Cognitive Friction in Learning

The Pope’s encyclical is sharper than I imagined. It goes after the points I really like in the broad discussion about AI.

In the paragraphs about school, about learning, it talks about the problem of not facing friction:

“140: Education, by contrast, is a long journey requiring patience, and therefore needs time for development and for engagement with reality beyond appearances. This is a fundamental issue because every technology shapes those who use it. Educating people about the use of AI, then, involves teaching them to decide when and for what purpose it ought not to be used. The speed and ease with which answers or summaries can be obtained risk extinguishing the desire to ask questions, which is a process that bears fruit only over time. As Plato wrote, the deepest and most important things are learned only after much time and effort, by engaging in discussion with others, “striking upon” ideas and experiences together like flint until the spark of understanding is kindled within us. [147] We must learn, then, how to exercise restraint in the use of AI and to protect our young people from the promise of the perfect machine, from that subtle temptation which renders human thought seemingly superfluous precisely when it is most needed.”

Quoted from the official English translation. The Portuguese one I read says “friccionar” (to rub together, to create friction) where the English says “striking upon”, and “jejum da IA” (fasting from AI) where it says “exercise restraint”.

He is quoting this passage from Plato (Letter VII, which runs roughly from 341c to 344d):

”[…] it is by means of the examination of each of these objects, comparing one with another—names and definitions, visions and sense-perceptions,—proving them by kindly proofs and employing questionings and answerings that are void of envy—it is by such means, and hardly so, that there bursts out the light of intelligence and reason regarding each object in the mind of him who uses every effort of which mankind is capable.”

”[…] as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself.”

Plato in R. G. Bury’s English translation (Loeb, 1929): 344b and 341c–d. The encyclical’s footnote cites 344b–c.