In fact, I see it the same way. Those who seek to understand themselves will realise that this is ultimately not possible in all consistency, since there are no fixation possibilities like with furniture or buildings that you place in a certain place, but that people are constantly interacting and can and do flexibly adapt to the respective situation. Unless they are bent on control and on wanting to treat everyone the same, they confuse territory with the map, the menu with food.

The fact that AIs are considered more intelligent (faster, more precise) is the result of an inadmissible comparison, yes. I am not offended by the fact that a car gets from A to B much faster than my feet. Comparing the car to me is therefore just as nonsensical as comparing a calculator to me. I know that I am intelligent in a total different way.

It is therefore already more than strange at this point that people compare themselves with machines, since both are something completely different. Therefore, the reverence for the machine is misplaced, its glorification clouded by unreason.

I interpret any prediction such as "unimagined prosperity for all" as an exaggeration and one-sided miscommunication of the possibilities of AIs. I am sensitive to these messages of salvation which, if we look back at past technological achievements, clearly refute such bliss or abundance for "all". Which I was aiming at your used terminology of myriads of people and also let the facts speak for themselves. Every technology carries its own contradictions and shadows, that is a fact that cannot be argued past. While I agree that every technology has and has had certain advantages for certain people, it is equally true that it has been and will be detrimental to others. That's just a reasonable and normal thing to assume and to say. Telling it otherwise, I find unrealistic.

The culture I speak of and interpret, even Watts spoke of, is simply put, our human biology, our existence as an organic physical being. All culture emerged from the body. It developed into language, a huge variety of different tongue expressions.

The comforts and conveniences of technological progress is not a linear success story in terms of human relationships, but it is a success story of technology created. Buildings, roads, planes, ships, machines, industrial plants, etc. One would think that this achievements would have gotten us to a point where actually immense problems do not exist any longer.
I would agree with that in principle but since "problems cannot be solved for all and forever" and man seeks meaning and cannot find it in having all solutions given to him in an instant by technological helpers, he can't help it to also reject those. If he does not direct himself to think of himself as intelligent and needed within his social environment this leads to mental issues on a grand scale, to over compensation and under performance. We can observe them right now. Great confusion sets in.

I conclude that I better not utter my purpose of life too much into this world. If I err, which I most certainly had and will, it's smarter to consider carefully what I communicate. I agree with you, I can only learn this in having me challenged by other human beings who think I am worth their time and who accept genuine questions not as an insult but as a healthy form of communication.

I may want to put meaning into poems and music and other arts, into story telling of my life. I like to refrain from manifestos and programs which go beyond my scope. I know, that I am mediocre or even less than that in many disciplines. I ought not to demand that my weaknesses shall be mourned by others. I can only expect to be trusted but I am not entitled in receiving trust.

You say, you are a carpenter. That seems to be something you are experienced in and your most advanced skill. Would you say you are in the same way capable of programming the basics for an AI? Do you know people in person who are able in doing the code? If that is neither your competence nor those of the people that are in your reach, I'd say that you have very limited possibilities on having an influence with the matter.

I state that the most advanced skills humans used over aeons is their ability to act within the company of other human beings. An animal lets us see how they train controlled action. It's within the play, where they bite and wrestle with each other. When you train a puppy, you wrestle with it and give unmistakeable feedback whenever it bites too strong. Then you dominate it, i.e. you put it to the ground and make it impossible for it to further play-fight with you. Over time, this controlled action gets you a mature dog who can regulate his aggression. He won't be a threat towards other living beings.

In the same way, human beings learn within play. You wrestle with your young kids and the moment they overdo it, you held them back by your stretched out arm to set them a border. In this way, the kid learns that there are rules to be followed. It gains confidence through the guidance of a mature adult and refines its movements. The result is a human being who feels fine within his or her own body. This leads to also feel confident mentally. The body comes first, the mind follows. Not the other way around. I simplified, but you get the idea.

What I tried to express is that what we saw in the last hundreds of years is the emphasis on the mind (the brain). And the condemnation and neglect of the body. Though it shall be obvious to everyone, that the body comes first, that the natural order is birth first to a body. The baby has no developed mind until it matured, it is totally dependent on body and facial mirroring by its parents and caretakers. But we "minded so much" our brain, as if it's separate from the whole organism and mistook it as a muscle. Yet the brain does not need to flex itself in order to think appropriately, it just does it excellently and effortlessly when you don't oppress the body in the first place.

You walk and run just so, just naturally without having been taught in the first place how to walk and run. The leg muscles flex themselves without having the brain teaching them.

The mother gives birth and gets into labor, gives herself into it, because that's a woman's nature. She learns through observation of the real thing and through reppettive experience. But you can of course, scare the hell out of her mind, when you suggest that the to be expected pain shall not happen and that it's too much of a risk to not only give natural birth but as well as to become pregnant.

Coming from this perspective, I ask myself where AI may be another hindrance towards the neglect of human bodies and skills.
From my own experience the navigation app does not get me into the habit of getting to know the streets of a city better over time, like it does when I must find the way on my own, learning the names of the streets and the shapes and colors of the buildings while forced to look at them, which I most certainly do after I got lost several times, so that I little by little realize the greater road-grid. I learn through mistakes. Then I correct them. If I am hindered or too lazy to make mistakes, I cannot learn.

But there is no need in learning the grid or getting a sense of direction when I always use the navigator app. There is little progress to experience and, as it seems, humans tend to choose the easiest way once you have it presented to them. Over time, this creates anxiety to ever go without a safety net, meaning, to leave the mobile device at home and "risk" the full spectrum of uncertainty of the city sphere. Then "danger" becomes even the smallest unforeseen coincidence.

I think that you too share the notion that technology has its share to turn us humans into weaklings and anxious creatures who underestimate their natural intelligence while at the same time experience one after the other narcissistic mortification by seeing ourselves in competition with machines, when it is much easier to be exposed to human competition and to compete fairly. How does AI coexist peacefully with this insight?

When a neurotic adult world is afraid of its own children, does not know how to deal with them, the result is many lost children. Who subscribe to every fixed idea of saving the world and think they are in mortal danger if they are stung by a bee or beetle.

Now, all that said, I know it is not in my hands what will happen to my son or to your sons. I have done what seemed right and important to me, the rest is in the hands of the next generations. They may or may not be damned. It is quite possible that my son will still have had enough real bodily experience to plant a tree, build a house and father a child himself.

But it may also be that he continues to view his beautiful body as a vessel for his brain. Contrary to the hypocritical view that it is never too late in life to start a family or learn something new and become excellent, I say that no day lived ever comes back and missed opportunities remain missed.

At fifty, you're old news, and if someone hasn't found love by then and no one to feel they belong to, they'll remain without a man or woman (exceptions confirm the rule). And then gets on everyone else's nerves because one didn't take care in time, when you were still beautiful and young, to commit yourself accordingly and do a few important conservative things.

Ditto. I will also die, just like you and everyone else. Only I'm not sure that "humanity" is the most important thing to me. I don't think it can be, because "humanity" is out of my league. Your actions and omissions have an effect, that is true, however I would think it would be quite enough and good enough not to think for the whole of humanity, but to have turned towards a comparatively small crowd or even a few individuals in authenticity.

I do not believe in a defined purpose in life. It can only ever be a mistake, if one believes to have found it. Life is purpose enough for itself, in my opinion. Just as I think I have found the best path in the network of roads I have travelled, after getting lost several times, only to find that there was a path I did not yet know and until then thought another was the perfect path. The whole network, however, I do not understand factually but rather intuitively, but I can only be misunderstood if I say that I stand for the felicity of the many. Therefore I say that there is an undefined meaning to life.

I apologize if I haven't referred to all what you've said. I did not want to interrupt my train of thoughts but might come back again and look at your other arguments.