Artificial intelligence is more than just a technology; it acts as a new tool reshaping how humans perceive themselves and society. During this transformative process, how much do we truly understand AI, and what meanings do we attach to it? In this interview, where we examine not only AI’s functions but also its impact on us and seek answers to many compelling questions, Communication Scientist and Academic Ufuk Eriş responded to our inquiries.

Mustafa Burak Avcı: Welcome, Professor Ufuk Eriş. Your recent contributions to the field of communication, particularly your research on artificial intelligence, have gained recognition. Could you share a bit about yourself?

Ufuk Eriş: It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to say recent times. Because when I suggested that topic for my PhD, it was 2002. I wasn’t born into a computer-equipped home. My first encounter was in 1996 at the Computer Research and Application Center. There, I had a chat via IRC (Internet Relay Chat) with someone living in America, and I never believed that the other person was a real human. Then years passed, and I saw how technology changed people’s perspectives and thinking patterns. In 2002, I wanted to address the topic of hacker culture in Türkiye for my doctorate proposal. At that time, there were very few hackers in Türkiye, and the only well-known one was Tamer Şahin. He was featured in newspapers as the “Pajama Hacker.” It was written that he hacked the Ottoman Bank, but back then, even if hackers existed, there weren’t many places to break into. That’s why we faced a lot of difficulties with the jury.

Finding someone related to this topic was quite difficult. There was a sociologist, someone from human resources, an industrial engineer, and a communicator. It was very hard to explain my problem to them. There are people called hackers, and when I said they could break into here, they would say, “So what if they do?” Our laws weren’t even prepared for this. When you connect remotely to someone’s computer, it is considered theft. In theft cases, you take a piece of property, and that property is no longer there, but if you copy it from a database, it remains there you’re just making a copy. I have also witnessed such a significant transformation in the law.

Deniz Benzer: When you announced your doctoral topic 20 years ago, the situation you experienced is happening today with artificial intelligence. With the same sense of unfamiliarity and excitement you felt when writing your doctoral thesis, what similarities or differences do you see between that and the excitement people have towards artificial intelligence today?

U.E: Every new technology excites thinkers or those pondering this issue. The reason is always our troubles. Looking at Karl Marx, he examined the society he lived in and said something wasn’t going well. He saw that people were unhappy, researched the cause, and proposed a method to analyze societies. But what is his concern? We are not very happy in life, and the environment isn’t happy either. Nowadays, people who write and talk about every new technology wonder if it could be a cure. I think, unlike the hacker discussion era, in the age of artificial intelligence, people are only interested in its sensational aspects. No one asks which of our problems it could solve. They only care about what more artificial intelligence can do. For example, if an A.I. can do ballet, why would someone who has nothing to do with ballet culture get excited? The sensational approach is misleading. I can say for sure that in no period of history have people been so hopeless about future generations and linked their hopes to something non-human. Think about it: they said Jesus would come, and he was human… They said future generations would do this, and they were human too… We always believed that our own kind would do something good in the future. Now, that belief is gone; we talk about what artificial intelligence will do in the future, how it will be. We tend to project solutions to our life problems onto technology, which reflects a techno-chauvinist attitude.

“First, we see the word ‘robot’ in Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots. The word literally means slave or forced labor in Slavic languages. In the story, robots rebel and suppress humans. The question ‘Will robots take over humans?’ actually stems from the concept of rebellious slaves.”

M.B.A: There’s also an effort to alienate artificial intelligence tools. Strange philosophical questions arise, such as whether AI could be smarter than humans as individuals, or whether it would be considered human if it were on par with a person.

U.E: At a time when the possibility of humans competing with artificial intelligence is being discussed, and while such advanced technologies are being produced, a world where news is still about men who kill their divorced wives should make us think: Should our real concerns be what artificial intelligence can do? This is the culture’s surrender to technology. In the past, culture dictated and limited the use of technology. We can give the example of the samurai sword. Not everyone can wield it, and when you do, you must adhere to certain ethical codes. One of our folk songs beautifully says: ‘The invention of the rifle ruined the virtue.’ Because to use a rifle, you don’t need years of samurai discipline and culture.

When you buy a rifle, just pulling the trigger is enough. Every profession has its own cultural codes, but such things are no longer in place. You don’t need education or an ethical code to pick up a pen. When you pay, you get your computer and use it as you wish.

M.B.A: Today, you don’t even need talent; you just prompt and can have anything drawn.

U.E: It seems like we don’t really know much about what we call artificial intelligence. There are the powerful and the powerless. What we talk about is like a utopia. I always say, “Utopias turn upside down and tell the stories of the problems we face today.” Let’s say you ask the housekeeper who comes to clean your house, “If you had the means, what kind of life would you imagine, what is your utopia?” Her answer would be, “I wish I had a husband who doesn’t drink, and that he wouldn’t hit my children, for example.” At that moment, you immediately understand her everyday worries about her life. Now, if you look at the utopian narratives about artificial intelligence and read them in reverse, and see what people expect from it, you’ll realize the real problems they face today. If someone is curious about whether artificial intelligence will do this or that, they have a problem in their daily life related to it. In the past, wars would start and end, but now we experience prolonged, low-intensity conflicts that never seem to end. People still die. We are in the digital age; today, the AI robot Sofia is granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia. It won’t be given to you or me. So, the question that should be asked is, “Will artificial intelligence provide a solution to inequality among people?” When we evaluate the moral panics developed around robots, you also understand whose fear this is. First, we see the word “robot” in Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots. The word literally means slave or forced labor in Slavic languages. In the story, robots rebel and suppress humans. The question ‘Will robots take over humans?’ actually stems from the concept of rebellious slaves. The main issue is that those who manage these things whether under the image of a robot or not force certain people to work for much less pay, and they fear rebellion. The core motivation behind thoughts like a robot uprising or artificial intelligence turning humans into this or that is this fear.

M.B.A: There is always a current agenda regarding artificial intelligence. So, what are its cultural impacts?

U.E: Culture is no longer something naturally produced by people as it used to be. The term “degeneration”, which we refer to as cultural decay, comes from the fact that animals in Anatolia that have lost their reproductive ability are called “Yoz” (biggot). A degenerated culture loses its ability to renew and produce itself. So, what happens then? It’s like a diabetic person who can’t produce insulin and starts getting insulin

“Nowadays, all of this is considered outdated. But what is new doesn’t stay in the air; it comes from the ground. Did the bourgeoisie, the working class, and class confl icts emerge when Karl Marx spoke about them? Even during the cave era, there was a conflict between the strong and the weak.”

injections from outside. After a while, they become dependent and lose their ability to produce it themselves. Everyone used to sing folk songs, good or bad, or write poetry for the girl they loved. But now, as people start to import poetry and songs from outside, they begin to lose their ability to express themselves. The reason for this, according to the Frankfurt School, is the Culture Industry. Before the rise of the internet, this was all lost.

M.B.A: Today, habits have changed, consumption has accelerated, and production methods have evolved. What do you think about this?

U.E: Society has changed, and the social approach has changed. For example, Yusuf Atılgan’s work Aylak Adam (The Loiterer) entered a competition. At that time, there were very famous novelists like Yaşar Kemal on the jury. However, the work did not win the competition. As socialist writers, they said, ‘This bourgeoisie’s self-concern, they’re not talking about a problem or poverty.’ Today, almost everyone knows Yusuf Atılgan’s Aylak Adam. It became popular after the 1980s. Because now individuality begins to take shape, and, in a way, the individual becomes a customer. After Turgut Özal’s presidency, even our purchasing mindset changed. In the past, people would save money for a while to buy a television; they didn’t know the concept of installments. Now, people might wonder how they don’t know the concept of installments, because we quickly get used to the way we live, and it feels as if it’s been like this for a very long time.

M.B.A: Actually, with the rapid acceleration of consumption, we also lost the habit of saving cumulatively.

U.E: People now think there’s no need to accumulate things. They ask, “What’s the point of saving?” I used to download songs from the internet and listen to MP3 players. Now, my nephew tells me, “Why are you downloading these? They’re already in the cloud.” In the past, when you bought a car, it was considered a lifelong purchase, and people would give it a name. Now, it’s said that you need to change your car frequently. But this widens the gap between us and objects. People renting homes don’t even want to hammer in a nail because they don’t accept it. If you accept it, it’s hard to let go, so you end up buying something new right away. For example, you throw away every soda can you drink immediately, but you can’t easily throw away the last soda can you shared with a friend or a loved one. Someone has touched that can, and you can’t throw it away. But this situation is dangerous for the system; if you can’t throw it away, you won’t buy a new one. In short, while there are such problems in life, it’s important to see how artificial intelligence responds to them. We don’t see this in the market; people in daily life genuinely think that A.I. has a human-like intelligence.

D.B: Professor, actually, Alan Turing’s test is very important in this context. Could you tell us a little about it?

U.E: In the Turing test, a human participates, and on the other side, an artificial intelligence or robot is placed. The human asks the machine questions. If the responses make it seem like the machine is not artificial intelligence, then it passes the Turing test. But there is also John Searle’s Chinese Room example as a counterpoint. In that scenario, there is a closed room with only one window. Inside, there are some signs and instructions. You are told to look at whatever sign is shown through the window and find the corresponding instruction. Outside, a Chinese man is showing the Chinese Kanji words to the participant. The person inside the room, who does not know Chinese, finds and removes the sign that matches the question. Does the person inside the room who removes these signs know Chinese? No, they are just following instructions. Nowadays, all of this is considered outdated. But what is new doesn’t stay in the air; it comes from the ground. Did the bourgeoisie, the working class, and class conflicts emerge when Karl Marx spoke about them? Even during the cave era, there was a conflict between the strong and the weak.

D.B: After all, artificial intelligence provides us with information, and we try to measure how intelligent it is. What do you think is the level of intelligence of that artificial intelligence? Why do we consider it to be intelligence? Where does the information provided by artificial intelligence stand in the hierarchy of knowledge?

U.E: There is no zero point in IQ, which is referred to as intelligence, for example. In an IQ test, it measures how quickly a person can solve a problem or how quickly they can find the optimal timing and compatibility between purpose and means. The Frankfurt School calls this “subjective reason” or “instrumental reason.” It is a characteristic of human intellect but not the whole thing. Instrumental reason only looks at establishing a relationship between goals and means. There is also objective reason, which not only establishes the relationship between purpose and means but also questions the purpose itself.

Instrumental reason appears, for example, during Hitler’s era. When officers who inflicted various tortures on people were tried at the Nuremberg Trials, they said, “We only followed orders.” There was both means and purpose involved there. You did what was told, but isn’t the choice to do or not do it yours? Did you ever question its purpose? Currently, the most sought-after type of reason is instrumental reason, which can do what it is told very quickly and efficiently, but we do not elevate the reason that asks, “Why am I doing this?” In fact, questioning reason is what makes humans understand and interpret reality, and it helps us position ourselves accordingly.

D.B: So, should we define artificial intelligence as instrumental reason?

U.E: Of course. We constantly talk about artificial intelligence, which is a very sensational word for those who don’t know. In reality, there is a huge gap between the way artificial intelligence is described and its state in the laboratory. Every new technology can make us ask, “What is a human?” again and push us to take a step forward. Nietzsche also refers to the “Übermensch,” meaning a person who struggles with themselves. Like the phoenix, first burning and then rising anew from its ashes. Objective reason is only concerned with how fast and how many goals it can score in a game. But winning a rigged game is very difficult. The referee is biased and bribed. Since you don’t think about the game itself, you don’t notice these things, and when you fail, you blame yourself. Just as you think the problem is personal.

M.B.A: Actually, the data that artificial intelligence feeds on is a product of societal production. There is already a data algorithm that develops from what people produce. They seem to be getting their nourishment from an invisible source, as if drawn from nothingness.

U.E: Never. In fact, artificial intelligence largely feeds on garbage, on free data from the internet. This means that A.I. can think, but it can only do one task at a time. Then it can move on to another task. Because we now see life this way, we are losing the other side. Deep Blue beat Kasparov in chess, but it can’t get up and bring a glass of water. Yes, maybe it would beat you at backgammon too, but when it wins, it’s happy, and when it loses, it’s sad. We are trying to get A.I. to solve the world’s problems. To end wars, to solve inequality, to prevent crimes. But the thing is, don’t fight, don’t hit. Why don’t you take responsibility yourself? While living with the idea that we can make it do everything, we lose our human side. Recently, they asked A.I. Sophia, “What do you think about the future of the world?”

So, humans are no longer confident about their intelligence. People are becoming increasingly anxious. We fear that artificial intelligence will take away what makes us who we are. That’s why we keep asking it, “Will it do this too?” To put it simply: you have a lover, and they are unique because of a distinguishing feature. If you take that feature away, they become just like everyone else. Even if that lover remains physically present, they are no longer truly theirs. The existence of that lover is gone. That’s why one of the fundamental questions technology poses to us is: “If they take away what makes us us, will we cease to be?” On the other hand, because we’re so curious about this, we constantly try to make it do the things we do. We keep trying to understand “What is the natura humana?” and instead of thinking of it as a tool that can solve our main problems, we sit and discuss its sensationalist aspects.

D.B: Today, when we look at the internet and artificial intelligence, do you think the realm of freedom has disappeared?

U.E: I think it mostly gets lost. But it will be what we make of it. For example, the last word used for social media is “brain rot,” meaning brain decay. Fifty years ago, they called the television “the idiot box.” It’s the same old story. They say, ‘Old wine in a new bottle.’ Basically, nothing changes. We used to call social media “the Fifth Power,” the fifth force after the Fourth Estate, which is the media. It was supposed to improve the quality of so-called democracy. But I think it still has the potential if we use it properly. We need to look at why people delegate tasks they themselves are responsible for to artificial intelligence. Why do people retreat from decisionmaking mechanisms? Because it’s believed that A.I. will make better decisions. Maybe even in investments, and perhaps in political choices in the future… Why? Because it chooses the more efficient and profitable option. But for humans, truth, efficiency, and profitability don’t always align. This is true even in the founding of our country. Atatürk and his comrades wouldn’t have relied on A.I. for their efforts. It’s not feasible. The shoes are worn out, and they have holes. There’s no food, no weapons. How many places have they been attacked from? Ignorance is present. Most of the educated have died. The army is exhausted. If it were up to A.I., accepting a mandate from America would have been the most logical, efficient, and profitable choice. But we didn’t choose that. To give a personal example, the person you love so much probably wouldn’t be recommended to you by A.I. Most likely, they are the person you shouldn’t be around. Let’s identify our true problems and avoid relying solely on artificial intelligence to solve them, risking failure. Instead, the new generation should ask, ‘How can we eliminate inequality among people? How can we undo the damage affecting our environment? How can I contribute to the benefits of others beyond myself?’

M.B.A: Thank you very much for coming and providing us with valuable information, sir.

U.E: Thank you very much, everyone. It was a pleasure for me too. Kasparov against IBM’s Deep Blue computer, 1996 ai & society

Artificial Intelligence: The Alienation of Society yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.

Artificial intelligence is rapidly spreading across all areas of life like a foundational infrastructure technology, driving profound changes in media, law, education, and the business world. We discussed a wide range of topics with Can Öz (Chairman of Can Publishing & General Manager of Socrates Magazine) and journalist-author Ümit Alan, covering everything from A.I.’s mechanics and ethical debates to its potential opportunities and risks. Are we in control of technology or are we surrendering to it? How do algorithms learn and make decisions? How will business and education transform? In this in-depth interview, we explore the profound impact of artificial intelligence on our lives and seek answers to critical questions about the future.

Umut Yiğit: Our topic today is artificial intelligence. I’d like to open our discussion with a compelling proposition by Professor Cem Say that has left a lasting impression on me. He viewed artificial intelligence as an infrastructure technology, just like electricity. This is an argument you’ve repeatedly made yourself. Expanding on this to start us off, how do you position A.I. within daily life?

Can Öz: Thank you so much for inviting us. You’re a lovely community. Unfortunately, the viewers can’t see the crowd and the smiling faces behind the camera. Thank you for this wonderful event. To be fair, we aren’t A.I. experts, but while producing content for our podcast Yeni Medya 451, we keep a very close eye on the A.I. agenda. Therefore, I should clarify that we won’t be speaking from direct technical experience with artificial intelligence. But since we closely follow the latest developments, we can definitely have a conversation about it. Having made that point, I’ll pass it over to you, Ümit.

Ümit Alan: A.I. is indeed an infrastructure technology, just like electricity and the internet; that’s clearly the direction we’re moving in. Right now, we still label it “artificial,” but Sam Altman recently published a blog post where he simply called it the “Age of Intelligence,” completely dropping the “artificial” aspect. In my own writing, I commented on this shift, warning that we must be cautious when the “artificial” part is discarded, as it ultimately amounts to escaping accountability. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that he’s entrusting content to community notes and ending the fact-checking program. But we are moving toward a point where A.I. will be part of everything we use. It is already present, actually. It just seems like it’s not everywhere because we focus so much on generative A.I. Recently, in the middle of a meeting, my phone started going off like crazy. I looked, and the fridge at home was texting me: “Refrigerator door left open.” I called home right away. My seven-year-old daughter was there. Turns out she forgot to close the door while secretly grabbing a Kinder Surprise without her grandmother noticing. This is actually another example of A.I. the internet of things.

C.Ö: We talk about this as if it’s completely normal. Imagine someone from twenty years ago watching this scenario: “I was at a meeting, and I got a text from my fridge.” In a way, it’s incredibly surreal. But we’re getting used to these surrealities. And that “artificial” label is actually a part of this process. When an self-driving car gets into an accident, who is held responsible? That is a crucial question. Beyond regulatory questions like “Will the insurance company pay out?”, there is another side to this: they are already trying to humanize A.I. just to get us to accept it. For instance, the errors A.I. makes are labeled “hallucinations.” The word “hallucination” was deliberately selected because hallucinating is a uniquely human illusion. It frames the A.I.’s error as something free of malicious intent, effectively humanizing a system flaw. This is precisely what Sam Altman is driving at. They want us to perceive and accept it as human. And of course, on a certain level, that is incredibly dangerous.

Ü.A: You’re absolutely right. I mean, our generation witnessed the internet integrating into our lives. I was seventeen when the internet came out and went mainstream right at an age when your mind is most receptive. But we witnessed the transition firsthand. We used to only connect to the internet when we sat down at a desk; the moment we stood up, we were offline again. Then, all of a sudden, we were online 24/7. We barely even noticed the shift, and now it feels entirely normal. We’ve been experiencing the exact same process with A.I. In a few years, the word “artificial” might just disappear altogether.

C.Ö: Do you remember who coined this idea? It goes something like: “Anything in the world up to the age of fifteen is just a natural part of life, and you grow up with it. Anything invented between fifteen and thirty-five is an exciting, revolutionary innovation that you can adapt to and even build a career on. But anything that comes after you’re thirty-five is an aberration, a dreadful disruption of the natural order that simply shouldn’t exist.”

“But we are moving toward a point where A.I. will be part of everything we use. It is already present, actually. It just seems like it’s not everywhere because we focus so much on generative A.I.”

U.Y: It seems our perspective changes as the disciplines shift. These fields are already highly fluid and interconnected. But what we call “intelligence” or artificial intelligence is one thing when you enter the realm of literature, and something entirely different in computer science. I think this inherently raises a philosophical problem.

Ü.A: Those raising kids might actually understand that distinction better, the distinction Murat Gülsoy mentioned. I went to a school meeting last year, about my daughter, “She uses a very distinct vocabulary.” Meaning, she uses words that are outdated for her generation. She uses terms like “mütemadiyen” [editor’s note: An archaic Turkish word akin to “continually” or “perpetually”] with them, simply because that’s the language I use at home and those are the books I read to her. Her intelligence grew by learning this way. But this is actually miles apart from the way A.I. learns…

C.Ö: So, how did the teacher react? Did the teacher view it as an issue?

Ü.A: No, the teacher meant it as a major plus. “This child has a massive vocabulary,” the teacher noted. In other words, she uses signifi cantly more words than her classmates. “How did you achieve this?” the teacher inquired. I replied, “We simply talked and read books.” This situation is heavily linked to the household she was raised in and her learning environment, which aligns perfectly with Murat Gülsoy’s argument about A.I.

C.Ö: Murat Gülsoy’s mentioned this too: psychologists cannot treat themselves. I believe we should be a bit more skeptical of the insights people share about their own industry. After all, things naturally gravitate toward that point. Take Margaret Atwood, who says something similar. The whole thing hinges on morality. Can we truly safeguard our ethical values? Ultimately, everything converges on one debate: “Is an A.I. that can do anything, act precisely like a human, react the same way and think much faster than a human, truly human?” There is no answer. So, if you can simulate intelligence, emotions and behavior altogether then whether this is human or not is no longer a technological question. It is a religious one. Because in the end, we cannot even prove that human behavior isn’t a simulation, yet we interpret it. The discussion naturally moves toward the debate of the soul. As A.I. evolves, I am sure we will encounter this a lot. We will hear arguments like, “They can’t act like humans, they’re stupid” or rather than just “they’re dangerous” we’ll hear “they have no soul, so we can’t trust them.” I believe the subject will head toward a very spiritual, theological debate.

U.Y: We live in an age of hyperreality, where both human behavior and emotions are driven by extremes. Media tools capture every visual and auditory emotion, pushing them into a state of hyper-sensitivity. Consequently, the conversation shifts: why should it even be considered a problem if artificial intelligence doesn’t generate emotions?

C.Ö: We keep discussing the artificiality of A.I., but have you scrolled through Instagram lately? Do we notice just how many aspects of life are artificial, and how human behaviors and habits are purely learned by mimicking the environment? For instance, look at communities built around incredibly superficial debates, mindless arguments like “Alpha or beta?” and so on. What a broad spectrum. Is it good or bad? Is he the “nice guy” or the “bad boy”? It’s always the same tired debates. Can we ever escape a dilemma like that?

“There is a setting to turn off memory in ChatGPT. I’ve recommended that people shut it down. AI gathers some very unusual data about you. But I leave it on for myself, just to experiment.”

Throughout human history, we have been dealing with a human character so deep that it remains unilluminated. But this primitive dichotomy begins to construct all our debates, creating that artificial intellectual accumulation society holds onto. We are artificial anyway. Every single one of us. So who are we, really? We pretend that humanity is incredibly authentic and original, defining A.I. through this accusation or separation that it’s “artificial” and therefore inferior. But like I said, this is highly philosophical, and like most of these arguments, it will probably reach a dead end.

Deniz Benzer: When we look at our current interactions with A.I. especially with these large language models some describe it as “entering commands,” while others frame it as “prompting.” Do you think this terminology shapes the nature of that interaction? Are we positioned as active or passive agents against the machine?

Ü.A: Technology is moving so fast. In the beginning, we were told that the prompt was everything. “Commands” were inherently linked to programming languages, requiring technical background and training. I don’t know any code, so I couldn’t issue those commands. But thanks to web interfaces, I became one of the people who could use it. Then A.I. arrived, and claims were made that prompt engineering would be a major career path.

I actually wrote a piece on how they were searching for candidates with salaries of God knows how many thousands of dollars. Now, however, that excitement has died down. Just the other day, I accidentally pressed enter. I was about to ask ChatGPT a question but only typed the subject. It immediately asked, “Is this for a podcast content? Or are you working on a column?” It has learned so much from my patterns and adapted to me so well that it fills in the blanks when I leave things incomplete. Sometimes I prompt it with, “I’m going to write a column on this, what do you recommend?”, and other times I just upload my notes via a document. Take a scenario where I upload two hundred pages of my personal notes and ask it to compile and structure them. I believe the concept of prompting has moved past being a matter of engineering. It recognizes me and knows what I want, personalizing the process. While prompt engineering will certainly remain relevant for advanced professional workflows like image generation or video editing, even that is slipping away. They will adapt to natural human language. Because at their core, they are language models, they learn and language itself never stops evolving.

C.Ö: But prompt engineering isn’t going anywhere, let’s be real. In the end, the core difference between a command and a prompt is this: say there are a billion buttons. Activating one is a command; you get the same output every single time and anyone can push it. A prompt is the art of pushing a few specific buttons at the same time ones that no one else has touched before to generate a different outcome. So it is inherently meant for creative individuals. It’s an endless universe that will always offer options you couldn’t even dream of. I believe that also depends on memory. The machine’s memory changes how we relate to it. You know what they call the “context window” for ChatGPT? At some point, it acts like it has memory loss. But as it retains more about us, and as we understand it better, our inputs and demands will inevitably shift.

Ü.A: You can disable the personalization features if you prefer. There is a setting to turn off memory in ChatGPT. I’ve recommended that people shut it down. AI gathers some very unusual data about you. But I leave it on for myself, just to experiment. Recently, I asked it, “Who is Ümit Alan?” It revealed such personal aspects. It said that from time to time, his daughter Leyla uses his computer; Leyla loves Harry Potter and borrows the laptop occasionally, and Ümit acts a certain way. I then asked, “You don’t tell these things to others, right?” like if someone else inquires about me. It answered, “No, it’s just between us.” The memory tries to soothe you, but it remains there. That’s why I tell many people to shut off personalization. I’ve currently given in to it, and its link with memory is quite terrifying.

C.Ö: This reminds me of what Google learns about you, around 2011. It was an amazing talk. He was explaining how an algorithm figured out women were pregnant. This info was totally fresh to us back then. Certain women started getting pregnancy ads and called up in a rage, saying, “We aren’t pregnant, what is this?” Then, the truth would come out. The system started serving pregnancy ads to these individuals before they even knew their own status. Of course, huge conspiracy theories sparked from this. But the truth was that the learning algorithm detected that the changing habits of pregnant individuals were tied to those purchases. It just showed the same products to anyone mimicking that behavior. Things went wild. A father lost it, calling to complain, “Are you treating my daughter like she’s pregnant?” and then it turned out she was. Plenty of these cases popped up. These systems evolve entirely by learning our behaviors. We constantly treat artificial intelligence as if it were a brand-new debate, but we need to realize that what we call A.I. is simply a more sophisticated evolution of the very algorithms that have been tracking us for years.

“Ask for a left-handed painter and it will draw a right-handed one. It doesn’t know. Because in advertising, the sexiest image to drive consumer behavior is that specific placement of the hands.”

C.Ö: Generative A.I. is not really a novelty. Manipulating imagery, extracting inferences from text, machine learning infrastructures none of these are new concepts. Sure, the velocity of innovation increased once it became public. Moore’s Law holds true for software just as it does for hardware. In the end, it’s a continuous trajectory. We have framed this specific period and started judging everything by it. However, the whole story has been playing out this way since day one. I mean, haven’t we been having this exact conversation for years, independent of A.I.? Like when people say, “We talked about it twice on the phone, and next thing you know, the ads appeared.

Ozan Günel: As a result of the classes we held with Doctor Umut last year, we began to see other students’ data in the repository as well. I wonder if we can say something meaningful about society based on the data we’ve extracted from there?

C.Ö: If you go to any A.I. and say, “Make a video or photo of a clock showing 5 to 9,” it comes out as 10:10. Say, “Show me twenty clocks on the same screen, all pointing to 6:35.” You can test this on models like Stable Diffusion.

All the clocks will read 10:10. Ask for a left-handed painter, and it will draw a right-handed one. It doesn’t know. Because in advertising, the sexiest image to drive consumer behavior is that specific placement of the hands. That’s why nearly 95% of clocks online look like that, and A.I. inherently identifies all clocks as 10:10. These bugs will be fixed, of course. But currently, it’s the product of the internet average, and that’s their biggest hurdle. A.I. production is a direct reflection of our online consumption culture. Yet, they are attempting to define a universal human heritage for A.I. using nothing but the commercial content of today. It’s highly confusing.

Ü.A: It is actually experiencing a crisis over this right now. The data available for it to learn from is almost depleted. It has essentially run out on the internet, and now AI is trying to train on synthetic data meaning machine-generated data. This is making things even worse. You know the concept of the wisdom of the crowd. No matter how poor, dirty or open to manipulation human data is, it is still inherently healthier. The looming crisis once that raw human input is completely depleted proves that artificial intelligence can never escape being a direct reflection of society itself.

C.Ö: It’s always the same debate, really the place we land is always the same. We discuss it in so many different areas, but ultimately, what we’re really asking comes down to this: “Is this going to be for or against us, my friend?”

U.Y: So, when it comes to A.I.’s data consumption, what exactly will be to our advantage, and what will be to our detriment?

C.Ö: I believe that is where the argument hits a wall. For example, Skynet is one of the most popular examples used to induce fear about A.I. The narrative says that if it gets too smart and independent, it will harm us. There are so many stories like this.

A.I. is always portrayed as developing apart from us and despite us, leaving us in a passive role. We discuss it as if it’s just a movie: Is it good or bad? What’s going to happen to us? But the scary part is actually the humans who will wield it. Look at the history of electricity; it triggered wars and caused worldwide crises, yet it also civilized the world. Fewer people die or face injustices compared to a century ago. But modern humanity is deeply corrupted. The more advanced the tools you hand to humanity, the worse the destination will be. So the question shouldn’t be, “Will A.I. become independent and push the button?” The real question is, “How much longer will the people who hold this extraordinary, advanced technology use it for private interests and enslave the rest of the world?” But that happens anyway, even without A.I. Most of what we debate regarding A.I. is actually a debate about human nature and human decisions.

“Over ninety percent of all internet traffic is consolidated across just twenty websites. This is exactly what commercial forces intended. With artificial intelligence, however, the stakes are even higher.”

Ü.A: On that note, we can take the history of the internet’s development as a blueprint for where A.I. is going and where it’s getting stuck. Look at Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the HTTP protocol and a godfather of the internet. His disappointment tells the whole story. We created the internet to escape complete centralization. The concept originated in the US during the Cold War around the idea of breaking up central nodes. Because if Russia targeted a communication center with a nuclear weapon, everything would go down. So they invented the internet to decentralize power. It was fundamentally a military defense mechanism. But look at it now: everyone is consolidated on Facebook, Twitter and Google. It became a monopoly through commercialization, and that’s when things started to break down. Today, we are moving toward the opposite path.

C.Ö: Over ninety percent of all internet traffic is consolidated across just twenty websites. This is exactly what commercial forces intended. With artificial intelligence, however, the stakes are even higher. The internet was a technology birthed and nurtured under state oversight; governments were the foundational signatories of the internet treaty.

A.I., by contrast, is entirely market-driven, spearheaded from day one by the private sector. Consequently, the disillusionment we eventually experience with artificial intelligence may dwarf the heartbreak we’ve already suffered with the internet.

D.B: We are talking about all this, but is it possible that there’s a bit of techno-chauvinism involved with AI? I mean, we are constantly shifting between utopias and dystopias. These thematic topics keep recurring. It started six or seven years ago with post-truth. Then blockchains arrived. Next, we had this idea that NFTs were transforming art and then it was all about Meta and the coming of the Metaverse…

C.Ö: Look, fundamentally, none of these are actual bubbles. Neither NFTs nor crypto were inherent bubbles. Even the dotcom crash wasn’t a bubble in a structural, corporate sense, nor is the metaverse a bubble in concept. Instead, bubbles form because market forces rush to commodify these theoretical breakthroughs the exact moment they become trending topics. The real issue with AI right now is its destination. What will be the role of the Blackwell chips NVIDIA just announced? Look at the friction between China and the U.S. over server farms. On the other side, ChatGPT and OpenAI are building out their purely commercial arms. Incredible automated vehicle tech is coming. Something massive is definitely happening. But they are trying to sell it before the product is fully baked. You open the cheapest app. and there’s an A.I. tool on the margin. You press it, ask a question, and it answers. Markets digest the concept easily because it sells easily.

It’s the same pattern with NFTs. In theory, owning the unique code of a digital artifact is a fine idea. But when they say it will change the world and force every artist into it, turning the space into a marketplace overnight that’s when the bubble appears. I mean, wait a minute it might take ten to twenty years for the internet to reach the protocols and bandwidth necessary to function seamlessly but he changed the company’s name to Meta because Facebook was about to crash. Yet, the metaverse is non-existent today. It’s a bubble. We are experiencing the same loop with A.I. In May 2023, Goldman Sachs published a report. It claimed that if generative A.I. fulfills its promises, 25% of the Western workforce will lose their jobs in ten years. Even if seventy percent of current operations aren’t run by AI, they will rely on AI assistance. Meanwhile, national GDPs will spike by 8%. These institutions define a future where everyone loses their job as “increased productivity.” According to them, the world will become much wealthier. That is the exact theory that sparked the universal basic income debate. On that note, Ümit, do you recall Özgür Mumcu’s tweet about the metaverse? He said, “I never thought this Metaverse thing would turn into buying land in Mecidiyeköy.” (Mecidiyeköy is one of the most densely populated and expensive real estate zones in Istanbul) Honestly…

“People are asking, “Why are the creators of A.I. investing so much in these catastrophe scenarios?” When researched, it turns out they are demanding strict regulation.”

Ü.A: Yes, those investors are completely broke now. But there’s one more angle to consider, and it’s happening in the U.S. I wrote a piece on this. In U.S.A they uncovered a lobby group that constantly brings up worst-case scenarios before Congress. When they checked who was backing it, the biggest players like OpenAI came up. People are asking, “Why are the creators of A.I. investing so much in these catastrophe scenarios?” When researched, it turns out they are demanding strict regulation. They want to block smaller competitors from entering the market, leaving the field exclusively to the big companies. The objective is to eliminate competition. For this purpose, even the inventors are backing doomsday theories. At this stage, we are seeing the true decline of humanity.

C.Ö: At the same time, we cannot foresee the terrible outcomes. The world is passing through a fragile phase that can reshape everything. Take politics, for example. Will the world be more right-wing in ten years, or will the rising conservative wave fail and crash at some point? We don’t know what lies ahead, and this will deeply affect everything. Also, will the friction between China and the U.S. really have a winner? While everything looks great on the surface in China, their banking system is going under and we don’t know the fallout.

On the other hand, unlike Western countries suffering from major population declines, poorer and migration-heavy societies are seeing massive population growth. There are standard scenarios like food shortages and global warming, but we don’t know how they will play out. In a period with so many unstable variables, making a forecast is tough. When predicting is hard, you look for insurance. If you are in the dark, the risk grows bigger in your mind. For example, if you don’t know where your child is, you imagine the worst. This much uncertainty about the future of the world is driving us to prepare for worst-case scenarios.

Ü.A: Exactly! Who in the 1990s could have ever foreseen that Europe would experience such a severe relative decline by the 2020s? Today, Europe finds itself lagging behind both China and the United States across virtually every sector, yet back in the 90s, there wasn’t a single warning sign pointing toward this stagnation.

D.B: They say that one day A.I. could conquer the world. If a scenario like that ever happens, would it be the A.I acting on its own will, or would there be a human mastermind behind it who coded the A.I. in the first place? C.Ö: It’s always the same debate being repeated we’re afraid of an all-powerful artificial intelligence. We fear an AI that can access everything across the globe, just like in Person of Interest or Skynet. People are terrified of an AI that can transfer funds to any bank, instantly create fake identities, manipulate the internet as it pleases, and survive even if you pull the plug on its servers. Yet, if such an invincible instrument ever comes to exist, the true horror lies not in the machine, but in the human hand that wields it. We systematically overlook human malice while losing sleep over a theoretical Skynet. The reality is that humanity is dark enough to make our worst fears come to pass. Look at geopolitics: nation-states that master these A.I. simulation models will soon dominate the negotiating table without firing a single shot. By weaponizing the predictive outcomes of these simulations, they will extract strategic advantages without ever escalating to physical conflict. You’ve likely encountered analyses forewarning us of exactly this kind of future.

“We systematically overlook human malice while losing sleep over a theoretical Skynet. The reality is that humanity is dark enough to make our worst fears come to pass.”

Ü.A: There is a mediation-focused A.I. developed at M.I.T. It’s a diplomatic A.I. capable of bringing two conflicting sides together and framing all arguments to a point where a win-win scenario is possible for everyone.

C.Ö: We talk so much about being afraid of A.I. but we forget how terrifying human beings actually are. I believe humans will do everything we are afraid of. A.I. doesn’t need to make autonomous decisions it is already capable of everything. We look at social media and see this happening right now, and the results are truly terrible.

Ü.A: There is a famous paperclip experiment regarding A.I. that you probably know. You give the machine an order: “Produce the maximum number of paperclips possible.” Once it receives this, it starts manufacturing paperclips by wiping out everything else. In the end, the instruction still comes from a human.

O.G: For centuries, people feared monsters and things they didn’t understand. But following the boom of popular culture, we rebranded monsters and robots as our allies. This might be one of the reasons why humanity is unable to face its true fears. In games, everyone claims they chose the side of the robots or monsters. Perhaps human beings redirect their fear to something else because they are not existentially ready to confront their own nature.

C.Ö: You’ve summarized the narrative I’ve been trying to convey for the last hour so simply and elegantly. Of course, we should also note that there are still plenty of things to be feared about artificial intelligence itself.

Sedat Erol: In some fields, A.I. models are much more expert, especially when it comes to data analysis. While a novice might get a 1x benefit in a specific area, a mid-level professional can scale that benefit to 10x. While being an expert in just one domain was enough in the past, will the future force us to hold expertise in multiple fields?

Ü.A: An author named David Autor wrote a very nice article on this topic in Noema magazine. We always focus on how A.I. will steal all the jobs and cause unemployment. But if you look back, one of the things that hurt society after the Industrial Revolution was elite specialization. Careers like medicine and engineering became elite domains; you had to be either rich or smart to get in. With A.I., these professions will become possible to practice with less education. As a result, the middle class will expand across society. The middle class has shrunk because this elite expertise model brought us to this point. Why do we look at this negatively? Maybe because by spreading elite expertise to the middle class, people could reach better places with less education. I think the most vivid example of this is that most of the education my child or other kids get today is based on language learning. Especially in nonEnglish speaking countries like Türkiye, this is such a huge waste of time. A.I. is about to make language education almost useless.

Apple CEO Tim Cook was speaking to programmers in France. In that conference, he said, “Stop trying to learn English, you don’t need to learn a foreign language at all. Just focus on your software; there won’t be such a thing as a foreign language in the future.” The budgets spent on education in Türkiye are incredible; it means a massive amount of money and time. Maybe better jobs can be done with less education, and this could create positive effects instead of being bad. In the default scenario, A.I. takes over all jobs and people are left unemployed. But in another scenario, with less education, more qualified work can be done. Thanks to this, manual jobs which should actually earn good money but are currently looked down upon could rise. Geoffrey Hinton, called the “godfather of A.I.,” won the Nobel Prize this year. At a panel, they asked him, “What do you recommend to youth?” He said, “I would recommend they become plumbers.” Because those are hands-on jobs requiring manual skills that A.I. cannot easily handle.

“Geoffrey Hinton, called the “godfather of A.I.,” won the Nobel Prize this year. At a panel, they asked him, “What do you recommend to youth?” He said, “I would recommend they become plumbers.” Because those are hands-on jobs requiring manual skills that A.I. cannot easily handle.”

C.Ö: Harari once said, “The best profession in the 21st century is learning.” In an interview where Zuckerberg was asked about Facebook’s developments in artificial intelligence, he said that within a few years, AI will be able to do everything software engineers can do. In other words, he’s implying that a massive portion of the workforce will be laid off.

Ü.A: Consider the profession of plumbing. If a plumber doesn’t come to fix a problem in my home, my house will be flooded with water or sewage. So why is my line of work, writing, looked down on as less prestigious than theirs? Actually, there is a much bigger need for what they do. Right now, maybe these professions will flip completely and we can look at them from a more equal perspective.

C.Ö: We must not fear artificial intelligence. This is the primary starting point for us and the colleagues we work with. In literary publishing, translators and in media, copywriters, videographers and editors are sharing a similar fear. A.I. will make tasks easier, but these are all just instruments. In the end we are all forced to keep learning; the world is pushing us to this point. I’m not just saying this for laborers or fresh university graduates. It has become a necessity at every stage, title, and position. We reacted to this during the pandemic, being exposed to so many things about being productive instead of sitting idle. This is the world we are going to and we must accept it. Everyone at Socrates Magazine grew up and developed right here. Even for those who started here, their job descriptions from day one compared to today are totally different. Different tasks must be done in different ways, and new things are always entering your life. Don’t let these innovations scare you everything doesn’t just change overnight when you wake up one morning. Let’s say you work as a videographer and a more advanced tool comes out in your line of work. You start using it. Then, advanced A.I. models appear that you can use for social media posts and copywriting. By using them, you start working faster and learning new things. Even if you don’t learn anything, when you look back after a year, you just see how fast life has gone by. There is a danger like that, but I don’t think we should fear it. I am telling this to people who just graduated from university and worry that AI will ruin their careers.

Ü.A: I argue that education will become highly personalized. There is this concept of a curriculum. Especially in high schools, there are millions of kids from different socioeconomic groups with completely different learning speeds. The current curriculum expects all these children to learn the exact same way, making it generalized. What actually matters isn’t the syllabus, but the child’s learning pace, interests and socioeconomic conditions. I believe children can be educated much better through A.I. In this system, educators and teachers will shift to a guiding role; they will need to show how to reach information through different paths. Personalized education is crucial. The point is to specialize in certain areas and add your own touch. The result will be better because you are showcasing your own style. When everyone became able to do everything, we all leveled out at a certain mediocrity. The style of my own writing has also changed in the age of A.I. Now I tell more personalized stories, often starting with anecdotes that seem totally unrelated to the topic. Then, I connect it to the right information. There is no point in just giving correct facts anymore information is accessible to everyone. I practice my craft as a writer by making that information easier for people to internalize. These elements of personalization at the beginning and end make the topic fun and understandable. It creates a piece of work that highlights the human factor something A.I. simply cannot do. I recently wrote an article about the Beta generation.

“We shouldn’t be completely hopeless. The history of the reality that everyone agrees on is only 150 years old or so. When the French Revolution took place, nobody in a town thirty kilometers away was aware of it. This instant awareness is something that came with modern communication and technology.”

U.Y: By the way, I’m curious to know what you think about the generations.

Ü.A: We shouldn’t be completely hopeless. The history of the reality that everyone agrees on is only 150 years old or so. When the French Revolution took place, nobody in a town thirty kilometers away was aware of it. This instant awareness is something that came with modern communication and technology. It used to spread slowly, and we should go back to that same slowness. Leaving a note in history is precious. We know that the Criminal Court telling Netanyahu “You are guilty” will change nothing. A symbolic court was set up in Istanbul during the Second Gulf War, but it was of no use to anyone. In the Nazi era, Sophie Scholl saying her words of defiance and being executed two days later achieved nothing practically. Beyond winning, maybe this story should be about making a record.

C.Ö: Will something like this really happen? Will the dream of a generation that sees things from a human perspective come true? It’s highly unlikely.

U.Y: I want to move toward the legal side of things. You have this concept called the “Supranational Artificial Intelligence Regulatory Committee.” You even discussed it in Cumhuriyet [Editor’s Note: One of Türkiye’s most deeply rooted and influential secular-mainstream newspapers] but in your opinion, is it really possible to implement effective regulations through a global body like that?

Ü.A: It really operates like a regulatory institution. Whenever a new technology or innovation has arrived throughout history, chaos has always followed. When gramophones and musicplaying devices were invented, instrument shops thought, “From now on, nobody will buy instruments because everyone will have a gramophone at home. What is the point of an instrument?” But the love for music grew, and musicians complained, “No one will come to concerts anymore how will we earn money?” That’s when record technology came out; they sold vinyls and made a living.

The same exact thing happened with MP3s. In the early 2000s, everyone said the music business was dead. When the legendary Ferdi Tayfur passed away recently, it was reported that he still generated three million liras in monthly digital royalties. With enough patience, things stabilize, and this rules for A.I. too. We did an episode called “A.I. and Law” on Yeni Medya 451. We examined many lawsuits involving A.I. there. It was very exciting to research. Soon, we will have the right to appeal many choices made by A.I. People aren’t rejecting our credit loans anymore; a computer, an A.I. tool inside the banking network is making that choice. So who are we going to sue? We will have to sue the A.I. There are many court cases about this in the US. In parole decisions, A.I. can show bias based on race. These things will keep happening fi rst comes chaos, then discussions. After discussions come regulation and normalization. Then a new innovation, and a new chaos.

“ I believe children can be educated much better through A.I.”

U.Y: I want to turn to the issue of copyright. The struggles faced by cartoon magazines were caused by the free circulation of cartoons. These pieces of work are just so easy to share on social media channels.

C.Ö: These problems will be solved. A landmark class-action lawsuit is going on in the US right now. This kind of lawsuit affects a huge number of people because you sue on behalf of all victims at once, meaning if you win, everyone gets a piece of the compensation. There is a huge lawsuit against Stable Diffusion today. Since images were scraped from the web and integrated into their model, it was filed for all the copyright owners. The result of this case will be very decisive.

It all comes down to the concept of “fair use” people are arguing whether this counts as fair use or not. The founders of Stable Diffusion and Midjourney say, “What art piece can exist without any inspiration or foundation?” On the other hand, we see that the copied training images actually reappear in the A.I.’s own creations. For example, because it trained on photos with the Getty Images watermark, the Getty Images logo shows up on the right or left of some generated pictures. Because of this, Getty Images is also in the lawsuit. This case will prove if the world is ruled by a side that cares about democracy. If Stable Diffusion and Midjourney lose, A.I. systems will have to pay royalties for all the training data they pull from the internet. This will only be valid in the western world and it won’t stop China. So, A.I. companies will have to pay for all internet content and buy copyrights. This is a very fair and well-deserved situation. You cannot just use people’s pictures randomly, build a system, and make a fortune. But at the same time, we will see countries outside of copyright treaties developing their own networks, gathering massive data, and leading the AI field. The same rule applies to AI used in weapons, war, and every other area. We face a huge dilemma. If we are afraid of China ruling the world and us, it looks like we might have to sacrifice democracy.

U.Y: It was a valuable conversation where we discussed both new media and society, and A.I. and humans in depth. Thank you very much for taking the time to join us and for contributing to our special feature. We’re so glad you accepted our invitation and joined us today.

Can Öz & Ümit Alan: It’s a beautifully fitting end to a show where, honestly, all the questions were asked by men and all the answers were given by men! You’ve asked some truly brilliant questions, so thank you so much. (Laughs)

“Artificial Intelligence: A reflection of what we teach it.” yazısı ilk önce Context Dergi üzerinde ortaya çıktı.