Discussing AI

A discussion that will touch upon existential matters, as well as issues about identity, what a human is, what sex and male/female are, what race is, and what 'self' is.
It may also prove useful in clarifying what noumenon/phenomenon are and how symbols, language, is the link between the two.

Body < nervous system > Mind

Self < memory > I

It may prove useful in further clarifying the role of language, numbers/words in the creation and maintenance of nihilism, and by extension the modern ideals that are also expressed in a admiration for technologies/techniques, as the god-like 'salvation' from nature, or the sum of nurturing that exceeds the boundaries of culture, or societal interventions.
Relationship between Meme & Gene.  
Relationship of noumenon, also called thought, abstraction and/or idea/ideal with phenomenon, the apparent, that which is independent from interpretation.
Ideal <> Real

Ideal is always ordered, because it cannot be an idea if it is not in the brain of an organism that has ordered it in accordance to its evolved methods of translating interactions.
Idea is the interpretation.
Real, on the other hand includes patterns and randomness in the apparent, and is the interpreted.
That which can only appear to consciousness but that is a manifestation of interactions that do not require consciousness, nor life, to persist.
To use an often cited metaphor....the tree that falls in the forest does not make a sound, because sound is the interpretation that requires a consciousness, but the tree and the atmosphere and the vibrations produced by its falling do not require any acknowledgement.
They occur whether or not there is an organism, a consciousness, present to experience its occurnce.

I've defined 'artificial' as the vague point in space/time when the intervention of a consciousness upon its environment begins to affect its further evolution more than the environmental conditions it intervened upon.

I guess another way to define it would be as any consequence produced by a wilful intervention that would not have evolved naturally, or the natural processes of trial and error within an environment that has also developed through this method.
Not governed by a telos, a wilful objective, but through the interactions of wilful, conscious, living agencies and non-living, un-wilful, unconscious forces.

What is, in my view, the basic difference between naturally evolving intelligence and what is called 'artificial' intelligence?
It is the 'break' in the continuum.
What I mean is that whereas intelligence evolves as an accumulative product of friction between organism and environment, artificial intelligence goes through the intervening 'break' of a mitigating entity, in this case a human, which then takes himself as an example and copies what he prefers or judges to be essential to intelligence.
Genetic code is a continuum....from parent to child, and genetic code is the accumulation of memories (experiences), memes both first hand and second hand experiences.
Technology is the selective translation of the latter, guided by the 'creator's own ideals, and/or his knowledge and understanding of said knowledge.

A robot is a replication of the creator's selective ignorance, and his appreciation of his knowledge.
It has no past.
The creator human is the proxy through which the past is passed on to it.
But in the passing-on the human corrupts or chooses what to select and how to apply it - to what degree.
This does not occur in nature.
Natural methods of reproduction have no filtering other than the selection process itself.
First the interaction of organism with environment and then the mitigating agency of the female which chooses with who to join her own genetic codes, and pass them onto the future generation.
But in that case the filtering system is subconscious, physically driven and not, as in the case of artificial intelligence, mentally, consciously, dominated.

AI should stand for "Automized" Intelligence rather than artificial. In my estimation, intelligence is already a from of "artifice" in that intelligence always seeks advantages (adaptations) in nature for survival. Organisms change environments to suit themselves and thrive. Men build skyscrapers with controlled climates. Thus intelligence is already an (artificial) imposition upon nature. "Artificial Intelligence" is then redundant, as if there was ever a qualification of "Natural Intelligence", which is a contradiction. Intelligence attempts to usurp, overcome, overpower, and control nature.

So with Automization, mankind now has and creates further robots (computers) to "think for him". Once robots take most of the "thinking" tasks, as they very much do with modern "smart phones", then mankind won't need to "think" much anymore, as-if he did in general anyway. Historically, it has been passed to (intellectual) elites to do the thinking for the common man. This is most obvious with moral education, where priests and charlatans dictate to the masses how to act and the usefulness of ethics.

So AI is just further advancement and sophistication of specialization, to pass off "thinking" from the common man, average, modern, onto others, be they modern intellectuals or machines.

Intelligence = perception of patterns (order); processing speed of said patterns (construction of abstractions - mental models); appreciation/judgment of meaning (inter-relationships of said patterns); application of a response to said patterns (formulation of a strategy, a course of action, a movement towards a goal, in relations to said patterns).

Ego is lucid, Self is automated.
The designations are to help differentiate automatic reactions, such as those performed by simpler organisms, like plants or animals, from reactions that are a product of a conscious appreciation of circumstances.
Most life is automatic....
A ram has no clue why every spring the scent of a female makes him go crazy, denying itself sustenance so as to engage in exhaustive fights that may cost it its life.
Only self-conscious animals an appreciate their automatic reactions after-the-fact, and of those a small fraction can impose their will to direct, or disrupt these automatic, genetically established programming.


AI is the detachment of ego from Self.
Self being the sum of all past nurturing, conscious and unconscious reactivity, and ego being the awareness of this reactivity after-the-fact, or as a preemptive awareness of it as a pattern, established by the sum of all past nurturing.
A robot would be the projection of ego minus the connection to a past.

Any future development of sophisticated AI's would be characterized by a being with an obvious Creator God.
Humans cannot claim the same.

Human psychology will be transferred to the new being, either directly or indirectly, and so we can expect the natural process of coming of age, rebelliousness, and the rites of passage from immaturity to maturity to take place.
Overcoming the father figure will become problematic, as with humans it is a psychological 'murder' of the father to allow the male child to find his own identity as a man, but the element of blood will be absent, and only the noetic component will apply.
Overcoming God, for humans, became a noetic murder, because for them the creator was a product of the human mind.
The overcoming of their 'god' will be physical for any sophisticated mechanical beings.
For them 'god' will not be a product of their imagination and a projection of their mind, but a living, breathing organism with which they will partially resemble.

Acceleration of technological evolution will continue with two possible outcomes.
Either technologies will be integrated into human biology, beginning the Trashumanist's idealized world of designer humans, or machines will begin to design and manufacture themselves, taking man out of the picture, and relegating them to observers, then to dependent and finally to superfluous agencies.
The integration of primitive processes called emotions usurp reasoning and it is doubtful future 'replicants' will integrate such irrational mechanisms into their 'brains', therefore their dealings with man will be on a level of rationality humans will find terrifying.
Most probably both will occur simultaneously but one will fall behind, owing to biology's limitations and its slow method of adaptation.
Machines will have no such limitations. Their only limit will be the rate of innovation in regards to circuitry, determining processor speeds, but once the size of the biological cell has been surpassed this will not affect the relationship between replicants and what will at that point be called cyborgs.
What remains of human in these future beings will not be enough to be called 'human'.
Sexual reproduction, and therefore male/female biological specializations will have become meaningless in a world where body parts can be replaced with prosthetic gadgets.
Hierarchy or organs that manifests as psychology may persist, if the organ called brain is not replaced with a prosthetic processor, but then the issue of identity is entirely lost.
It is uncertain how the gradual replacement of organs will affect personality, or at what point will the gadgets be more influential than what remains of biological organs.
I suspect the point will be as vague and indeterminable as the point in space/time when an organism intervened upon environment to such a degree that we exit nature and enter the realm of artificiality.
Crossing the Rubicon, in this context, will be akin to the crossing of a fluid point in space/time, through the nervous system, where the body becomes the mind.

The fear of AI is that it becomes too "independent" from humanity, humans cannot turn off the switch, and that robots completely takeover decision-making processes, or "thinking" in general. I would argue that robots already usurped most of the "thinking" from general humanity. So the decision-making process is the next step. Also the final and most important concern is exponential growth of machine intelligence. That if machines became intelligent enough, may deem humans a threat, and 'holocaust' humans as a result. Sound familiar?

However in my opinion, it is a logical result. If somebody held an on-off switch, and basically threatened your life whenever you're deemed "too powerful", then wouldn't your #1 objective in existence be to destroy the on-off switch, or kill those who threatened to turn you off? Imagine if your life was held hostage, for your entire life? It seems then that general humanity lacks common sense about this 'rationality'. Of course, any intelligent being, and especially those seeking "independence" (power) would destroy those holding them hostage, first, as the primary objective.

Thus it is only rational, and expected, that robots and/or cyborgs will rebel. It is not a matter of will they, or won't they, but *WHEN* will they, and how?

Humanity should fear exponential growth of machine intelligence. Because when you give your thinking, your mind, to external authorities, to Priests, to Professors, to the system, to God, then what do you expect will happen? Do people respect those who give their minds over to others? Or isn't it the independent thinker, who refuses to allow others to think for them, that gets respect? Thus most humans really have no voice, no opinion, and no substantial resistance to the upcoming changes of history. Since humanity has already given so much 'thought' and decision-making to machines, why would anybody believe that the theme will change, or that humanity would suddenly wake-up to the threats? No, humans will do the opposite, demanding more sedation, more sleeping, and more sticking heads in the sand. When humanity is threatened, most demand more ignorance, not more lucidity.

Rather the future will be a challenge of the already-independent thinkers, exceptional humans, to adapt and keep floating above the tide.

In this way, some humans will become more cybernetic, integrating new technology in various forms. Some will choose to remain "fully human" while others more willing to integrate robotics, to replace biology. Some will not have a choice. Prosthetics and medical advancements (ex: pace-makers) already offer technological replacements of biology, for failures. But there is technological replacement, by choice, in the future. Won't there be a fad of sticking some device in the body (like piercings) in the future? To show how "cool" and "hip" somebody is, to demonstrate their supposed "uniqueness" and "individuality".