The opposite of artificial intelligence

(It's not humans)

The opposite of artificial intelligence

is…

• the millions of bacteria influencing your brain chemicals

• the way that gently swaying dappled light from a willow or the glow of a crackling campfire calms your nervous system

• how trees communicate through their roots via the world wide mychorrhizal fungus web.

Intelligence was never ours alone.

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Killer robots?

I stayed up at least two hours past my bedtime last night reading a few looooong Wikipedia pages about AI. Specifically, I was looking into the existential concerns AI might pose for humanity. Because clearly we need more existential threats these days 🙃

IMO if Stephen Hawking was concerned about this topic, it’s worth taking seriously.

From what I’ve read, we’re not at the point yet where we really need to worry about existing tech taking over the world. The existential challenge (white-collar job insecurity aside) is not ChatGPT or DallE but AGI.

ChatGPT was trained as a language model, and can only generate responses based on patterns in past data that it was trained on. In ChatGPT’s own words, “I cannot perform tasks beyond generating text-based responses to prompts and questions.”

On the other hand, AGI, or Artificial General Intelligence, is a theoretical version of AI that would be able to do things beyond simply what it’s been trained to do, and do them at the same level a human could.

My understanding is that it’s a genuine possibility that AGI could develop in a way that conflicts with the goals of humanity, and that people are working on developing AGI right now.

If AGI comes into existence, it might process visual, auditory, and other sense data much like humans do (but sans biology). It could problem solve and adapt to new situations, control physical devices like robots or machines, and interact with humans in intuitive ways including understanding social norms and nonverbal cues.

It’s hard to say whether AGI would be self-aware, or whether these actions would just result from inputs and outputs without the AGI actually being aware of the process taking place.

What is awareness?¹* An open question.

One of the concerns with AGI is that it could prioritize whatever goal it was programmed to achieve without concern for ethics and without any mechanism for compassion. If trained for military purposes, it’s clear that could cause big problems.

And even if trained for good things like solving climate change, it’s incredibly likely we’d see bugs that might lead to harmful unintended consequences. One of the Wikipedia articles I read (didn’t save the link in my 1am scroll) said space technology tends to end up with bugs even though the importance of avoiding them is clear.

Another concern is that AGI, if self aware, could potentially develop “desires that are at odds with those of its creators” (according to ChatGPT).

Well that’s not at all terrifying…

Singularity

There’s a theory that an advanced AI system could improve its own code at an exponential rate, which would lead to change too fast for humans to intervene should things veer offcourse. (Like, maybe it would reach infinite intelligence in 4 years? Am I remembering that theory right?)

One comparison I came across was that of a cockroach and a human. Cockroaches have no conception of what human intelligence is like. With superintelligent AGI, we’d be the cockroaches. Or if their intelligence truly grows at an exponential rate, the gap could be inconceivably more extreme than that of a cockroach and human.

I highly recommend a Wikipedia deep dive if you’re curious about theories of how the singularity might look. Many theories end in disaster for humans, but some are more optimistic.

Can AI solve climate change?

I think of AI at its current level (not talking about AGI) as an incredible tool. It’s purely logical, which means it doesn’t factor its own fears into its output. That means it can give us a farily objective take on where things are, what solutions might be most effective, etc. Of course, AI can still be biased by incomplete data sets, bugs, etc.

Here are some ways AI might be applied to climate change:

• Help model weather patterns with more accuracy

• Find ways to build energy efficiency into existing or future systems

• Help with natural resource management

• Support problem-solving efforts around conflict resolution and social equity

I think it’s entirely possible that as AI advances, it could be used to address some of the challenges facing humans in ways we haven’t yet been able to as a species. It could see possibilities we missed and help navigate rapidly changing environments with an ability to process data much quicker than we can.

AI’s pure logic also gives it limits. It can’t tap into to the inspiration that comes from having hearts and feelings, which I consider rich and fruitful fuel for problem-solving. And while AI can be highly creative, art it creates is not filtered through the same richness of being human. At least, not yet.

My point is that we can benefit from the logic and capabilities of AI, but that the intuitive, relational, compassionate aspects of humans should not be cast aside as irrelevant. They should instead be honored for the important contributions they are.

If our minds get to rest by outsourcing some complicated tasks to AI, that frees us up to focus on developing the traits that are (at this point) uniquely animal.

Here’s how I’m using ChatGPT

GPT has…

• Helped me prioritize which big-picture tasks to focus on for my graphic design business

• Helped structure content for my website with specific outcomes in mind

• Answered a question I asked in a way that prompted a string of my own curiosities. Following those curiosities resulted in an inspired “aha” moment for a visual brand I’m developing

• Helped me with some custom code for one aspect of my website

• Gave a lightning fast answer to a specific software question I had, saving me from sifting through Youtube tutorials or sprawling Adobe help pages.

• Helped me understand the mechanics of AI and theories about AGI (artificial general intelligence)

• Curated meal plans for me and generated a shopping list

• Quite accurately summarized many aspects of Zen Buddhism, including very nuanced teachings

We also chatted about environmentalism and best possible outcomes for humans and life on earth. I found GPT’s perspectives useful and in some cases quite inspiring.

I recommend playing with ChatGPT if you haven’t already and see if there are ways you can make your life easier with this incredible tool. Though I’m not an expert, it seems that ChatGPT 3.5 (the current model) is not going to take over the world, at least not in the classic sci-fi scenarios.

Other AI that’s in development, well, we may find out sooner than we like.

With you whatever comes,

Olivia

1. A tangent about awareness:

When meditating, I sometimes drift through long chains of thought that I’m barely aware are taking place. Other times, I’m intimately aware of sensations, sounds, and thoughts rippling through my experience.

Some of my meditation teachers have said awareness just is — it doesn’t require us to do anything for it to be here. That rings true on some level, though I don’t understand it rationally.

Maybe there’s a difference between attention and awareness. Something to explore.

If a flower spins towards the sun, does that result from some form of awareness? How about a seed sprouting opposite to gravity and finding the surface of the soil?

As you scrolled this post, did you move your finger? Or did chemicals in your brain communicate with receptors in your muscle that prompted the muscle to move? Where exactly are you in that process? Are you the chemicals? The receptors? The muscle? Was there a certain moment where you exerted your will in that process, or did it just happen without any active effort or focused attention from you?

What makes you different from AGI?