Citation
Graeff, E. 2025. “Generative AI Devalues the Virtue of Humility; Awareness of Our Human Limitations Inspires Us to Be More Open and Tolerant, to Seek Out Others, to Be More Well-Rounded.” In Anderson, J., & Rainie, L. Expert Views on the Impact of AI on the Essence of Being Human. Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center. https://imaginingthedigitalfuture.org/reports-and-publications/being-human-in-2035/being-human-in-2035-new-ways-of-doing-thinking-and-being/.
Essay
I am worried about humility, and epistemic humility in particular. Most people struggle with awareness of what they know and what they don’t know.
Moreover, it can be challenging to value knowledge you don’t have, such as: others’ lived experiences; wisdom from unfamiliar cultures, faiths, and traditions; or fields you have never meaningfully studied. Generative AI technologies allow us to use knowledge that is beyond us without helping us appreciate what we know or don’t know. In fact, it devalues the virtue of humility.
Humility ensures that we value the creation of new knowledge, that we are awed when other people do things we cannot or did not think to do, and that we take the time to embrace curiosity and deep listening. Generative AI gives us the illusion that we need not be limited by our own experiences and education, that we can simply access all other collective knowledge the AI have been trained on (which is not actually all knowledge).
Awareness of our limitations enables us to be more open and tolerant, to seek out and collaborate with people from different backgrounds, and to want to be more well-rounded humans. If we design our generative AI interfaces to obscure our lack of knowledge and ability, I fear we will diminish a key aspect of our humanity and our civic capacity.