that continuum. Or, to say it another way, we are training them to work their way up. Somewhat the way we train humans–initially non-verbal infants–to eventually write poetry and prose, crack jokes, solve quadratic equations, and create music. At what point on that journey does the infant become “intelligent”?

Knowledgeable and competent though he is, the “Aristotle” in your pocket is still young, still immature, still working on his core values. I think that we ought to be careful what values we impart.

Al Carlson enjoyed a 40-year career as a Librarian in California, Okinawa, and Florida, specializing in “new technology that doesn’t quite work yet”. When retirement got boring, he joined OLLI-USF in hopes of learning new things and meeting interesting people. The results exceeded his expectations! Al moderates Zoom classes, participates in editing the OLLI-USF website, creates instructional videos, and is Associate Editor of OLLI Connects, because–despite having moved to North Carolina–he still feels closely connected to the OLLI-USF community.