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THE IMPACT OF INTELLIGENT
TOOLS ON HUMAN LIFE AND THE WORLD
http://ghandchi.com/99-interspecies.htm
Persian Version
http://www.ghandchi.com/293-abzAreHooshmand-plus.htm
Hello Everyone,
There was a lot of interest in the field
of Artificial Intelligence in early 80's. Marvin Minsky
at the time, in his book "Society of Mind," was talking about the
coming of a new species superseding the human species. The great expectations of 80's,
were followed by the skepticism of 90's, where the limitations of capabilities
of our current computers were emphasized.
A few weeks ago the science fiction movie AI was
released, and this movie has renewed the interest in the topic. I wrote the
following commentary on that movie a couple
of weeks ago:
I
just saw a review of the movie "AI" on this Iranian TV program. The reviewer was just insulting Spielberg,
for a movie, which the reviewer himself did not have a clue to
understand. Not that I fully agree with everything in the movie. I think in some parts, mostly the parts inherited
from Kubrick, it was too negative. Kubrick was the first producer of the movie who passed away
and the movie went to Spielberg. I think
the strength of the negative savagery of some humans in their jealousy of
androids was because the producer did not see much advancement of human beings
by that time, which is not warranted.
The humans (orga's) were almost the same as
what they are now, whereas at the time, the androids (mecha's)
were highly advanced. I mean even right now we are seeing mechanical
parts in humans, such as the artificial heart (which I hope can eradicate the
savage practices of getting implants from prisoners, and other victims, that we
hear so many reports of). So humans even
now are not all orga's (organic). I also see
another shortcoming that everything humans used, after thousands of years,
seemed almost the same: books, etc. But maybe, as Kurzweil notes, this
was not the focus of the movie. Overall, I think the movie was a very
thought-provoking interesting movie. I also found the following interview
with Kurzweil about this movie, to be very illuminating.
http://a1966.g.akamai.net/7/1966/492/version0001/www.wired.com/news/audio/interviews/2001/07/RayKurzweil_070501.mp3
http://www.wired.com/news/radio/0,1665,44986,00.html
Let me note that although the hype of early 80's died
soon, but the real interest in the topic of Artificial Intelligence has been
very lively and continuing. In fact the following bibliography includes a good
list of many works that in one way or the other, have dealt with this epochal
event and the related topics:
http://iranscope.ghandchi.com/Books/Interesting-Bibliography.htm
My own paper, which is mentioned in the above
bibliography, was published in Fall 1985, in AI Journal, and was entitled
"Artificial Intelligence: The Cornerstone of New Civilizations", and
the Persian/Farsi and English versions of it can be found at the following URL:
http://www.ghandchi.com/03-Tools
I think basically the main theme of my paper
about intelligent tools (the narrow sense of intelligence, meaning tools with
inference capability), and that the production of intelligent tools would have
a glacial impact on human life and the world, has been more confirmed in the
last 15 year, and actually the growth of Internet is now expediting this
glacial change, and Internet2 will even do more in this respect.
Let me also note that there are and there will
be ups and downs in this development and the current economic crisis that the
world is experiencing, particularly in the high tech sectors, is part of this
development, as the displacement and replacement of various sectors of the old
and new economy is inevitable, but these ebb and flow, will not mean that this
glacial change is reversible. I would
repeat what I wrote in the conclusion of my paper 15 years ago that:
http://www.ghandchi.com/03-Tools/03E-Intelligent_Tools.htm
"In this light, I welcome the coming of the
new civilization and look forward to a better future following upon the heels
of the contemporary upheaval. Pessimistic views about our future
arise from viewing
our own evolution to be static, while intelligent tools progress. The emergence of artificial
intelligence has made it feasible
for human beings to be intellectually challenged by the immense tasks of exhausting the
intelligent characteristics of some artifacts- a historical first. Together with improvements in
genetic engineering
and telecommunications, the production process will change so rapidly in this space-age
society that we can barely imagine
even its most general lines. But whatever shape the new social formations may take, some possible
social effects of these intelligent
tools may include:
" -- A broadened scope of
our intelligence: Our common sense should become much more developed and we should
expect many new discoveries,
inventions, and even a new understanding of ourselves. "
-- A freeing of the majority of human beings from living as tools and
means of production: A greater
percentage of people should be able to do what they like rather than being forced to do
something they dislike
merely to secure their basic needs.
" -- A tremendous
multiplication of the wealth of humankind: The opening of new frontiers before us, in
space or on Earth, will certainly
follow the above advancements.
" At first glance, molding
the new production processes, e.g., building "factories and offices of the
future," or "homes of the future," may appear to be the key endeavor for shaping
the future. Nonetheless, the
real *challenge* before future-minded individuals is the improvement and introduction of
appropriate social relations if the fruits of these technological advancements are to be
realized. The role
of science will be enhanced both due to the new technical needs of sophisticated, knowledge-intensive
production processes and due to
the new social needs of the related human interaction. Hence, we can expect an increased sophistication of
essential human pursuits; the
central activity of most individuals will likely be related to the progress of social relations and the
enhancement of knowledge. We may
even find personal income based on a synthesis of one's intentions and needs.
" The distribution of
wealth and power in this new civilization will remain a social issue rather than a
technical matter. Thus, whether everyone
and every country will be able to avail themselves of these intelligent tools and accompanying
benefits depends on future social institutions. These achievements may even add to the misery
of many individuals
for some time. However, I am optimistic about the future. I think that with the
disappearance of the technological basis for treating any part of humankind as
tools, humans will, at least, be able
to spend more effort on resolving social issues and on molding new social institutions. These new social
institutions must address and
alleviate the menace of poverty, tyranny, war, and ecological deterioration. Whether the new
civilization will evolve peacefully and uniformly world-wide is still an open question."
Finally regarding more advanced species, this is what I had written in my aforementioned paper:
“Finally,
it is appropriate to mention that in this treatise, I have examined robots only as tools. I know, as
many authors have pointed out, there is a *logical* possibility that these
robots could turn into a new species surpassing human's current intelligence
(yet I think by then humans will also have moved far more ahead and may still
be ahead of them). There are numerous possibilities that more advanced species
may reside on Earth some day (e.g., extraterrestrials are still a good
possibility), and their origins could be in anything from genetic engineering
and space travel to intelligent robot production and human evolution. Perhaps
we will share mostly biological needs with animals and primarily social needs
with other intelligences. This may help eliminate some of our *anthropocentric*
views of the world which have been a part of our world outlook since the fall
of early Greek civilization. However, these issues fall beyond the scope of
this review as I have focused solely on the technological basis of the
subjugation of human by human.”
I should note that the issue of trans-human species
introduces a new variable, beside the *intra*species social relations of all
the past human societies. This area, in the past, has been addressed by science
fiction authors, until the advent of technologies like AI, Genetics, and
Cloning, that are making such *inter*species relations a real possibility, in
our life-time, and their impact on human society is no longer just a science
fiction theme of very distant future. I
admire Kurzweil’s work "Spiritual Machines: The
Merging Of Man and Machine", where his discussions are bold attempts to
understand these new developments. I
think
http://iranscope.ghandchi.com/Anthology/Kurzweil-SM.htm
Following these changes, it would be interesting to revisit
the economic theory. A while back, I
wrote a paper about the issue of value in the post-industrial knowledge_based economies and had an interesting feedback
from Daniel Bell about it, but have not worked on this topic since. Here is my paper which may be of interest to
the folks doing research on this topic:
http://www.ghandchi.com/28-Higher_Product_Value.htm
Best Regards,
Sam Ghandchi,
Publisher
P.S. On a related topic, please see my
lecture in Persian entitled “Philosophy of Science in 20th Century”:
http://www.ghandchi.com/97-falsafehElm.pdf
P.P.S.
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