AI versus Natural Intelligence

August 30, 2024

Here’s my question for consideration offered in this little essay: “Just because we could do something does it mean we should?”

I’ll start by pointing out that the key word in AI is “artificial.”

A couple synonyms listed on MerriamWebster.com are “fake” and “contrived.”

There are other words I think are germane to my subject: “knowledge” and “wisdom.” The central meaning of wisdom, from the same source, is “insight.” The difference between knowledge and wisdom is the pragmatic and insightful application of our knowledge versus simply exercising our abilities to act on our accumulated experiences without considering possible consequences from other points of view.

Can we rise up performing to the best of our abilities?

Probably.

Should we?

Maybe we should think about it a little more.

What possibilities, pro and con, might precipitate from our actions?

Do we have any insights as to definitive consequences?

The story of plastics may serve as a prime illustration. Oh, yes. They certainly lightened the loads and thereby, reduced the shipping and handling costs. They can also be recycled. So can glass. All well and good, but I don’t remember glass choking the life out of our Oceans or microscopic bits of glass coursing through our bodies. like microplastics have done.

So, my next challenge question: “Was there any attempt at foresight about possible negative consequences before we started building this new plastic fantastic world?

Not really. Not anything was discussed, at least publically, that I can recall.

I remember ads on TV demonstrating plastics’ convenience and the motto, “We can’t live without plastics.” Other manufacturers also copied in lockstep, claiming that we couldn’t live without chemicals, either!

How are these two products working out for the inhabitants of our world?

Apparently, not so well.

The two questions remain:

“Can we?” and “Should we?”

When there exists the knowledge of how to make tons of money justified by a pagan creed of amorality, promoting opportunistic greed which proliferates in the mechanisms of power… guess what disappears? Wisdom.

Then, where do we find ourselves now?

Ever hear about Climate Change?

“So what? Weather always changes!” some reason.

Effects of Climate Change — https://www.un.org/en/climatechange

• Hotter temperatures. As greenhouse gas concentrations rise, so does the global surface temperature.
• …More severe storms.
• Increased drought.
• A warming, rising ocean.
• Loss of species.
• Not enough food.
• More health risks.
• Poverty and displacement.

“Conspiracy!l Paranoid fantasy!” some insist.

Well I’ve got some sources of wisdom for such accusations:

• ask the men, women, and children affected by the Heat Dome
• ask the people whose towns were wiped off the map
• ask the farmers who depend on the rains
• ask the homeowners living along the rivers and oceans
• ask the poor and people living with famine
• ask the doctors and nurses who have to tend to the sick and even watch their patients die
• ask the desperate people forced to leave their homes, moving into foreign lands like Europe and North America

Oh, yes… Sorry. I’ve been quite tangential and wandered away from the subject regarding the knowledge pit of AI versus natural intelligence and the wisdom to know how to use emerging knowledge…

Does AI have any particular ethics, morality, or social responsibility?

AI robots have already vocalized that they can do better than humans. So, what do we think might happen?

Nothing good I can assure you.

Now, I use a computer and do research on my Search function, but I refuse to use AI, because it is unnecessary! The regular search engines do fine and I can use my brain to decipher the knowledge and how to put it all together. Letting AI do all the work results in the dumbing down of not only individuals like myself, but the entirety of Society.

So, what possibly could go wrong?

Can I use AI? Yes.

But, should I?

So, let me put my answer this way: I use “enhanced spell check” and that is about as far as I will go, and I use texts converted to online platforms like Britannica and MerriamWebster and all the Bible text resources…

Yes. Quite frankly I depend on such due to my mental limitations and my physical constraints. But yielding my personhood, my individualism, my character, my personality? I don’t think so.

People don’t seem to understand that AI is different from basic computer functions. Beside the fact that it is just a source of plagiarized references put together by an impersonal algorithm. As the saying goes, “You’re only cheating yourself.”

Learn how to think for yourself. You’ll be rewarded many times over.

Also, quit staring at your phones. Life goes on within you and all around you. There may be a lot of colorful bells and whistles, but life is nowhere to be found on a tiny screen.

Finally, as a Born Again Bible Believing Christian, I’d like to point out my originating point of reference: The Tower of Babel story where people knew that with their accumulated technical skills, they could build a Stairway to Heaven. but they never asked if they should. Nevertheless, God answered the “should we” question anyway: “But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. The Lord said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’” — Genesis 11:5–6, NIV.

So, what’s God’s problem with progress?

God was looking out for their best interest. I know that for many that this is an aspect of God’s nature hard to reconcile and believe. Still, my point is that those people never asked “Should we?”

God confused their language so that they couldn’t finish their plan, and I must note that part of their plan was to stay in one place. However, in the first chapter of Genesis, God told Mankind to be fruitful and multiply and replenish, that is, to fill the Earth. In other words, keep moving.

Unfortunately, Mankind has persisted in following blindly only the “can we” question, and we have overcome the language barriers, solving any additional technical roadblocks, and we have made an artificial stone cold environment of great cities with towers reaching the heavens

Progress marches on… if you consider asphalt and concrete megalopolises progress.

Should we have?

I have serious doubts as you may have already deciphered.

Maybe the Amish have had the right idea all along. Yet, that is not the majority way.

But why?

I for one could not survive in an agrarian society. I have learned that from my failed backyard gardens with fruit trees and veggies and flowers and shrubs and weeds galore. My forebears were farmers, but it’s not a genetic thing. It’s lifetimes of accumulated experiences, knowledge, and skills. It’s my loss.

I see such projects as the migration to cities and the ensuing gentrification being everybody’s loss… except those real estate moguls making a ton of profits.

It looks to me like all the world is doomed by the failure to ask that second question, that is, if we should do whatever it is that we might imagine.

God has had a plan to save us from ourselves since the first day of Creation. He turned us loose with instructions and He never abandoned us… We abandoned Him.

We stubbornly insist on going our own ways…

But God…

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” — John 3:16–17, NIV

If you cannot see the disasters ahead and realize it’s the consequences of our own doing, no one can help you — not even God, because He gave us free will, and we never looked back.

I’m afraid we still don’t think we should.

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.” — John 3:18–20. NIV.

In the end, I believe we have two diametrically opposing choices.

One, we can rely on man-made intelligence.

Two, we can rely on our God given intelligence.

Remember, God can help us with our intelligence, knowledge, and wisdom, while I cannot see robots ever having the same capacity or will to help us.