Will AI take over? by JD

 In this post JD argues that the threat of AI is overstated – but we wonder whether it may narrow the gap between the blue collar and the white?

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
- from The Rock by T.S.Eliot
https://www.wisdomportal.com/Technology/TSEliot-TheRock.html

Where indeed? Were he alive today Eliot might have continued “and where is the information swallowed up by AI; Artificial Intelligence?”

AI is all over the news media. Huge amounts of money being invested (gambled?) on its potential.

We have been here before of course. In the 1930s Alan Turing was working on what he called Machine Intelligence. Continuing with that work he eventually came up with what became the Enigma machine. We have all heard of that because it was able to decipher the German secret communication codes and helped to bring an end to the second world war.
https://www.vectra.ai/blog/alan-turing-and-the-birth-of-machine-intelligence

AI consists of pure information which it is able to transfer between machines/computers. What it cannot do is perform physical tasks. All the speculation about AI taking over everybody’s job is just that, speculation or scaremongering.
As an example, let us suppose you are driving along and get a puncture in one of your tyres. How is AI going to help you get the spare wheel out of the boot and replace the wheel with the puncture? It can’t. Or when your car needs its annual service, is AI going to change the oil or the spark plugs? No of course not. So the motor mechanic’s job is safe, he will never be replaced by AI.

Another example is my garden fence which is leaning at a perilous angle after some high winds. What will AI’s contribution be to restoring my fence to the vertical? None whatsoever. So the fencing contractor’s job is not going to disappear any time soon.
I’m sure you can readily think of many examples of your own.

Iain McGilchrist FRSA is a British psychiatrist, philosopher and neuroscientist who wrote the 2009 book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World. In this video he explains how and why AI cannot become conscious because it is entirely parasitic. In other words it is dependent on information created by others. It has access to all of that information. AI will search and retrieve information according to what it is asked to retrieve. It will then display such information in the way it is asked to display or use it. But it will always require people to make use of the information. The machine that is AI cannot do anything without instructions from whoever is operating the machine; it cannot carry out any physical function. It is humans and only humans who are able to do that. Iain McGilchrist explains it much better than I can in this video.

Iain McGilchrist – Can AI Become Conscious?

There is another aspect to AI which is usually ignored by commentaters and that is the idea of computer chips being implanted into the brain in order to ‘enhance’ the brain’s capacity. I have already read about people who have done just that but I have seen no ‘progress reports’ telling us whether these implants have been successful or not.

The following video comes from Gregg Braden who was for a number of years a software designer working for the US government as well as for Cisco Systems and others. He explains the current situation and the pitfalls which lie ahead.

Artificial Intelligence vs Human Awareness | Gregg Braden