Since ChatGPT from OpenAI burst onto the scene in November 2022,
the barrage of hyped speculation has been relentless, including
overblown claims about its capabilities and dystopian predictions
about the threat to our existence.
Unfortunately, it is these extremes that are driving important
debates on regulation, ethics, investment, and application
(although this is still in its infancy), rather than a more
realistic examination of the possibilities.
Instead of just rolling my eyes, I have decided to step back and
evaluate generative AI using a perspective that emerged decades
before ChatGPT but seems strangely apt.
German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002) published his
major work Truth and Method in 1960. He believed that all
human understanding comes through dialogue; all understandable
reality is communicated through language; and that humanity itself
is one big unfinished conversation. He took over 600 pages to say
this, but these were his main
