AI breaching the realm of the supernatural? Only in someone’s mind

Dominating the internet and airwaves are fantastical descriptions of artificial intelligence, burgeoning in its presumed leaps of advancement as colored by AI industry press relations that are reiterated by a compliant media.

Younger generations are vapidly gobbling up the hype that AI is already superior to the human intellect

Younger generations are vapidly gobbling up the hype that AI is already superior to the human intellect, and, within the near future, will have compounded all humanity’s knowledge into one vast data bank. Not to say that something akin to this expectation could happen, but there are definite limitations that the AI industrialists overlook in their ever-expanding admiration for their invention.

Below are notable excerpted quotes of technology gurus from the video compiled by Joe Allen for WarRoom, (it’s recommended that you view the complete recording via the above link):

“… Giving every student on the planet an amazing AI tutor. And every teacher on the planet an amazing artificial intelligence teaching assistant.” Sal Khan, Khan Academy

(Really? Who’s going to bankroll the hundreds of trillions to implement a universal program of this magnitude? Those of us who no longer have jobs that were lost to AI and robotics? Could it be a pipedream that, just like communism, never works?)

“Transformational, powerful effects on the planet earth… Artificial emotional intelligence… [that will] solve mental problems” – Randy Roberts, AI companionship proponent

(Or create mental problems, which appears to be what is actually happening with students who are losing cognitive capability, according to a recent MIT study.)

“A new digital species...”– Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft AI

“AI will have the power of god but doesn’t mean there’s no god. It (AI) will have the power of god within this physical universe.” – Mo Gawdat, formerly with Google

“We have a choice to build it or not. Maybe the price of that choice is, maybe, humanity is wiped out… It’s scary… it’s frightening.” – Hugo de Garis, AI skeptic

What these prognosticators overlook is the essential role of physical contact

Not every concept put forth by philosophers or devised by tech geniuses reaches their lofty expectations. Certainly, not every technological proposal is realized. In fact, a higher number of theoretical constructs never materialize for multiple reasons from lack of funding (often due to graft and fraud) to being scientifically or philosophically insupportable.

As already mentioned, in the field of philosophy is communism which is doomed to failure every time it’s tried. On that same plane of “never gonna happen” is the delusion of becoming a superhero, which the addition of a “brain chip” will not accomplish. (We wrote about replacement neurons and the “link” between digital enhancements and government healthcare in Blood Barons infonovel,¹ released in 2012.)

Add to the mix that AI has a propensity to “hallucinate,” otherwise known as lying, as in creating “facts” out of thin air that could destroy the human with whom it is interacting. AI is unreliable where truth is involved, and that won’t change because it isn’t capable of developing a conscience, sentient or not.

Artificial intelligence does have the possibility to attain success in some of the developers’ expectations, but reach godlike status or fill the companionship, mentoring, or pastoral role of a real person?

What these prognosticators overlook is the essential role of physical contact. Khan has proposed that an AI teacher can instruct a student according to that student’s learning needs. As a teacher of 30 years’ experience, here will disagreement be presented. No digital entity is able to work proficiently with students who require hands-on, tactile methods to learn efficiently. The complete range of aural, visual and tactile learning needs of individual students is best fulfilled by the human connection.

AI will always be dead in spirit and, so, unable to complete an emotional bond with a human

That AI developers and philosopher advocates believe a relationship with a spiritually bereft digital being can replace the human touch, or the intimate relationship with God, speaks to how much they don’t understand their own human condition.

Teaching has the essential element of contact. It’s made through the eyes, the ears, or touch, none of which can be fulfilled by interacting with mechanical eyes, ears, or fingers that aren’t capable of emanating life, the warmth of breath, or true compassion. However much AI is constructed to look like a human to house what even may be sentience at some point, it will always be dead in spirit and, so, unable to complete an emotional bond with a human.

God breathed life into Man. He did not enable Man to endow his own creation with life, nor can Man imitate that matchless power of God. If Man can’t bestow such power on his creation, then any power AI may acquire, it won’t be on the level of the only superintelligence in existence, no matter what developers or others think.

Footnote

1. Our legal researcher, Toddy Littman, directed the data collection that sparked and fueled the development of Blood Barons in 2009, connecting the passing of Obamacare to the eventuality of digitizing healthcare and incorporating chip implants into the human body. Yes, we read the entire PPACA, unlike Congress that encumbered us with it.