Primitive hunter-gatherers, given the broad range of tasks they had to carry out to survive, have a skill set more immune to the “cognitive” smarts of new AI technologies than a highly educated, highly specialized service worker! This reveals something about both the nature of AI and the nature of the division of labor in contemporary capitalism. It helps us understand that AI systems are best viewed as idiot savants, not Renaissance Men.

Mark Bauerlein—author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) and Literary Theory: An Autopsy—recently released a widely discussed study called "Literary Research: Cost and Impacts" for the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.