The Final Battlefield for Humanity

I was rummaging through my father in law's barn where I have stored many boxes of keepsakes, clothes, and furniture, and happened upon a notebook from a Philosophy class I took 21 years ago. In this notebook I found an "in class essay" that I wrote titled, "Who will be on top of the Brain Chain?"

Why am I posting this here? Because in this essay I call to question humanity, what it means to be human, and if, or when the concept of AI will begin to outpace and render humans obsolete. Not a new theory, even 20 years ago.

Everyone is going gaga for GPT and LLMs (learning language models). I see their merit for outsourcing the mundane, for driving bigger, faster, better business outcomes, squeezing more hours of productivity out of every soul left willing to do their corporations' bidding. However, just as the handheld device has caused us to lose our ability to remember anything, Generative AI is going to destroy the ability to express ourselves. With the proliferation of this powerful evolution of AI, arguably, our youth will lose the ability to research, read, write, cite, and create art of all types. It is imperative we take care and are thoughtful in how we, as society at large, wield this tool, and create programs that foster our abilities for creativity and expression. It has never been more important to double down on the arts. In my humble opinion, this is the final battle ground for what will separate humanity from the machines.

Drew Friedman AI in-class Essay 11/20/02

Who will be on top of the Brain Chain?

What is human? How can we say what human is, when we are the only one who recognizes what the definition of human might be? Ellen Ullman and other scientists define ‘human’ as having such qualities: being irrational, consciousness, awareness, emotions, the need for food and pleasure. The possibility of artificial intelligence is there, and is near. The big question is if these intelligent computers can be considered sentient, or human. However, how can we decide what is human, and what isn't? Scientists say that they can create the "super brain," without knowing how our own brain works. Humans know so much about the brain, but understand so little of what happens inside. "You can understand humans either by reverse engineering or through building."(Cynthia Breazeal)

The argument of a grander scheme of things brings forth evolution and mistakes. "What as biology has done with Carbon and phosphorus and sulfur, so, too, are we doing with silicon, plastic and steel."(Putkammer) The human slowly evolved from what was the molten, fiery earth. Something less intelligent than the human, created the human. "In the beginning, electrons emerged as the perfect parasites, fresh and hot from the big bang, awaiting only the arrival of the perfect host."(Putkammer) Therefore evolution is continuing on, and us humans are creating machines that are more powerful than we are. Afterall, we are made of electrons, and so are computers. Now, if we are made of electrons, then our consciousness is made of electrons, because electrons are life. If A+B=C, and so on, then if both computers and the human are made of electrons, then they are both conscious, they are both sentient.

Darwin on this topic would agree that these AI facilities are sentient. They are created to be more powerful than the human brain, and they are allowed to adapt to conditions. The robots hold the power to learn certain interactions and movements. The stronger and more intelligent beings rule the world, according to Darwin and Evolution. Taking the next step towards Artificial Intelligence is evolution continuing on, just as it has done for thousands of years. In the movie, "AI" the main robot boy, David, adapts, or learns how to act human, with his "family." Computers being totally rational don't understand awareness or emotions. However, David learns through experience what emotions are. He gains a perception of love, and that? of death. His human mother shows him love, and is affectionate towards him; in the end of the movie after he survives the ice age, David decides to take his own life because he doesn't want to be mortal, and without his mother.

Cynthia Breazeal is a critic of human necessities. She mocks the fact that we need to eat in order to stay alive, and we need to remove waste. If you take that a step further, computers also need to eat and remove waste. However it is in a different form of energy. We eat sandwiches, drink water, and remove excrement and urine. Robots eat electricity, and remove obsolete files. The computer and the human share many qualities. They can both learn, they need a source of energy, they are logical and rational. However two things humans have that robots don't, are irrationality and mutual awareness. Irrationality is not something positive that defines humanity, it makes life difficult. If humans didn't have emotions and feelings towards things, then life wouldn't be considered as suffering. The computer has the upper? hand on humans when it comes to being irrational.?

Now what makes humans have these emotions, and irrationality? From the beginning of humanity, humans had no way to survive without interaction, thus they were aware of each other from the get go. You and I would both agree, and recognize each other as a human being. Computers cannot do this. The reason why computers are rational, is because they are not able to recognize each other as a computer, or sentient being. If we take this view even further we discuss learning. As computers and robots rapidly grow, "intelligent" then they can learn from each other. In the movie AI, David recognized his human family as humans, and recognizes robots as robots. The idea of self awareness, and social awareness being strictly human is then stripped away.

Another philosopher who might embrace the idea of AI would be Nietzsche. Artificial Intelligence holds the great possibility of promoting complete chaos. Nietzsche loved chaos and breaking down the system, going against all of classical philosophy. He represented the drunk, trash talker at hockey games, when it came to the philosophy scene; Nietzsche was the definition of dyonesion. AI goes against all ways of cognitive philosophy, and destroys the theories of the self and human being. Nietzsche would love this because it forces people to think critically? about what our true importance is in life. Are we merely natures midway station to the super duper brain? Is our collective purpose to create a race smarter than we are, and be overthrown? All of the ideas that were sparked in the renaissance and enlightenment are being trashed by the AI theorists. Humanism, gets taken to a whole new level, it becomes a battle. What is human? The idea of self becomes distorted, and the meaning of life becomes obsolete. If Darwin's evolution creates a better body, and better brain, and a more rational way of being, then what is the point in striving for higher goals as humans. We become a race of unsophisticated slaves to the intelligent computers.

To think that computer science can redefine life is very scary, very real, and very possible. However with the view of evolution, computer science isn't redefining anything, it is evolving to create a better man. Homo-Erectus and the first forms of the Homo-Sapiens were creatures with minimal functions. The cave man and civilization of hunters and gatherers were the primitive man. Computers have taken the same course. They began as machines that could perform only small tasks and take up the space of entire rooms. Slowly man evolved into a lighter, more intelligent, sophisticated human. The computer has undergone similar changes and is now a lighter, smaller, faster, multifunctional working station. We are merely computers, primitive ones at best. As man became more intelligent, and learned more functions, he created the computer. Now the computer is evolving, parallel to the evolution of man. What comes to mind is which will overcome the other? Which will evolve faster than the other? The human took thousands of years to become what it is now, the computer has only taken a fraction of that time. My guess is the computer is going to evolve, and take over human life as the "evolved sophisticated being."

Artificial Intelligence is coming closer and closer everyday. The ideas and connotations it carries, are at battle with the humanists such as Kant and Sartre. AI challenges classical philosophy and destroys our way of thinking. It forces us to ask the same questions philosophers were asking during the renaissance and classical periods. The emergence of artificial matter, evolution, the ability to learn, and mother nature have made it apparently possible that Computers and robots will soon be on top of the brain chain. Life, as we know it, will be shared with another race, the machine.

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