Artificial Intelligence: Can my computer truly think?
Published on June 20, 2022
With the most recent progress in artificial intelligence we are no longer sure we are the only beings who “think” in such a unique way. For the first time, computers can also operate themselves, without our help.
Pablo A. Ruz Salmones – CEO, X eleva Group
We have built our whole world under a specific premise that has become more and more important throughout time: we are the only beings in this world that can truly think; the only ones who use an element within ourselves to help us bring meaning to the divine, and the mundane: reason.
Thinking is one of those things that, according to us, makes us unique. After all, the more philosophical definition of a human being is a “political being”, as Aristotle would say; him who through knowledge can built a community, use reason to create things, govern, and think about life.
Beacuse of our particular way of reasoning and ordering our world, human beings eventually became able to think about themselves, their capacities and possibilities. It was through that rational way of thinking that culture came about, which with the help of technical skills allowed us to develop science and art.
To create art, we need imagination (a way of thinking); to create science we formalize (yet another way of thinking); to be spiritual, we need to be able to believe in something beyond us (thinking yet again). Behind everything we are, is our reason.
“I think, therefore I am” said Descartes as evidence that we use reason to doubt all there is, including ourselves, yet arriving to that magnificent conclusion that summarizes what he viewed as our essence. From a more divine perspective, Aquinas would say that it was due to our understanding, knowledge, or way of thinking that we could claim to be made in the image of God.
Change of rules
However, with the most recent progress made in computer sciences, now that an Artificial Intelligence can seemingly have a conversation with us; now that it has become impossible to distinguish between a painting created by a human being and one created by a real person; now that robots can guide you through a marriage ceremony, we are no longer sure we are the only beings who “think” in such a unique way. For the first time, computers can also operate themselves, without our help.
The expression “artificial intelligence” threatens us because it signals our existance becoming more like a greek tragedy… and our very foundations start shaking below us.
This, however, is nothing new. Back in the nineteenth centry (around the 1880), in his “The automata” short story, Eduardo L. Holmberg posed the question of what would happen when we could not distinguish between an automata (now a computer) and a human being.
Later on, in the mid twentieth century, Holmberg’s question was taken to a more scientific field of knowledge by Alan Turing, in what we know today as “The Turing Test”. Broadly speaking, that test states that if a computer is capable of “fooling” a human into believing the computer can think, then it can think. (This is an unorthodox way of speaking; Turing wanted to stay away from the “thinking” concept, so he defined his test under the “imitation” of a rational behavior).
All those threats that we can see in the horizon today, which we never expected to become real, are part of what Anthony Giddens defined as the “unsought consequences of our actions”. Today, in the XXI century, just a few days ago, a Google Engineer claimed their LaMDA Artificial Intelligence could think, and feel.
Does thinking mean intelligence?
The reality is that we have fallen into a trap, created by our own language. When we say a computer thinks, we immediately assume the meaning of that word implies it does so like a human would, or even better. But that is not necessarily so.
Perhaps, it is time to realize there are several ways of thinking, and several ways of feeling. After all, when we observe certain individual phenomena that are not entirely part of our day to day experiences, or better yet, that do not fit our understanding of things, we link it either to an irrational aspect of ourselves, or try to come up with a semi-rational explanation. Yet, we still use our rational language to define it (think of how we can both say that nature is wise, or that a specific person is wise, yet “wise” does not have exactly the same meaning in both cases, though it evokes the same “feeling”).
Under that light, we can claim computers do “think”, but in their own way and in their own language. Let us understand that we are the ones using our language to express what we think and feel about computers, just as we did with the rest of our world, to give meaning to our lives and what sorrounded us.
At X eleva Group, we incorporate all these thoughts in our development and consulting services, as we are deeply convinced that “the human factor is the key to excellence”.
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