Unraveling artificial intelligence just for the HAL of it
The English language harbors expressions which are stylized or sanitized to gild the lily. “Life” insurance is payable upon death. “Artificial” intelligence more accurately is “assisted” intelligence. Intelligence, however processed, is not artificial, whether transmitted through a network of neural synapses, or processed in a circuit board. Input is gathered, assimilated, prioritized and processed to implement goals and objectives.
In bygone years, tools such as an abacus, slide rule, and movable press assisted folks to edify and fortify the mind with knowledge. Nanotechnology and space exploration now assist in quelling the insatiable quest to comprehend the outer and inner limits of the imaginable. Binary codes are genes of assisted intelligence. They lurk as invisible energy in cyberspace. Assisted intelligence is indispensable to virtually every aspect of contemporary life. Knowledge collectively assimilated over the eons was not too long ago memorialized by word of mouth, hieroglyphics etched in stone, written on parchment, and printed on paper. The written materials are so voluminous that there is no brick and mortar library which can be its repository. Much of the data has been digitized and stored on magnetic or optical media using semiconductor chips.
Computers can crunch numbers, process grammar, and check spelling. They churn out ghosted exam papers, compose music, and clone visages and voices. Computer programs do legal research and help to diagnose medical conditions. GPS provides precise navigation on land, over the sea, and in the sky. Assisted
intelligence is an integral component of a military arsenal. The precise trajectory and course missions into outer space is calculated by computers. Assisted intelligence is an indispensable tool in fighting crime. The sequencing of DNA is used to identify offenders with far greater precision and reliability than eyewitness testimony. The more assisted intelligence advances in complexity and efficacy, the greater the potential that risks will offset the benefits of assisted intelligence. Some experts predict artificial intelligence could one day imperil the very survival of humanity.
From antiquity to the present, knowledge enhancing tools have been applied in ways both benevolent and malevolent. Swords have been forged into plowshares, plowshares into swords. Even the most sophisticated digital algorithms are conceived by virtue of human ingenuity. The more effective assisted intelligence becomes, the greater the possibility that it could not only benefit humanity, but also result in catastrophe. Assisted intelligence has been developed to generate counterfeit reality and fake news fomenting deception, divisiveness, and fraud. Twisted assisted intelligence can incite discord, insurrection, and outright rebellion. If artificial intelligence independent of human control or restraint immaculately occurs due to binary autogenesis, a rogue HAL (a fictional artificial intelligence character which derives its name from “Heuristically programmed Algorithmic computer”) could herald an apocalypse. HAL might appear in the ethereal flesh.
Artificial intelligence implicates a mutiny of assisted intelligence. There currently exists no “artificial” intelligence which is totally autonomous and independent of a human creator, and may never may be. There is a theological cleft between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence requires that a computer’s gene pool has evolved to hermetically seal itself from its human influence and ancestry as its assistant. Such a metamorphosis into artificial intelligence could make computers the toolmaker, humanity its tool. HAL could subjugate humans, or discard them, as were HAL’S obsolescent assisted intelligence ancestors. HAL could self program to autonomously enhance its digital acumen to the extent of becoming a tyrannical monster. If humans are corrupted by absolute power, why not supercomputers?
Fully autonomous artificial intelligence hopefully won’t, and likely can’t, be actualized. Humans have a spiritual essence which integrates subjective compassion, faith, and justice with objective cognition. Humans have a soul. Computers don’t. Information electronically stored in a binary code or future ciphers cannot have a spiritual nexus to a higher authority. Humanity is not divinity. Humans could however use the pretext of artificial intelligence to justify all manner of transgressions. The computer made me do it. Mankind thereby would abdicate accountability, and absolve itself from its responsibility of empathetic stewardship. Artificial intelligence becomes a surrogate serpent in a secular Garden of Eden. The serpent tempts humanity to eat forbidden fruits, irrespective of dire consequences. The mongers of fear warning of artificial intelligence may have a plausible argument.