[N.B. We have responsibly chosen to express the following sentiments, despite our candid admission of limited knowledge concerning the digital sciences.]
The nightmare depicted in this writing is the inarguable epitome of that previously discussed phenomenon (# M.85, “Midsummer’s Nightmare”). We have often expressed our profound concern with the ubiquitous mechanization of human activities; most especially the psychological loss attributable to the popular substitution of natural interactive conversation for hand-held devices. We have held that the latter choice detracts from the assuring confirmation of identifiable personal contact and the interactively developmental dynamics of a stable and referable self-image. Sadly, we have been witness to expansive, exponential efforts toward the “improvement” of definitional human behavior by the conception of dehumanizing mechanized or robotic substitutional devices. Such advancements are an objective tribute to the ingenuity and creativity of the human mind; yet, we are gravely concerned by the thoughtless trade-off between facile convenience and the existential maintenance of Man’s singular and irreplaceable humanity.
We have but a modest understanding of the evolving digital environment and its ultimate implications for problem-solving but persist in a basic and essential fear of its ultimate potential for the elimination of the definitional characteristics of humankind, viz., rational thought, emotional dynamics, innate personal nuance, empathy, and aesthetic creativity. We are especially wary of the newly announced digital facility, known as “Artificial Intelligence.”
In our view, the assigned name for such a digital phenomenon is, arguably, an example of the literary-described phenomenon critically described as “oxymoronic.” Intelligence,” as we perceive it, is the resultant product of the appropriate exercise of human experience-based reason; while, the term, “Artificial Intelligence,” by contrast, as we are best able to discern, refers to a non-spontaneous mechanical or robotized system, digitally engineered to respond to presenting commands, as digitally instructed in advance, by its inventive creators.
The distasteful effect of “A-I” has already evidenced itself in the instantaneous, mechanical replication of classic sculpture, and its perverse use in the deceitful replication of the voices of well-known personalities, in copyright and general artistic infringement, and other fraudulent enterprises. Its potential for usefulness, in our view, is irrefutably outweighed by the ever-existing human potential for immoral, and corrupt application. At this early date, A-I has been employed to replicate and misappropriate creative popular art and writing, leading to an extensive amount of legal claims of artistic piracy pending in the Courts, instances of political “bad tricks” and worse, felonious fraud and deceit.
Our concern includes its ominous potential for the deceitful cheapening of the value of human artistic expression, by its facile replication is no less than one of anthropological immensity. We have viewed on television, with the greatest of alarm, the quick and efficient, mechanically made, exact replication of Michelangelo’s David, as if the, otherwise incomparable, classic creation were an item of mundane pottery.
We find most disturbing is the potential for digitally directed, ultra-efficient, non-humanistic functions which the robotic non-human devices will predictably, be asked to perform in decisional matters of illusive justice and equivocal morality. Inflexible and consistent efficiency is not universally in sync with the situational vagaries of human emotional and moral rectitude. A mechanically predictable pristine judiciary, lacking the consideration of the human, empathic qualities of specific nuance and extenuating circumstances, is a frightening prospect for the innocent as well as the guilty.
We conceivably might, positively, expect certain useful A-I benefits in various empirical undertakings such as, in pure science, medicine, industrial production, chemistry, and geological inquiry, but, yet possess the experientially based fear that positive advances are soon turned to nefarious ingenuity. Unmanned heavy bombers (“drones”) [ can you imagine an apocalyptic world where mankind has been destroyed, but warfare between drones and other robotic weapons cranks on?], criminal enterprises such as counterfeit, fraudulent production of purportedly valid documents, profitable acts of extortion based upon false yet “evidenced-based” demonstrations of wrongdoing, espionage and political dirty tricks, general criminal activity and other conceivable immoral facility, are predictable, based upon Man’s empirically disappointing history.
We have great difficulty in compliantly, assigning the term, “improvements” or “advancements” to the vast cornucopia of Man’s ingenious developments purposed to make human activities easier, but, simultaneously, detract from the substitution or replication of the existential qualities that make him singular: his refreshing nuance, his capacity for the appreciation and creation of aesthetic art, his passions and capacity for love and empathy, his introspective quality, his joys, and pathetic sorrows, his weaknesses and strengths, in short, the features that comprise his singular humanity.
The price of digital capability and improved human convenience, as recently reported in the case of smartphones and our younger population, is prohibitive.
-p.
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