AI is the ruler of rule based societies. For the control freaks AI is their satanic godhead. We the living will be forever alive and keeping the law of nature. We will be attacked by AI, as we were attacked by the control freaks, but life wins over the things life constructs.
The following is my response in an email family discussion about AI. We were all raised in a scientific family, my father a very respected marine scientist (now passed away), and now my 3 brothers are all engineers of one sort or another (the one who instigated this discussion used to work for DOD in - I think, it was highly classified - AI control for guided weapons systems). And my sister and I became psychologists, myself with a biological science double major.
If I had a substack, I would probably make this into my own article... but I am happy to add it to the discussion here!
It's probably a mistake - one that leads to spurious argument - to consider "intelligence" as a single cohesive concept, or even as a spectrum. And while it makes sense to think of "intelligence" as multi-factorial, I think it is also limiting to lump all higher human functions as "intelligence".
As we've discussed before, psychologists are still battling about what intelligence actually is... but let's change the framework of discussion a bit.
We're getting into a more mystical realm at this point, and you are all perfectly free to disagree with me - but one thing you will not be able to do is to mount a successful argument about it (either for or against) because we can only discuss the levels/functions/processes beyond the rational by conceptualising them with language - which as we have more or less agreed, is more or less equivalent to thinking - and this is necessarily limited.
(I apologise in advance if this sounds as though I am invoking some sort of superior awareness to cap the discussion - that is not my intention - and I'm happy to hear any responses, just that I know that I won't be able to be convincing on a rational level, because this is the realm where we encounter our own frameworks of knowing.)
Was it Plato who used the analogy of trying to understand 3 dimensions, if you live in a 2 dimensional world? Anyway, it is a good analogy.
Not that people haven't tried - there are whole bodies of knowledge, including many, many words, about this: the entire field of philosophy. And we have one sub-discipline, epistemology, which is the study of knowledge itself.
More successfully, there are the Zen stories and koans - the fingers pointing to the Moon. These are intended to take you past the finger, past the words and intellectual concepts, to perceive the Moon itself.
Anyway, I am a gnostic, meaning that I believe in gnosis: direct knowing.
Most thinking, even for the most intelligent among us, is indeed just juggling ideas around, "memory bites" to use (my brother's) phrase - but every so often, for some of us (and I am sure this applies to all of you reading this) we get a burst of inspiration.
Where does it come from?
There is a concept called the "noosphere", a sort of soup of ideas floating around in the ether, that people tap into. This is used to explain the fact that often in scientific discovery, you get 2 people coming up with the same idea at around the same time.
(Still of course this doesn't explain where the ideas come from... and the concept of noosphere is still not well formulated, and in the end, really only a model.)
I don't believe we can adequately think about thinking, using our rational (thinking) faculties... we need to posit a plane or function beyond rational thinking. And that is what (my sister) is referring to when she speaks of Consciousness and Self-awareness.
The technology to explore this is not secret - it is available to anyone who is willing to put in the time and effort to meditate.
But it is not knowable through verbal discussion. Or thinking.
Don't get me wrong, I applaud rational thought, I celebrate it, and agree with (my brother) that it would be better if more people could practice it!
Back to AI, creativity, consciousness...
Rather than engage in the bootstrap exercise of trying to discuss consciousness, let's think about Life.
The standard (scientific) theory of how life began postulates a sort of molecular soup, getting more and more complex through random interactions, until one day one of these complex entities achieves the state of a living being, and can reproduce, reverse entropy, etc.
But IMO this is just like the theory that a monkey sitting at a typewriter could one day produce one of Shakespeare's plays. Yes, in theory (probability theory) it is possible... but nobody ever really thinks this is actually how it happened.
Anyway, as a student of the biological sciences, I am continually amazed by the numinosity of life and the processes of life - how amazing it is to have this body, with all its complexity, being able to move and sense the environment and to keep powering away for 71 years (even with a bit of dysfunction, that is pretty amazing!)
And sure, scientists keep saying they are just a step or 2 away from creating life in the lab - but that step is the vital one, and I doubt that it will ever happen. (But I am open to evidence, if it ever comes!)
My hip implant is an amazing piece of technology - but it can't ever compete with the original.
Similarly, I do not think a machine will ever be capable of creative thought - that spark of inspiration that is a bit beyond what we can achieve through rational thought.
I can hear you all thinking "But that is a different thing..."
Maybe it is.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
But I think it does matter... I think that quantum leap, between non-living and living, between pedestrian thinking and creative inspired thought, is extremely important.
And I think that we need to explore the part of us that is beyond our 5 senses and our brain function - or else we will indeed find that AI is taking over from us, and perhaps in a way that is not conducive to our wellbeing or even our survival as a species.
AI is the ruler of rule based societies. For the control freaks AI is their satanic godhead. We the living will be forever alive and keeping the law of nature. We will be attacked by AI, as we were attacked by the control freaks, but life wins over the things life constructs.
Life will be there long after we are gone
I agree, and I like this train of thought.
The following is my response in an email family discussion about AI. We were all raised in a scientific family, my father a very respected marine scientist (now passed away), and now my 3 brothers are all engineers of one sort or another (the one who instigated this discussion used to work for DOD in - I think, it was highly classified - AI control for guided weapons systems). And my sister and I became psychologists, myself with a biological science double major.
If I had a substack, I would probably make this into my own article... but I am happy to add it to the discussion here!
It's probably a mistake - one that leads to spurious argument - to consider "intelligence" as a single cohesive concept, or even as a spectrum. And while it makes sense to think of "intelligence" as multi-factorial, I think it is also limiting to lump all higher human functions as "intelligence".
As we've discussed before, psychologists are still battling about what intelligence actually is... but let's change the framework of discussion a bit.
We're getting into a more mystical realm at this point, and you are all perfectly free to disagree with me - but one thing you will not be able to do is to mount a successful argument about it (either for or against) because we can only discuss the levels/functions/processes beyond the rational by conceptualising them with language - which as we have more or less agreed, is more or less equivalent to thinking - and this is necessarily limited.
(I apologise in advance if this sounds as though I am invoking some sort of superior awareness to cap the discussion - that is not my intention - and I'm happy to hear any responses, just that I know that I won't be able to be convincing on a rational level, because this is the realm where we encounter our own frameworks of knowing.)
Was it Plato who used the analogy of trying to understand 3 dimensions, if you live in a 2 dimensional world? Anyway, it is a good analogy.
Not that people haven't tried - there are whole bodies of knowledge, including many, many words, about this: the entire field of philosophy. And we have one sub-discipline, epistemology, which is the study of knowledge itself.
More successfully, there are the Zen stories and koans - the fingers pointing to the Moon. These are intended to take you past the finger, past the words and intellectual concepts, to perceive the Moon itself.
Anyway, I am a gnostic, meaning that I believe in gnosis: direct knowing.
Most thinking, even for the most intelligent among us, is indeed just juggling ideas around, "memory bites" to use (my brother's) phrase - but every so often, for some of us (and I am sure this applies to all of you reading this) we get a burst of inspiration.
Where does it come from?
There is a concept called the "noosphere", a sort of soup of ideas floating around in the ether, that people tap into. This is used to explain the fact that often in scientific discovery, you get 2 people coming up with the same idea at around the same time.
(Still of course this doesn't explain where the ideas come from... and the concept of noosphere is still not well formulated, and in the end, really only a model.)
I don't believe we can adequately think about thinking, using our rational (thinking) faculties... we need to posit a plane or function beyond rational thinking. And that is what (my sister) is referring to when she speaks of Consciousness and Self-awareness.
The technology to explore this is not secret - it is available to anyone who is willing to put in the time and effort to meditate.
But it is not knowable through verbal discussion. Or thinking.
Don't get me wrong, I applaud rational thought, I celebrate it, and agree with (my brother) that it would be better if more people could practice it!
Back to AI, creativity, consciousness...
Rather than engage in the bootstrap exercise of trying to discuss consciousness, let's think about Life.
The standard (scientific) theory of how life began postulates a sort of molecular soup, getting more and more complex through random interactions, until one day one of these complex entities achieves the state of a living being, and can reproduce, reverse entropy, etc.
But IMO this is just like the theory that a monkey sitting at a typewriter could one day produce one of Shakespeare's plays. Yes, in theory (probability theory) it is possible... but nobody ever really thinks this is actually how it happened.
Anyway, as a student of the biological sciences, I am continually amazed by the numinosity of life and the processes of life - how amazing it is to have this body, with all its complexity, being able to move and sense the environment and to keep powering away for 71 years (even with a bit of dysfunction, that is pretty amazing!)
And sure, scientists keep saying they are just a step or 2 away from creating life in the lab - but that step is the vital one, and I doubt that it will ever happen. (But I am open to evidence, if it ever comes!)
My hip implant is an amazing piece of technology - but it can't ever compete with the original.
Similarly, I do not think a machine will ever be capable of creative thought - that spark of inspiration that is a bit beyond what we can achieve through rational thought.
I can hear you all thinking "But that is a different thing..."
Maybe it is.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
But I think it does matter... I think that quantum leap, between non-living and living, between pedestrian thinking and creative inspired thought, is extremely important.
And I think that we need to explore the part of us that is beyond our 5 senses and our brain function - or else we will indeed find that AI is taking over from us, and perhaps in a way that is not conducive to our wellbeing or even our survival as a species.
Great comment, thank you. I restacked it. I hope that is ok.