When AI gets a pass: the rise of 'AI Exceptionalism'
Here's a pattern I can't un-see:
🤖 AI threatens my profession → "This is unethical."
🤖 AI helps my profession → "This is innovation."
Journalists
AI companies
Hollywood
Universities
They all seem to make exceptions when AI benefits them.
I call it AI Exceptionalism.
It’s the belief that AI should follow different rules depending on who is using it.
To be clear, this isn’t an argument that all uses of AI are equally good. Nor is it an argument that copyright doesn’t matter, or that artists, writers, actors and educators don’t have legitimate concerns.
They absolutely do.
But if we’re going to have an honest conversation about AI, shouldn’t we try applying the same principles consistently?
Agree? Or am I completely wrong?
See four examples where AI consistency disappears remarkably quickly in the full post:
I think consistency is the key point here. People often judge AI less by the underlying principle and more by whether it threatens or strengthens their own position. That makes debates about AI adoption as much about incentives as ethics.
Exactly, and it makes a lot of the online discourse written about AI, especially from tech journalists, who praise AI for coding but dismiss AI for writing, especially frustrating.
One thing I'd keep watching is whether people's views on AI change when the technology changes or when their own incentives change.
Those can look like the same debate on the surface, but they often produce very different conversations.