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The Public Intellectual Is Dead. And AI Has Killed Them.

L1 · CuriousOpinion & AnalysisLessWrong AI· 10/9/2026

Explores AI's societal impact on knowledge dissemination and expert authority for a general audience.

AI Summary

AI is killing the public intellectual by further eroding trust in expertise and replacing human expert commentary with synthetic content.

Excerpt

Crosspost Once upon a time, public intellectuals routinely made it into the news to discuss political, economic, medical, and scientific issues. To some extent, this is still true, but the appreciation for expertise has been eroded over time. Large parts of the political spectrum do not trust experts, unless, of course, they agree with what they already believe. Western democracies have often been derided for being technocratic and giving too much power to so-called experts. The scientific exper

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