Artificial Intelligence

I think it's the oldest fear, the atavistic terror that huddles in the back of the cave because something overpowering prowls outside. That same fear leads otherwise reasonable people to strafe wolves from planes in remote Alaskan areas.We press the wild back everywhere, and everywhere you hear the clamor that something must be done about the wolves, the lions, the bears: they are wild, and it is their total autonomy that makes the threat so profound.So when you posit Super AI with superior cognitive abilities, as well as needs, desires, and beliefs of their own, you provoke conceptions of another wild (fully autonomous) threat with potentially overwhelming powerHell, many people are terrified of other autonomous intelligences if they simply wear different skins.I'm skeptical about the likelihood of creating a Super AI with feelings and desires. If we did create a brilliant artificial mind, I bet it would leave.

That's a rational concern; I share it.I don't share the dread I described above. That is the well-populatrd province of the racist and the xenophobe.A sizeable minority of our species respond to human novelty with fear and suspicion; a roughly comparable cohort does not. I hear Spanish (or Cambodian or Portuguese) from a cookout down the block, and I marvel at its sonic architecture, the braiding of familiar human tones with an unfamiliar music: it is not the cacophony of Babel but rather the sweep of a "new world" symphony: I am delighted by the experience.My disgusted neighbor will bark, "Why can't they speak English?!" He frets that store clerks who rattle Spanish to each other might be saying unwelcome things about him. Yet he is, within the bounds of these limits, a good man who remains at least civil to all, and kind and generous to most.That fear and disgust typify many responses to human novelty is well established, I believe, and fMRI scans and other research are teasing out the brain functions behind it. Of note, there appears to be a corresponding political divide, however clichéd, between the curious and tolerant liberal and the intolerant and suspicious conservative.As I said, I'm skeptical about the mindfulness notion that haunts discussion of AI -- AC (Advanced Computation) would be more accurate. Smarter algorithms and faster hardware create powerful new tools, but it's still essentially brute force computing.I find the picture of a species locked in debate over the nature, indeed, the very reality of consciousness, also entertaining notions of machine consciousness to be much like debates about angels and pinheads.But to many, it is a fearful prospect, a Frankensteinian betrayal of their own kind by scientists whose creations "will replace us." I don't share that existential dread, but I recognize the ancient roots of it.

I see what you mean.The reply to my post reads like a small town centrist editorial writer tiptoeing through a minefield of possibly giving offense.ChatGPT doesn't "want" to decide or choose, but only summarize. I wonder what ChatGPT would do if prompted to select and summarize the strongest arguments/evidences in a sharp and lengthy exchange between human debaters, or to identify logical fallacies. That could be useful.