AI Artificial Intelligence 6 24 18
The “Circle of Life” has come full circle and now the creatures are becoming creators. In manipulating the physical world of wood, stone, soils, metals, gems we have created beauty, art, functionality, and culture. Layer upon layer we have learned to manipulate our minds and our world to dance to our imaginations and our wills. In each step we have been challenged by the lure of what preceded and the desire to go beyond. Along the way each complexity confounded the initial attempts and only attention to ever-increasing detail would lead to the next accomplishment. We have now delved into all of the seen world, our crops, outer space, our reproduction, and now we are in the invisible realm, the particles and forces that make up the very fabric of our being, the quantum world. In the meantime we are utilizing our knowledge to create spiraling consequences. Our cars and jets and lawnmowers that nobody is willing to forego are toxicizing the very source of our momentary existence. Several months ago I came across an article regarding the a proposed “Red Team vs Blue Team” exercise on the environment/global warming debate. I sent the author a suggestion that if he could reach the environmental side team, propose that they arrange for the meeting to take place in an area large enough to pull a SUV in, and as everyone is getting settled in, proceed to tape the windows, seal the door, and turn on the vehicle. A further step just occurred to me; that team should have gas masks and guns handy ready to take out when appropriate. This all may seem a far reach from AI, but it is not.
The increasing focus on the controversies swirling around AI are centering in on the morality, the legality, the practicality, the sensibility of the coming machines potentially to be creatures. The complexities of the issue are daunting; the irony is that the most complex entity that we are aware of on the planet that moves of its own volition is us, and we are a mess, and I’m part of the problem, too. With very few exceptions it appears that everything we create is a double-edged sword, and though the swing takes time to come back, come back it does. What are we to do?
My initial “homework assignment” several years ago as I started this project was a clear understanding from Elohim to read the “Road to Reality” by Sir Roger Penrose. I am not smart enough to do the math, but I get the concepts, the philosophical underpinnings, and the implications of his text. Some of its content covered algorithms, which was not even on my radar, but in the past two years it is clear that these are driving our social and hence economic platforms and increasingly the quest for AI. Here is a google search option caption derived from “search > AI and algorithms”:
Artificial Intelligence: How Algorithms Make Systems …
https://www.wired.com/…/2014/09/artificial-intelligence-algorithms-2
“Algorithm” is a word that one hears used much more frequently than in the past. One of the reasons is that scientists have learned that computers can learn on their own if given a few simple instructions.
Oh boy! The big picture is “simple it is not.”; more to come soon.
