Has AI already taken over?
Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 11:04AM
It might be argued that the human race would never be foolish enough to hand over all the power to the machines. But we are suggesting neither that the human race would voluntarily turn power over to the machines nor that the machines would willfully seize power. What we do suggest “is that the human race might easily permit itself to drift into a position of such dependence on the machines that it would have no practical choice but to accept all of the machines’ decisions. As society and the problems that face it become more and more complex and machines become more and more intelligent, people will let machines make more of their decisions for them, simply because machine-made decisions will bring better results than man-made ones. Eventually a stage may be reached at which the decisions necessary to keep the system running will be so complex that human beings will be incapable of making them intelligently. At that stage the machines will be in effective control. People won’t be able to just turn the machines off, because they will be so dependent on them that turning them off would amount to suicide.” Ted Kaczynski (1995) quoted in The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence by Ray Kurzweil https://a.co/0bpkNFO Are we humans the frog in the pot of water slowly being heated until we don’t realize we are boiling? Have we, as the Unabomber suggests in the quote above, turning our decision-making over to technology, and thus turning the control over lives to chips and software? Is it dependence, not force, that will give machines the upper hand in the human/technology relationship? In some respects, I have personally turned decision-making over to my AI overlords: I get some pushback from some of my older clients for whom I drive when I use the online map that shows up on my car’s dashboard screen rather than taking their suggestions on how to get to the doctor appointment or hair salon. I explain to them that while GoogleMaps may not always recommend the shortest route, it will always choose the fastest route, knowing traffic jams, road construction, etc. I usually compromise by using the navigation system to get to the appointment and using my rider for recommendations on how to get back home. As I read the news of politics and street violence and warfare and climate change, I wonder if AI making choices for the human race might be the more (ironically) humane thing to do. Sure seems like we people are messing things up. ******************* Given all the discussion about AI lately with ChatGPT available to the masses, I thought re-reading a little Ray Kurzweil might be enlightening. I’ve been a fan of his since the mid-1990s. (Yes, I read his work on stone tables in cuneiform.) Alternately too damn thick and technical and light and quite readable, Kurzweil does a better job of suggesting possibilities than predicting the future. (His 1999 predictions about 2019 are pretty off-base - no mention of the impact of social media.) But read him anyway.
Reader Comments (2)
I used to have that book …I can’t remember finishing it. Kurweil was famous for voice recognition, right?
Jane,
I think Kurzweil is best known for creating Optical Character Resolution, but also as a technology prognosticator. I've read several of his books - but all about 20 years ago!
Doug