The book Thinking Like a Human: The Power of Your Mind in the Age of AI, by David Weitzner, helps us understand why AI (“Artificial Intelligence”) is problematic.
There is a bit of woo thrown in here and there in Weitzner’s writings, but I find two sentences from the entire book that really summarize why we need to worry about the big push to grow AI. “The promise of automation was to do the mundane so human creativity can flourish. Instead, human creativity is demeaned as mundane so Big Tech’s machines can flourish.” [p. 114] and "Artful spaces want to nurture the slowness of experience in human time, while algorithmic spaces want us to ignore our bodies and respond to the prompts of digital commands." [ p. 230]
Essentially, AI is dangerous because it is taking the promise of robotics to free mankind from dull, repetitive work, and instead is an attempt by ruthless and/or incompetent businessmen to replace higher-level human thought and work with their AI products. So businesses have glommed on to a so-far poorly working product to make money by promoting something that will replace human thought rather than helping humans have more time to think and do.
“The policy wonks have bought in to the hype that algorithms, which started out as math, have become steady-state beings with agendas. AI is suddenly a deterministic force that our societies lack the power to resist. The strategies outlined in these papers seem to coalesce around a call for human passivity and impotence in the face of algorithms that have managed to transcend human control.” [p. 247-8]
Is there an antidote to having AI take over from human thought and actions? Yes, says Weitzner. We need to first think with our bodies as well as our mind. We cannot see ourselves as just a computer in a bag of flesh. We think with our vision, our touch, our smell, our interactions with others, our reactions to outside stimuli. AI has none of this. Also, we need to think LESS like AI. AI simply hoovers up what has been written and done in the past, and makes assumptions and “predictions” based on this information. So we as humans need to think not as calculators but as innovators, forward-thinking, questioning conclusions, brainstorming with others – in other words, doing the things that AI cannot do. “Artful spaces want to nurture the slowness of experience in human time, while algorithmic spaces want us to ignore our bodies and respond to the prompts of digital commands.” [p. 230]
So, do we stick with the original plan to have computers and robots do the rote and mundane, and help us with our inventiveness and progress, or do we flip that around with AI and let AI become the “genius” of the future while we do the cooking and cleaning? This is the choice Weitzner sees. And it is not a choice that humans are demanding, but rather a plan foisted on us by those who can make money if AI can take our place. We have a choice in this matter.
“Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.” [Kyle Reese, in The Terminator movie]
As an aside, I noticed that Weitzner throughout the book sort of assumes that all humans are extroverts. Part of the solution to AI is more human interaction, being open with each other, even synchronizing with each other by coming together for mass events. As a member of the Introverts, I am a bit off-put by this. Certainly there is room for us in this fight as well? We can be inventive and aggressive as well. I think I’ll write Weitzner for an addendum about this.
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