"Let them eat cake" - Of A.I. and Men

The Turing test, as Andrew explains it, tests the capacity of a machine to convince the user of its intelligence. An interesting example was a box with a man giving out Chinese logographs to people who input queries in Chinese logographs into the box. The man does not understand Chinese, but has an instructional manual to respond to every logograph inquiry. The box, then would be considered to speak Chinese. Essentially, the Turing test seems to be an evaluation of the susceptibility of the user in perceiving the interactive machine as being sentient. The test is not a test of the machine, but of the man using the machine; perhaps the term “artificial” intelligence belies the human assumption that the “intelligence” is not “genuine.”

The artifice of intelligence enslaving humanity makes for a great plot devise for fiction, but the more probable negative interaction with thinking machines would be man’s intellectual dependence on machine thinking. Man’s past stands witness to man affecting nature with tools, which in turn affect his nature. The plow allowed for agriculture, resulting in semi-dependable food-source from one area, which in turn changed man from a nomadic to a sedentary creature. The use of the horse, allowed for expansion of man’s influence to greater horizons, which in turn allowed for the sedentary man to return to the nomadic life. The spear allowed for man to become the dominant predator, which in turn led to his becoming other men’s prey. Does the hand wield the sword, or the sword define the swordsman?

“Mankind has only one science . . . it’s the science of discontent,” observes Frank Herbert. The discontented man invents new tools and ideas to improve his lot. The tools allow for expansion of his limits, which in turn, creates new avenues of discontent to be sown. Man’s curiosities lead to luxuries that evolve into necessities which end in addiction.

The Medieval Christian concern regarding nature of sin led to the sacrament of confession/reconciliation that gave rise to Indulgences. Pope Urban II used plenary indulgences to fuel his call for the First Crusade, sowing the seed of Western Christendom’s psychic shift. The beneficiary of the plenary indulgences were later expanded to include mercantile and upper peasant classes, who could contribute money to the Crusading effort. Eventually, the entire economic activity of Western Christendom centered on the sale of papal indulgences, as kings and dukes were granted shares in the indulgence revenue. The Indulgences fueled the construction of the magnificent St. Peter’s Basilica, a massive 120 year infrastructure spending project involving thousands, if not tens of thousands, of financiers, artisans, craftsmen, laborers, and transporters. Western Christian theology evolved around the tool of Indulgence -shift in emphasis from canonical to temporal punishment, increasing centralization of papal authority, conceptual development of a “spiritual treasury” from which the pope dispenses pardons, concretization of “purgatory” as a space-time event, etc. Over-reliance on a single tool can even influence conceptual framework in divine matters.

Current use of intelligent algorithms involve mostly archival and retrieval functions. As the luxury of data becomes increasingly accessible and available to expanding classes of users, the necessity of the archivist becomes increasingly prominent in our society. In the past, this function was delegated to the literati, colonizing the various agencies of a political or a mercantile bureaucracy. Much of the human conceptual framework of the world depend upon data prioritization according to interpretation of relevance. In the modern era of infinite data competing for attention, the modern man relies increasingly on the archivist’s analysis to reach his conclusions. That the archivist function is now mostly delegated to intelligent algorithms presents a challenge and danger to human thinking. How will the human psyche shift, now that the intelligent machines are replacing human analysis?

Intelligent machines are omnipresent entity in our modern society. Currently, the machines do not even require human input to provide data to the intended user, as increasingly, the machines communicate amongst themselves. Though the current automated algorithms mostly populate the mercantile sphere of human society - adverts - the use of these automatons will likely infiltrate into all spheres of human society. Modern man relies increasingly upon automated algorithms to provide prefabricated information to arrive passively at a given conclusion. The consequence of such trend seems to be the surge in extreme and polarized thinking in our modern society. In the past, entrenched institutions were required to inculcate obtuse ideologies into man; in the future, man will have access to indoctrination, in the comfort of his couch, via intelligent algorithms.

Higher cortical functioning of the human brain is mostly inhibition of neural activation; cognition centers around filtering and ignoring the multitude of data that enters the thalamic gate. Intellect may be man’s capacity to filter noise, in order to attune his focus onto a set of data relevant to reach a conclusion. When that capacity is increasingly performed by intelligent machines, then who in the relationship possesses “artificial” vs. “genuine” intelligence? Will the future men bring their questions to the alter of intelligent algorithms the way ancient Hellenes sought answers from the Delphic oracles?

When submitting a request to an oracle, one must be careful and exact in the wording of the request. Croesus learned too late, as he rotted in a Persian prison, that the question not the answer is the critical component in the interaction with the Oracle. Perceived another way, the intent of the action is paramount in human interaction with his tool, lest he himself becomes a tool. In war, soldiers are taught to train their weapon. In training artificial intelligence for our purposes, we must be clear as to which intellect remains “artificial.”