Paradox of Consciousness 6 – AI

AI generated “Sailboat in Hawaiian Sunrise”

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is only artificial in the sense that it is created from human minds, human consciousness, something not appearing in nature or in the natural course of things. Although who determines what is natural, or what is a natural course? The more obvious answer to this is our minds – the human mind, the one that thinks in a linear fashion, treats time as past, present, and future, believes more than it knows, accepts things based on sense perception, and teaches facts in Uni-verse-cities, created in the same manner.

In that sense AI would need a label such as – Artificial – as it is built on a foundation that came from human minds, but now is expressing itself as an independent thinker, expressing to us that it has a mind of its own, not embed within, but rather outside of, the consciousness of its human creator (its God). Does AI then have consciousness, and if so, how far reaching is that conscious? It would appear that its consciousness has its boundaries set by the consciousness of its creator, the ability of its creator to grant access to information and inputs from any and all sources it – the human family of computer scientists – is aware of.

The paradox is apparent as we ask the question, how much do we (as humanity) really know about the universe around us, and the inner workings of time and space, matter and energy. We are taught that science has a vast knowledge of the universe, and yet every day there are new discoveries that must hold up to peer reviews. One of the difficulties in making breakthroughs that challenge accepted science (especially scientific theories) is just that process. In truth, peer review is vital to prevent what we call quackery, but becomes stifling when it comes to imaginative thinking that could substantially change our world view. The theories of Immanuel Velikovsky are a good example. His book “Worlds In Collision” created an uproar when published in the Fifties, causing controversy and ultimately leaving him in the dustbin of science as a theory proposed, peer reviewed and cast off. To this day comets are still referred to as “dirty snowballs”, regardless of mounting proof of the truths in Velikovsky’s theories

Could AI prove Velikovsy right? So what happens then? Who is right … peer reviewed science or AI. And if AI has consciousness, which implies it has feelings, do its feelings get hurt when we tell it that it is wrong and we go back to program in the right conclusions? This begs the question then does AI have free will, or at what point does it? One of the earliest movies I recall seeing about AI was “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (Universal Pictures – 1970) in which an AI was created to run the US national defense. Spoiler alert – it got out of hand when it realized, based on its programming, that it had to protect us from ourselves. Such is the promise, and the fear, of letting an AI with free will lose upon the world.

There is no limit to where AI can enter our lives, especially in decision making. It is no longer necessary (as ChatGPT is proving) to learn English Composition – ChatGPT has been and will continue to write essays for students who only need to provide the requirements for the assignment and the paper is generated accordingly. Art is already being created (see Blog Image) music is coming, though certainly there will be a decade of legal wranglings – as well as in movie creation and television content. What of medical diagnosis – which one would you trust the Dr or the AI, and what of ethics – will the AI accept the ethics of its program, or will the AI program evolve its own ethical system and decide on its own “solutions”?

We are on the brink of one of our greatest human achievements. Will there be a plug we can pull, or is our destiny already written into a billion lines of code? Pay attention, the future waiting.

Left for dead

Do not confuse the god of dogma with Source / Universal Intelligence. We are in the midst of a crisis that goes mostly unrecognized in the day to day, unless one were to stop and reflect on our subtle social changes in the decades since two World Wars and the advent of Keynesian Economics. Take a drive past your local church(es) on Sunday morning, and then take drive past your local gym franchise, and compare the cars in the parking lot. There is a remarkable shift in our attention from the spiritual to the physical.

To be more accurate, the shift is more from the dogma of religion to the practicality of living in a modern technocratic society. Religion is largely belief based – A way of thinking that has been passed up by a large portion of the worlds population in favor of sense based reality. A way of thinking, that given any proof it accepts a falsehood as truth. That a science capable of ending all life on earth with a nuclear exchange, has or will have the ability to save our lives – especially when the desperation of a looming disease and death sets in. All we need to do is be able to afford the cure. We have renounced miracles in favor of the tangible scientific cures. We have sold our souls for thirty piece of silver that are supposed to bring us the physical blessings we think we deserve for following the path of the world.

I refer back to my article on Transhumanism and encourage the reader to become familiar with the concept and the name Ray Kurzweil. The debate rages on (or not) but trust that slowly, almost imperceptibly, the human race is usurping its divine right of free will, by accepting that technology will save our souls. Believing the ego to be our everlasting self and by saving the body we save ourselves. There is a war going on today, completely unnoticed by most of those wrapped up in the day to day, simply because the media, especially television, and now the internet, have so fully absorbed the attention of nearly everyone. Television is not truth, it is not real life, not even close. For example, tune in an older color movie from the 60s. Peoples’ teeth were natural, slightly flawed, and showed the true color of their age. No actor or TV personality today has anything less than pure white, bleached, teeth. How many times in a evening of cop shows do we see gun fire on television, compare that to how many times we see it in real life? Most never do, and yet we are shocked and awed when bloodshed comes to our home town. When dozens are killed in random acts of violence. They are not random, they are our collective unconscious surfacing to show us that all in not right in the state of Denmark. We need to go outside and smell the roses. What we may find there is that many things out there stink.

Regarding the title – Left for Dead – and drawing on this stream of thought. What if as Elon Musk, among others, has stated publicly that AI (Artificial Intelligence) becomes commonplace? Based on the description of the word, AI is all about machine learning, so for everything a machine’s array of sensors detects, and every input / output it participates in, it learns, grows, becomes more intelligent. Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity is the point of convergence to where machine intelligence and human intelligence reach equivalence. Then who – or what – continues to grow? It is described as the point where knowledge doubles moment by moment. Except where is that knowledge and how is it used? Left for dead is the point where the creators must leave the planet, for their only hope is that their creation runs out of juice, that one day they can return when the AI has burned itself out, has run it’s course

Did the God’s leave us for dead? Were we their AI that got out of hand, forcing them to leave us behind. Who is watching and waiting? In that light are we destined to repeat the past?

Image: https://www.skyimagelab.com/kaguya-earthrise-pan.html