Buffering

Plug and Pray by Jens Schanze and Judith Malek-Madhavi is a documentary about the advances and goals of researchers working in the field of A.I. technology. Among the exploration of the developments in Artificial Intelligence, Raymond Kurzweil and Hiroshi Ishiguro discuss their lofty visions in human development and the inevitability of the merge between machine and biology. This future, and these goals raise a number of ethical questions, some of which are brought up and discussed Joseph Weizenbaum, an early pioneer in computer technology.

The pursuit of technology, specifically the pursuit of Artificial Intelligence, is relatively new to the world and advances exponentially faster than that of biology and nature. Where biology develops slowly via random mutations in trial and error type fashion, technology developments occur in real time. Once a problem is observed, the researcher can manipulate the technology and correct the problem and try again. This is unlike the development of biological organism who have to wait for a random mutation that happens to be beneficial and more compatible with the environment, thus giving the new organism an edge over the previous. Having such a direct hand over the control and development over machinery as attracted intelligent minds since Galileo. However prior to the pursuit of artificial intelligence, machines and computers were designed to serve as aids while being monitored and operated by humans. Artificial intelligence aims to create technology that monitors and operates itself. This raises questions of who is responsible for the machines action and upon the successful creation of a fully functioning humanoid, and what does this accomplishment imply for the current understanding of what it is to be human?

As suggested by The Most Human Human, attempts at artificial intelligence has yet to operate in the same way that humans do. Because computers are based around measurable and quantitative data, they do not make decisions the same way humans do. Humans have an entire additional hemisphere that affects our drives, decision making, and creativity. For this reason when computers are programmed to complete complex human-type tasks, it seems to be insufficient or even ruin the task. For example, when a computer program beat a world famous chess player, chess was declared to be dead. This decision was declared under the context that once the task of chess and been reduced to the computation of quantitative data, it stifled the creative, imperfect strategies, that made the game “human.” This gap in worldview is one of the major conflicts that distinguishes between that which is human and that which is machine.

Kurzweil is correct in claiming the merging of biology and machinery is inevitable, assuming that computer technology continues as it is now. On the other hand, Weizenbaum is correct in claiming that we have control of the development and exploration of technologies. The only inevitability lies within the context of a technological community where the research and funding of technological advances are not regulated. We currently live in a time fueled by technological lust. Our desire for the newest, next best thing is not curved by reason or concern for balance. Much like many other developing fields before it, such as modern medicine and the international market, the technological market will grow fast, be abused regularly, then we will likely suffer the consequences of our lusts. Hopefully, we will be able initiate suitable reforms in the wake of our blunders. However, artificial intelligence creates a domain where the boundaries of our control are blurred. The ultimate destination of the endeavors of leading A.I. researchers has not yet been decided. The greater majority is buffering, waiting for either the culmination or regulation of Artificial Intelligence.