The Story of Theuth and King Thamus

Peace be upon you, fellow digital wanderer.

Every now and then, I see people celebrating AI as a magic shortcut tool. It can generate boilerplate code, draft your email, and smoothing over all the rough edges of work.

Most people would agree that AI excels at these mundane tasks, and that it can help to offload some of the thinking process needed.

This reminds me of one of Plato’s dialogues. In Plato’s Phaedrus, there is a story about Theuth the inventor and King Thamus.

In Phaedrus, Socrates tells a story from ancient Egypt. Theuth was a great inventor, credited with many inventions, one of which was writing (grammata).

He proudly presents his inventions to the Egyptian King, Thamus, saying that writing will give much benefit to humanity.

He claims that writing will improve memory, and help preserve knowledge. He believes this to be his greatest gift to humanity.

King Thamus disagrees. He says the inventor is not the best person to judge their own inventions. It is the users that determine if an invention will be beneficial.

King Thamus argues that writing will actually weaken our memory. People will rely on written pages instead of using their minds to commit information into memory.

He argues that writing only gives the appearance of wisdom, not true understanding. We will recite information without genuinely learning.

It’ll make people seem knowledgeable, while actually remaining ignorant.

This was King Thamus’s famous critique of writing:

This invention will produce forgetfulness in the souls of those who learn it,.. They will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing. They will appear wise but will not be so.

Ironically, this story was preserved by Plato through his written dialogues.

This is the classic Platonic philosophical tension between knowledge and information.

According to Plato, and probably his teacher Socrates, true knowledge is living, interacting, and dialectical. Writing freezes ideas, it cannot answer new questions. Written words seem wise but, cannot defend themselves.

I do think that his little story applies to our modern discourse about AI technology. Replace ‘writing’ with ‘AI’ and King Thamus’ critique feels eerily contemporary.

Writing, like AI, was once presented as a cognitive superpower, but Plato (via King Thamus) saw that it also outsourced memory and gave the illusion of understanding.

It is undeniable that writing became the backbone of civilisation, preserving knowledge across generations. But acknowledging its benefits does not invalidate King Thamus’ concern.

His concern isn’t about the existence of writing, it is about its effect on human cognition. Most warnings about technological advancement aren’t about the technology itself, but about its effect on human societies and culture.

It is true that modern technology gives us tools that remove frictions, but we forget that friction is often where thinking happens.

Technology can be a great tool if we use it deliberately. Unfortunately, many of us treat technology as a crutch, something we rely on rather than wield.

If we see technology as crutches and uses it as crutches, we will be crippled by technology. Over-reliance creates dependence, and dependence creates weakness.

The current state of AI and LLMs does create the appearance of wisdom. It is a great amplifier. However, many people have misused it as an intellectual prosthetic.

Stay glitched, stay human.
Jibone.