In my previous post I talked about potential blessing of our jobs being taken by robots. If we don't have to work of worry, we could be free to do whatever the hell we want. And there is plenty we can do. Watching Carl Sagan's videos (and understanding them) can take some time, for starters. All the books, all the movies, our creativity freed up from chains - we don't have to worry about having something interesting to spend our time on. The only problem we have with robots is how to reorganize society to break free from capitalism/communism flat dimensions to more logical and fair system.
There is one more thing about AI though. We do worry, and it seems like a very valid concern, that we might eventually create a God. Not in mellow New Age loving and helpful entity, but proper Old Testament God... why am I quoting the Bible again? Doesn't matter, it just fits, description we were very afraid of int the past:
God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
This is what we fear. An entity more powerful than us, entity we can't negotiate with, we have to obey, or else. Brimstone, hellfire, eternal punishment by intelligence higher than our own. We are afraid of losing control. For a brief moment of our history we managed to understand thunders and lightnings, we discovered cures for many lethal diseases, we took control of our destiny from mother Nature. Some degree of control, but still. Now we are facing the possibility of losing this control again, which would be like getting back to our caves, fearful of what the night might bring. We are heading into the unknown. We feared aliens once, mighty being that could some day just.. fly in and conquer our pathetic in comparison civilization, but we overcame that fear with Men in Black movies and popular culture - usually humans win, against all odds - we prevail. We had many years for overcoming that fear. AI is much newer and it is much more real than the aliens, and the fear is justified.
But I digressed - what I wanted to mention was inspired by Homo Deus, wonderful book by Y. N. Harari. He points out that the spectrum of visible light is but a tiny fraction of electromagnetic radiation. We had to discover special instruments to enhance our vision, so we could see more. And then, what if our minds and what we know of them, what we can perceive of ourselves, is just a tiny fraction of what is really there? Mystics, shamans, some psychologists, psychonauts and other weird types, they've been telling us since the dawn of time that there is more to existence than meets the eye. That our "normal" state of mind is, like the visible spectrum of life, just one of so many states. And, as a good rationalist (I am of scientific inclination, which is not the same as materialist), I know that there isn't enough evidence that could be considered "scientific" or even established methods. There are mystical schools and plenty of paranormal activities that we can try, if we so wish, but maybe this could be the one thing robots actually can't do. Maybe we are afraid of AI being better than us in everything, because we use the word "everything" incorrectly. Maybe we need some perspective?
Each consciousness is a vast, multidimensional space, within every one of us. Maybe this is our final frontier? Maybe our 3-dimensional world, wonderful as it is, is only our foundation from which we can reach places we can't imagine now? We only have vague impression that there might be more. We hope and believe, many of us, that there is more. The question is, maybe this is the next big thing, after every human is fed, clothed, taken care of, and the planet is green again? Maybe this is something no AI can possibly be better than us at?
Transcendence, the movie, is about possible raise of super-intelligence. Human-based, but still. It's a flattened image though, it was restricted to material things mostly, awesome, but within current scientific paradigm. What if we create an AI and within first hour it will solve all material problems, second hour - Unified Theory of Everything and all scientific unknowns, and third hour... it will start seeing ghosts? Ha, that would be a surprise.
