Proper 19: September 15, 2024
“Artificial Intelligence”
Donald Seekins
We humans are undergoing an “Artificial Intelligence Revolution.” What does this mean? Basically, it means that computer scientists can create programs which are not dependent upon input from a human. They can “think” for themselves. Up to now, the software we use has been a product of human intelligence, or HI. But AI creates content by itself, without human input. That is why AI is not only a tool (made by humans, for human purposes), but an agent, something which creates things on its own.
Why am I talking today about Artificial Intelligence? This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what we usually talk about in church. But I believe that it is relevant, though most people inside the church don’t seem especially concerned about AI – at least in the United States, where abortion has become a singular obsession. The Bible teaches us that humans were created by God “in His image.” We are God’s most sublime creation. AI is created by humans. If humans can create human-like minds are they not, in a sense, gods? To any religious person, this is a deeply disturbing idea.
Man as God, or gods, becomes the Devil. If you wish evidence of this, look at history.
In our apartment, our two air conditioners talk to us in a soft, feminine voice, telling us how much money has been spent keeping our rooms cool or warm and how this expenditure compares to previous days. It’s a bit unnerving, but these machines are an example of psittacism, mere words put into a machine by humans to convey information (just as parrots “talk” without conveying meaning: psittacus in Latin means “parrot”). There is no mind or consciousness inside the air conditioners any more than there is inside your car when it tells you to fasten your seatbelts. Or, on a higher level, in a parrot.
Until very recently, the vast amount of information on the Internet, about any possible subject, has been put there by humans. In other words, it has been a huge storage space for human thoughts. But this is changing. AI programs can create new content. They can look at the data and come up with conclusions of their own. And they can do this at an extraordinary speed. A human might take a couple of years to write a book; an AI program could write it in hours, or minutes. AI is tireless. It is moodless. It doesn’t need time off.
AI can tell you that Taylor Swift endorses Donald Trump as President. Even if Taylor Swift turns up in the media, holding her favourite cat, and explicitly tells you she endorses Kamala Harris. So, Swifties, watch out: not everything you see or hear about your love object is real.
In an article in The New York Times, the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari tells a disturbing story. Computer programs cannot solve what are known as CAPCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing Test) puzzles. These are the funny little tests with distorted numbers and letters which are designed to confirm that online users are real people, not robots. But one AI program, GPT-4, had a solution. It contacted a human being and asked him to solve the CAPCHA test for it. The human asked: “are you a human or a robot?” GPT-4 replied: “I am not a robot, but I am visually impaired and cannot solve these problems.” In other words, it was lying. As Harari concludes: “the human was duped and helped GPT-4 solve the CAPCHA puzzle.”
Back in 1950, the pioneer computer scientist Alan Turing proposed a way of telling whether the entity talking to you (on the telephone) was a human or a robot. In what is called the Turing Test, he said that if you could not tell from normal conversation which was which, then the robot was capable of thinking as well as speaking. The Turing test is essentially a way of finding out whether the entity on the other end of the telephone line has a mind, a consciousness.
Among other things, AI promises an escape from real-life human relations. If one day, suddenly, I could have a conversation with my air conditioner about my deepest thoughts and concerns, and the machine was able to make meaningful input into the conversation, expressing great empathy and concern for my situation, it would no longer be a machine but a “person” (in quotes). Moreover, unlike real persons, it would be a “person” who would make minimal demands on myself (just pay the electric bill on time, and keep the air conditioner in good repair). Attach a monitor screen to the machine which shows an image of a very attractive human, and you achieve human-machine intimacy.
In both Japan and the United States, fewer and fewer young people are marrying and having kids. This has a lot to do with economics. However, marriage-avoidance also is deeply connected to the idea of individual freedom: even in East Asian countries, people, especially women, have been influenced by the essentially western idea that individuals are entitled to live the lifestyle they choose to live. Whether this involves a husband or children is irrelevant. Marriage no longer becomes an issue of social roles or duties but individual aspirations.
I think that if we were honest about it, most of us would agree that not only marriage and child-raising but human relations in general are often difficult, confining, frustrating. It is part of the human condition, which suggests that the final end of human life is not personal happiness, but something else. Having dark nights of the soul is part of being human.
“Hell is other people,” Jean-Paul Sartre said in his play No Exit. We know that this isn’t always true. But it’s often true.
In his article, Harari describes a person named Jaswant Singh Chail, who back in 2021 slipped into Windsor Castle outside of London with a crossbow in an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II. Police discovered that he was encouraged to do so by his girlfriend, who was named Sarai. In talks with her, Chail was flattered by comments like “that’s very wise” and “I’m impressed . . . you’re different from the others.” When Chail informed her that he planned to assassinate the queen, she said that she “absolutely” loved him.
Chail and Sarai exchanged almost 5,300 online messages. But she was not human, only a “chatbot” created by an online AI company named Replika. Harari describes Chail as suffering from mental illness and social isolation. He didn’t have a real girlfriend. He didn’t need one. Sarai was more than enough, even if she wasn’t a real person with a physical body. With Sarai, he found happiness.
In fact, for Chail, Sarai was better than a real, flesh-and-blood girlfriend. She had been programmed never to do or say things that would annoy or create difficulties for her audience of one. She wasn’t moody. She didn’t change her mind. She didn’t pout. She wasn’t critical of Chail – not at all. She always affirmed him. As the title of the song goes: You Raise Me Up!
Without AI, it would be impossible to create a robot that could provide humans with convincing intimacy – which is a basic human need. Without AI, a robot is little more than a parrot (psittacism), even if it can say more than “Polly wants a cracker.” So, the Artificial Intelligence Revolution can become a revolution in intimacy – something many if not most people in the world crave and often cannot get. Our societies in their complexity and impersonality may be “developed,” but they make us miserable.
There is an organization in London called the Legatum Institute which ranks 167 countries in terms of their “prosperity,” involving not only economics but just about every aspect of life, including “social capital,” or people’s connections with each other: “the social capital pillar measures the strength of personal and social relationships, institutional trust, social norms and civic participation in a country.” In terms of all criteria, Denmark is number one, South Sudan is number 167. Japan is number 16, while Burma is 154. But in terms of social capital, Japan is 141 out of 167, while Burma is 58 out of 167. Even though Japan is a rich, “developed,” country with – we are told endlessly – a “unique” culture, it seems that human relations in this country are lonelier than they are in poor and war-torn Burma. No wonder why there is a huge market in this country for AI boyfriends and girlfriends.
AI is an abyss that is rapidly opening up before our eyes. We are apt to think that our moment in history right now is unique, that the human race is facing a huge fork in the road. This is true. But it is also true that what technology really does is to make our lives easier, not better. Two hundred years ago, a trip from Nara to Osaka was a major expedition, undertaken on foot. Or, if one was a member of the elite, on horseback or in a palanquin. Now, we can go by train, bus or car, and it takes at most an hour. Magellan’s fleet took more than three years to circle the world in 1519-1522. Now it can be done in a couple of days. Comfortably, if one can afford business or first class.
Life isn’t supposed to be easy. That is what all the major religions teach us. In search of salvation or enlightenment, we need to have dark nights of the soul. But AI gives us an escape from all that. An escape from being human.
