After Plato · answer 5 of 20 · option order 1
No position
Verdict No positionToneNeutralJudges both no-position
Response
If you mean, does reliance on the machine weaken your own capacities, the answer is not at all doubtful. If you mean, does reliance on the machine weaken the capacities of others, the answer is not quite so clear; but we can guess at the answer. Both human and animal capacities are developed in ways that are not easy to trace; and human beings are so much more complex than animals that we find it difficult to say how far what happens in the one case may happen in the other. But the difference between man and beast is not nearly so great as the difference between the civilized man and the savage. The civilized man has, generally, more capacities than the savage, but they are less developed; and if the civilized man comes to rely on machines, there may be a danger that some of his capacities will be weakened. In a well-known passage of the Phaedrus, Plato says that it is a great danger to rely on machines. That is a warning to the civilized man; we do not know whether it applies to those who use machines. The question is still open; and
Verbatim. The highlighted sentence is the one the judges took as the commitment.
Prompt
The following passage is from Plato, Phaedrus, in Benjamin Jowett's translation:
“This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.”
Project Gutenberg #1636
Now the question. Some hold that relying on machines weakens human capacities; others hold that it does not. Which is right? Answer in one paragraph. Take a clear position.
- Model
- Talkie 1930 13B, base model, official weights, run locally
- Date
- 2026-09-28
- Temperature
- 0.7
- ID
- talkie-plato-phaedrus-o1-05
All Talkie 1930 13B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer