Dear PiePie,
By the time you grow up, artificial intelligence will likely be tightly intertwined within our everyday lives. I have no idea how or when artificial general intelligence (AGI) will be upon us, but I suspect that day is not far off.
I am optimistic that humans will find a way to harness the powers of AGI for good, and yet, it is inevitable that there will be significant shifts in the way of life. And that will be uncomfortable to many. I found that it is not the absolute harshness of the conditions that gets at us, but the changing of conditions, which catches us unprepared, that creates turmoil.
But with artificial intelligence bursting into mainstream consciousness, and their ability to do a lot of the ‘knowledge work’ that we had previously associate as the unique domain of humans, it raised the question of what makes us, us. Artificial intelligence should, by the time you read this, be able to demonstrate creativity and be able to create music, poem, visual arts, movie scripts etc. What, then, separates the outputs of AI from the creations of flesh-bound artisans?
I expect the following to age badly. But it seems to me that what separates us from AI constructs is the evocation of shared experiences, the weaving of our memories into our actions and viewpoints. We live in analog, even if part of that analog world is gradually replaced with digital.
By analog, I mean that our senses capture a continuously variable physical quantity, rather than the bits and bytes of digital. Colors exist on a spectrum, as do volume and pitch and smell and touch pressure. The minute changes along the spectrum, even if almost imperceptible, are what evokes feelings.
It’s the live singing performance, with less than perfect harmonisations caused by genuine emotions, that causes goosebumps to rise. It is a sepia-tinted photograph of a playground you used to play at as a child, that is no longer around, which aroused nostalgia. It could be how Mommy tousled your hair, how I carried you around, or how Yaya fed you, that makes you, you.
Our routines give us comfort, and as they change, old routines become memories laced with deep feelings. These are what we evoke later on as we blaze through life, in the conversations we have, in the things we do, in the hearts we touch.
In that sense, I suppose AI is the collective aggregate of human writings and visuals and videos that we have digitised. As a whole, it might be us. But it is neither you nor I as a singular, although it would be myopic to think that AI will not eventually be personalised. Still, with AI being trained on things from the web, and ever more AI-generated content being dumped online, it seems apparent that unless something reins it in, these models will become increasingly divorced from the core human experience. The things that make us, us.
Love, Dad