TAKEAWAYS:
Roots: AI, born from computer organization, mimics human outputs, prompting reflection on the forgotten natural intelligence—a product of human evolution driven by survival instincts.
Beyond Neurons: Human brain development, marked by education, enables deep understanding and adaptability. Emotional signals add complexity, guiding decision-making beyond the obvious.
Divergence: The human brain's complexity allows instant adaptation, contrasting with AI's fixed responses. The question arises: Can AI catch up to human adaptability, and what are the implications for a world increasingly influenced by it? The content-driven nature of AI raises concerns about understanding individual mental states. Doubt, inherent in human discourse, fosters conversation, compromise, and diverse perspectives.
AI is an outgrowth of the capacities of computers to organize vast amounts of information in categories and to disgorge information that aligns with specific instructions to satisfy a pre-arranged result. The result may be a Shakespearean sonnet to a cat, Rosalinda (demonstrated in 20 seconds), or a tirade of misinformation to incite and provide cover for an insurrection, also demonstrated.
Artificial intelligence begs the almost forgotten and rarely mentioned existence of Natural Intelligence. As Mel Allen used to say about a good baseball play, “How about That!!”. I believe natural intelligence is an evolving attribution of the signal human trait of survival or self-preservation. In the 250,000 years of the existence of homo sapiens, there has been, from a previous long period, where self-preservation in the wilds of the earth was a learned skill, accumulating with experience, and passed on to progeny to help and eventually become independent for and in their own lives—still today. The development of civilizations codified specific skills and information to be known by all, like language so that all could benefit from the variety of innate skills that could serve more than one family. We have 12 years of education today, accessible in most developed nations, to learn what types of information are available, college to learn how to find specific information, master’s degrees to learn how to use the information, and doctorates to develop new information.
It is part of the human brain development that it is capable of being sentient or perspicacious to use thought, word, or deed to delve beyond the obvious and to ferret out feeling, intent, motive, or emotional state to evaluate the effects(s) it may have on the self, the situation, or the direction of an action. Emotions evolved to warn the host that there is something amiss, mental upheaval from sublime to outright terror. The brain senses incompleteness, something not according to accumulated experience, about one’s safety, health, projects, and goals. When a mental response is insufficient in time or content, it evolves into a physical feeling to prod one to act.
A computer can “learn” new boundaries and new sub-routines that refine an output to mimic a human effort. Great. But, that addition in computing capacity is fixed unless altered by outside effort and will continue to spew the same format of responses, not so with the human brain, which, I seem to have seen, is ten times more complex than current AI efforts. So, the human brain can change in midstream almost instantly to accommodate a changed sentient quiver. Can AI eventually catch up? And, to what advantage to the world’s population now that everyone is affected by its presence? What truth is there in the capacity to sway human behavior since the source(s) are content-driven rather than also examined as about the individual in their current state of mind? Doubt is the basis for conversation, seeking compromise, and exchanging experiences and personal views. “Hal” had an immutable goal despite all efforts to the contrary. The quote from Hal to the Boss, “This mission is too important to allow you to jeopardize it,” is a fixed path in computer code.
