There Is No AI, Stupid!
My outspoken (and certainly prejudiced and groundless) stance on AI is very well known where I am known myself. I hate the current trends and implementations of what is called Artificial Intelligence.
And what’s with the “artificial” prefix anyway? What is “real intelligence”? Why we call human (organic? carbon-based?) intelligence “real” and silicon-based (germanium-based?!) intelligence “artificial”? Because we where here first? Because we are currently more complex and have the upper hand? Wait for the “Singularity” (definitely STFW) and see who gets the last laugh, folks! I guarantee that it will be soon and it won’t be us (almost by definition!)
It can’t be because our intelligence is emergent and evolution-based and computer intelligence is designed and creation-based, because it is not! As far as I know (which is admittedly not far) most successful and state-of-the-art “intelligent” software are evolution-based these days. (They are based on that singly most unique and most elegant idea Darwin had one summer evening (or one winter morning, or whatever) which so beautifully explains a significant portion of the mess that we call “life”.)
And to attack the issue from another angle, “What is real? How do you define real?” What makes you think that we are any more real than the data structures and code run everyday on our own computers?
And don’t even get me started on the “gods-created-us-therefore-we-are-super-special” bullshit.
In any case, my point is that whatever this intelligence is, it’s no more artificial than our own, and we are probably no more real than it.
Maybe we should call it Third Intelligence? Obviously, calling machine intelligence Second Intelligence would be wrong, because they are third after mice and dolphins. We are fourth at best! “So long and thanks for all the fish” anyone?
Let me quote a great quote from a (supposedly) great person:
The question of whether computers can think is no more relevant than the question of whether submarines can swim.
Obviously, there must be a reason that I’m writing philosophically about AI at 6:28 in the morning. I have just started reading “The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect” (a seemingly great sci-fi book, available freely online) which apparently deals with the Singularity and the post-Singularity world. I’m in the middle of chapter two (out of eight) and I must say that the opening chapter was refreshingly original for me and sweetly violent. I recommend it even if the remaining 6.5 chapters are total crap.
While you keep thinking on what we should name it, we’ll be working hard to make your sweet violent Singularity a reality, if there is a such a thing as reality anyhow.
I think, in your previous post you talked about reality and how important it is and in this post you said that we are not more real than computer programs. So why shouldn’t we swallow the blue pill and be happier. I mean may be we are programmed to be happier in this way.
@Hamid:
I did say that we are probably no more real than anything we create, but we are not less real than it either. This universe we live in might not be the reality, but it is certainly a reality.
But, I can certainly see the simplistic logic behind taking the blue pill. It’s all rooted in differences in the definition of “happiness.” And everyone does it one way or the other. We all ignore realities in many aspects of our lives to have more time and energy for the rest.
The difference is what gets sacrificed for what. People who sacrifice realities in the very definition of the universe and their world view, in order to alleviate their primitive fears and in order to relieve themselves from thinking, are ostriches at best (or some other bird that hides its head in the snow or ground or whatever!)
While it might not seem so to you, but recognizing non-organic intelligence as equal and/or superior is accepting the truth and reality, not hiding from it.