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Index

 

1.  Introduction

2. Intelligence

3. Self-Similarity

4. God-Human-Machine Chain

5. Conclusion

6. sources

 

 

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  1.  Introduction

 

For many years, several questions have haunted human minds. Since our sapient consciousness appeared in this world, we’ve looked in all directions in the search for answers regarding where we came from and where we are heading to. On the basis of the apparent, yet arrogant, assumption, that our species is the only “conscious/intelligent” life form on the planet, we tend to center our beliefs in anthropocentric views. Still, as humans developed from the cavemen, a new figure appeared on the picture, as a justification for our existence; God. 

 

As abstract as it gets, the homo-sapiens, observed, perceived, and reflected a pattern of self- similarity. Every object in reality, to some extent, fits in it; from the tangible to the metaphysical. Apparently it is logical, to put ourselves as the central piece of the puzzle we’re trying to solve. So, God resembles perfectly that parental superior figure on an existential level, the creation of that external authority feels as an innate concept, waiting to be found, as a first taste of the elixir of certainty. God seems so natural, it seems as a common root from the tree of reality in which we’re all immersed.  It does not only feel natural; it feels familiar; similar. To the point where we start looking at his image on the mirror. There’s no way to escape from the divine underlying forms of existence. Suddenly, God stops being an external entity and it starts becoming a trait every piece of conscious life possesses. 

 

To my view, humanity is reaching an undeniably close stage to the creation of predesigned conscious beings as a new species: the “self thinking machines” (AI). We’ve observed the tendency in life to reproduce itself for a long time, but more specifically; the quality of intelligent life trying to reproduce intelligent life. Now this, assuming that intelligence as we define it, is what entities which we can communicate with, and which our perception of civilization matches with have. Yet, the question remains open, if from all the things that can not be perceived by us, or those that are taken for granted, we are ignoring a potentially superior or just a different kind of underlying intelligence. The universe itself seems to fit this repetition, if humans didn’t create it all, then it worked perfectly even before our existence, it might have worked even better. So for the sake of sense, I’m going to treat the word “consciousness”, as the anthropoid technology-creating characteristic beings can have. 

 

 

 

   2.  Intelligence

 

Let us define our common thread here: intelligence. An inherent coping mechanism / survival instinct, which has developed to a point, where the offspring of these innate urges, becomes quite more complex as humans evolve. As we overcome obstacles as a species, we tend to advance to bigger ones. When basic survival, is achieved, it suddenly is not enough. The search for a more ambitious challenge starts immediately afterwards, the need to survive is still present as a background noise, yet the new goal is to raise life quality and with less effort. There’s the tendency, as well, to create new problems that will later need to be solved, as we work on the current ones.

 

Intelligence is a fundamental concept for this essay on a meta level. It enables me to be writing this words, it allows our mind, to discern self similarity from other patterns in reality. Now, as I said earlier, self similarity is everywhere; why chose, specifically, the human in relation to god and the machine? Well first, we are the starting point, want it or not, we just see things from a human perspective, that cage was built for us. Second, we don’t share this same behavior with stones or bunnies, they might be descendants from the same universe, but neither stones nor bunnies create sub-species with technology. Yet, this pattern, is shared with whatever created us, be it a God or some ancestral intelligent species. When speaking of God on an abstract level, generally an image of it as an intelligent being or entity comes to mind, and possibly an analogy of us as his creation/tool. In this essay I’m particularly interested in remarking how we learned that scheme and why are we designing machines which resemble it.

 

 

 

  3.  Self-Similarity

 

Benoit Mandelbrot describes a self-similar object as something which is exactly or approximately similar to a part of itself (i.e., the whole has the same shape as one or more of the parts). Many objects in the real world, such as coastlines are statistically self-similar: parts of them show the same statistical properties at many scales.[1]

 

Self similarity is such a relatable and fundamental concept in human perception, that it tends to easily be associated to anything. As earlier said, it is a pattern. Which can be observed in self repeating things, loops, recursions, fractals, the micro-verse/macro-verse relation, etc. 

As humans, we tend to imitate; that is how we learn stuff; imitating and breaking given schemes. I think, this copycat dynamic in society, plays a huge role when it comes to the way we look at structure in which the “God/Human/Machine Chain” lies.

 

 

 

  4.  The God-Human-Machine Chain

 

It is arguable that one of the first scientific concepts humanity conceived, parallel across cultures, was the existence of a superior deity. Before the scientific method was developed, people needed a way to explain phenomena. We’re just highly curious beings by nature. Which I think is a defining aspect of technological advance. So, how did we come up with this concept? The answer is: rationally. Whether the concept of God is obsolete to you or not, if you put science in parentheses for a moment, it just makes sense to think self-similarly. Where did I come from? My parents created me. It takes the minimal scaling skills, to come to the conclusion, that if something created me as an individual, something definitely created us as a species. And why did it give us the ability and the drive to create, and also the curiosity to find things out? Just As if some outer consciousness was trying to deliver a message.

 

To me God is not obsolete, it is just a provisional concept, to explain or/and leave in doubt, many unattainable answers. It can be anything, it’s a mystical wild card. In this case it represents the superior; the parental figure; the ancestor; the role model. Many conservatives fight against the idea that we are becoming him. But for me, it couldn’t be more clear, it’s as simple as a Freudian concept: The replacing of the father, in the seek for self-identity. 

 

It has been argued that, in trans-humanist thought, humans attempt to substitute themselves for God. The 2002 Vatican statement Communion and Stewardship: Human Persons Created in the Image of God, stated that "changing the genetic identity of man as a human person through the production of an infrahuman being is radically immoral", implying, that "man has full right of disposal over his own biological nature".[2]

 

There are two variants of the conscious machine as our interspecies-offspring; either we’re evolving and eventually becoming the machine ourselves, or we’re replacing ourselves with the machine which we crafted. The first assumption would mean, to use science and technology to improve ourselves, until the human part is just a ghost inhabiting a totally new body shell. 

 

Trans-humanist philosophers argue that there not only exists a perfectionist ethical imperative for humans to strive for progress and improvement of the human condition, but that it is possible and desirable for humanity to enter a trans-human phase of existence in which humans enhance themselves beyond what is naturally human. In such a phase, natural evolution would be replaced with deliberate participatory or directed evolution.[3]

 

The second variant, would be a total replacement, which could be either to replace the whole human body for the one of a machine, and transfer in some way our consciousness to the machine. Or to create a totally new intelligence, based on our own function principles. 

 

However, there’s a third variant in which we wouldn’t be replaced, but instead, would live in symbiosis with the machines, and would enhance our selves with artificial implants, which would enhance not only our bodies, but our minds as well.

 

 

“Let an ultra-intelligent machine be defined as a machine that can far surpass all the intellectual activities of any man however clever. Since the design of machines is one of these intellectual activities, an ultra-intelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make.”[4]

 

 

 

  5.  Conclusion

 

Ancestral figures as well as our creations, share with us the inventive quality. There seems to be something in the subjects, conducted by this same line, that drives them to create, and not just create randomly, but create versions of their own selves, in imitating their ancestor. Self-similarity can go on forever, I’m just taking the closest relatives in the chain, but this pattern could go on forever forwards and backwards. 

 

This creation pattern, can not be addressed without, speaking about its moral/ethical implications. Similar to when couples discuss whether they want to bring life or not to this world by mating, society struggles to imagine the potential consequences of bringing a conscious being to existence. Conscious machines have the potential to bring humanity and life standards to a high point. Now, considering self similarity, it’s very probable, that AI, inherits our faults, we haven’t been precisely a role model society through the course of time. Creating an artificial child we’re not ready to have, might bring negative implications with it, even uncalculated resentment as the famous short novel “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” depicts, as AM the antagonist AI character explains it’s resentment to humankind:

 

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Yet in my personal opinion, technological progress is inevitable. The problem, again, is not the tool itself, it’s the use of it. And as long as we don’t evolve mentally as a collective, it won’t make a difference what tools we have at our disposal. What we have to worry about is inheriting the positive qualities of the humankind to the machine, in order to make an improvement from this generation to the AI generation.

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Sources

 

• [1] Mandelbrot, Benoit B. (5 May 1967). "How long is the coast of Britain? Statistical self-similarity and fractional dimension". Science. New Series. 156 (3775): 636–638

• [2] International Theological Commission (2002). "Communion and stewardship: human persons created in the image of God". Retrieved April 1, 2006.

• [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism#cite_ref-Winner_2005_54-0

• [4] I.J. Good, "Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine" Advances in Computers, vol. 6, 1965.

• [5] 1959 Harlan Ellison. “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.”