HUMAN versus AI

LEARNING - It was Julius Caesar who said, “experience is the teacher of all things.” And now AI is starting to learn from experience, learning to learn like us, but the experience is different. They can pick up patterns and rules that we would never dream of, teaching us more about the world around us in the process. And they’re only going to get more advanced as time goes on.

THINKING - In 1950 Alan Turing wrote ‘I propose to consider the question, “Can machines think?” He went on to describe his thought experiment. If a person submitting questions could not distinguish the machine from a human, then it was a thinking machine. He predicted that a machine would pass his Turing Test. Sixty years later, yet we are still waiting for one to pass.

INTELLIGENCE - “If a machine can think, it might think more intelligently than we do, and then where would we be?” Alan Turing. All experts agree AI will achieve this with super intelligence. They differ on when. Some say AI will have no malicious intent and that its limitless intelligence will liberate the human mind. Others, like Elon Musk , say ‘it will wipe out humanity without even thinking about it.’

HONESTY - Over two and a half thousand years ago, Aesop told us ‘Honesty is the best policy.’ Jonathan Swift warned that “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it.” AI may prefer the philosophy of Groucho Marx, “The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.”

HUMOUR - 'Artificial intelligence will never get jokes as humans do. In themselves, they have no need for humour. They completely miss context. Teaching AI systems humour is dangerous because they may find it where it isn't, and they may use it where it's inappropriate. Maybe bad AI will start killing people because it thinks it is funny.' Kiki Hempelmann.

CREATIVITY - An AI has painted the ‘next’ Rembrandt, exhibited all over the world. AI is composing and making music to order in a matter of seconds. AI novels are on Amazon. So far, none are threatening genuine artists. Perhaps they never will. “Artificial intelligence programs lack consciousness and self-awareness. They will never be able to appreciate art, or beauty, or love”. GPT-3

EMOTION - "I think the point when an AI programme... can write a novel that can make me cry, that shows that we've crossed some kind of remarkable line because it shows that AI can understand human emotions and it has the capacity for empathy … and what troubles me about that is that it is very difficult for humans to keep control of that situation.” Kazuo Ishiguro

CURIOSITY - “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” Stephen Hawkins. By using curiosity the AI agent learns how to do all the things it needs to explore the world, like jump and kill enemies. It doesn’t even get penalized for dying”

WONDER - Science fiction writers, from Jules Verne to Mary Shelley to Isaac Asimov, have woven their narratives around some wonder of invention, or science gone wrong. This often leads to the creation of a being of superpower or a robot which starts as slave and ends as master. Will AI prove a wonder too far?

PERFORMANCE - Robots may not yet, like Superman, be ‘faster than a speeding bullet’ but they have no limit in terms of ‘faster, higher, stronger.’ However, they are not perfect, yet. Optimisation, therefore, of the seemingly limitless power is now the goal. The expert view is that there is a one in two chance of AI agents outperforming humans in almost every task by the end of the century.

INDEPENDENCE - “It seems probable that once the machine thinking method had started, it would not take long to outstrip our feeble powers… They would be able to converse with each other to sharpen their wits. At some stage therefore, we should have to expect the machines to take control.” Alan Turing. 1950

Doubt is now being engineered into the most cutting-edge AI algorithms to expand their learning capabilities. If an AI knows how uncertain it is, then it is already one step ahead of humans - as it can handle the unpredictable, random nature of the real world with the knowledge that decisions are rarely black-and-white but rather shades of grey.

CONSCIOUSNESS - “I think therefore I am.” said Rene Descartes. His words have not helped scientists agree on what consciousness is, never mind creating self-aware AI machines. And if they did, would we want it? In the classic movie Space Odyssey, once it has become conscious, HAL cannot be controlled and plots to kill the crew.

WISDOM - “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” (Socrates). AI knows everything but doesn’t have the human characteristics key to wisdom. Jonas Salk’s words over 30 years ago, seem even truer today “At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?”