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 Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:43 am
I'm visiting my family for Christmas, and last night my sister showed me a documentary called Transcendent Man, which talked a lot about the future of technology and, more specifically, work that's being done with A.I. and how it may affect the future. Ever the nerd, it also reminded me of a lot of issues touched upon in one of my favourite television shows of all time, Battlestar Galactica. (You may now laugh at me.) For those of you not familiar with BSG, the plot in a nutshell is this: Man creates intelligent robots to help them out, robots rebel and all but destroy the human race. It's better than it sounds, I PROMISE.
Anyway, one of the big themes of the show is what makes a person a person. If there exists a race that is mechanical, but looks and feels and functions, for all intents and purposes, as human, does put them on the same level as us, and do they deserve all the rights and dignities afforded to biological humans in our society?
I find the whole idea of A.I. to be both fascinating and terrifying. The sci-fi geek in me is screaming "That's awesome I wanna be a robot!" But the rational human being part of me has some issues with some of the ethical questions that are sure to arise as A.I. gets closer and closer to being a viable reality rather than just a good idea for a television show.
Anyway, what do you think? Is creating A.I. getting too close to playing God for comfort? How do you think A.I. technology could affect our future, for better or for worse? Have you always aspired to be a robot one day?
I have no idea where the Church stands on the issue, either, so if anybody knows, feel free to fill me in.
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Posted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 11:30 pm
I have always thought of this question frequently as of late. I work in Cognitive linguistics, so having an A I that can speak and comprehend is a task yet to be done. But to answer the question I do believe to get to the creation of other beings may come close to playing God. What then we would enter into the conversation as to what makes us human, the soul or thought ?
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Posted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 10:08 am
The Catholic concept of the soul is more or less the same as Aristotle's.
The soul is that which describes self-movement, or metabolism. The difference between a rock and a plant, or a living hand and a hand that has been cut off, why a dead body cannot be reanimated or even remain with life supporting machinery has to do with the presence of a soul. It allows for functions that cannot independently exist for non-life.
Humans in particular, belong to a special class that allows for abstraction (which plants and animals do not have). It is abstraction that shows the human soul must be immortal: the container must be like that which it contains. (FYI Abstraction is the ability to recognize things, say a tree or a chair as a tree or chair no matter what shape, size or color it takes.)
A.I., no matter how advanced, will never be more than a mere program. It will never abstract for itself, or function on its own, or be capable of creation or art. ("Art is the signature of Man." GK Chesterton) ARTIFICIAL Intelligence can mimic life, but it will never be life, by definition. Like all of man's technology, it is a toy, and creating it does not cross a moral line. (On the other hand choosing AI over humans like in Chobits and Absolute Boyfriend does, IMO.)
Source: Dr. Sarah Byers, formerly philosophy teacher at Ave Maria University, Ave Maria Fl, a Newman Guide approved school.
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 6:31 am
I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a robot when I grew up, but sadly my educational path wouldn't allow it so I had to settle as a Literature major. Now I'm aiming more towards becoming a hobbit, which might be the next best thing.
I used to really dislike the idea of AI, but now I just don't feel threatened by it. No matter what, it can't imitate the true creative intelligence God gave us as humans. I don't think it can surpass humans in more than storing facts, it's just a matrix of information and a formula for when to use it. Tolkien said once that humans are "little creators," and kind of mimic God in creating our own worlds, but no matter what we create, it can't match his creation. That's why I don't really see artificial intelligence as a threat, it's just, well, artificial.
Have you seen bladerunner? that's a good one, too.
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Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:01 pm
kikkaku I'm pretty sure I wanted to be a robot when I grew up, but sadly my educational path wouldn't allow it so I had to settle as an Literature major. Now I'm aiming more towards becoming a hobbit, which might be the next best thing. Kikkaku, I really wish Gaia had a like button right now, rofl rofl rofl rofl The way I see it, the safest route to follow is to assume that at a certain point, Artificially Intelligent beings deserve the same level of treatment which humans privilege themselves with. A lot of people assume that AI is nothing more than a term for a really complex tool. The problem is that eventually AI can become so complex that AI are capable of being programmed to approach moral issues with a considerable degree of reason. It might even be safe to say that plastic and metal could even produce the same kind of emotional responses that humans often identify themselves with. I'd imagine it's that it's more a matter of time and hard work than if it's even possible or not.
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Posted: Sun Jun 17, 2012 9:41 pm
It's like all those Sci-Fi novels like I, Robot and other Asimov tales are coming to life. surprised
Kinda reminds me of the lyrical themes of "Dichotomy" by Becoming the Archetype.
I think the more and more science and technology progresses, there will be much less of a need for humans to actually do most work. So when this happens, what do humans do? What jobs to they have and how to they make money if A.I. is able to do most things for them?
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