The man and the machine manifesto – Part II
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In the man and the machine original ramblings, I alluded to the to the discerning challenge between humans and powered Artificial Intelligence machines will work together, against the “tangled recursion” [14] as an example of machine intelligence. This log entry expands deeper the doubts and wonders about man and machine co-existence.
Cybernetics the need of adopting other forms of intelligence
Cybernetics become popular when the works of the first generation of cyberneticians like Norbert Wiener and Ross Ashby grow reputation from the lectures of Stafford Beer [10] and the works of Gordon Pask on training and teaching machines [11]. Applying the laws and principles of cybernetics, especially the law of requisite variety – control can be obtained only if the variety of the controller is at least as great as the variety of the situation to be controlled [8] – to the design of effective organizations, Stafford Beer formulated the Viable System Model (VSM) [9] as a method for designing organizations that are able to survive and thrive in a changing environment [9]. The VSM was then a vision of the organization in the image of the human species. Functions of management and control were envisioned on the lines of the human brain and nervous system. The brain and nervous system, were simulated by a combination of information technologies and human interaction. The VSM is probably one of the most elaborated representations of the fusion of the man and the machine [12] and the primacy of the role played by information in control systems and decision making. The fusion or combination of man-machine can be considered in form as a cyborg – that has certain physiological and intellectual processes aided or controlled by mechanical, electronic, or computational devices [13].
The limitations or the utopia of singularity
The achievement of singularity is perceived or motivated by advocators that show fear of death or want to reach a stage of immortality and therefore are irrational, combined with the fact of the looming of the ubiquitous computing, which, computing is made to appear everywhere and anywhere [6] with possible endless workloads combinations, omnipresent, making computing an embedded, invisible part of today’s life. Singularity is perpetually 15 to 25 years in the near future and that future keep being delayed [5]. Singularity supporters, tend to forget about the computing limitations on some of the use cases that are just about to become a reality, like for example, brain simulation. To simulate 10 seconds of real brain time would require about one year of computer simulation [7] in the current most powerful existing supercomputer.
Do we want machines to feel or do we foster a future which humans will augment their natural born capabilities?
Feelings can only be won by creatures who already have a mind and you can only have a mind if you have a nervous system [1], which in the case of machines, is absent. In the past decade, there an intense debate about if machines can or will feel. Emotions are considered as a non-detachable part of intelligence. Emotions be catalogued as rage, fear, panic, love, happiness and it can drive to take actions. Humans classify emotions and assign them some other emotional value [2]. Such value changes taking into consideration the societal environment humans live or are surrounded by. What can be condemned in one society can be accepted in other. The meaning of the the emotional values is the basis for conscious experience. Therefore, understanding the cartography of the interaction the human and the environment is critical for understanding the nature of consciousness [2]. Our universal individuality is cannot separated by the sacred, profane and spirituality [3]. The flow of other people, nature, environment and ancestor influence that provided us the life principle guidelines we adopt or tend to ignore that is a consequence of what surround us and make us unique individuals. Because machines do not and most likely will not possess consciousness, they are incapable of having free will and intentionality, something that is an essential criteria for moral agency [4].
References:
[1] António Damásio – In The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures – ISBN – 9780307908759
[2] Mark Solms – The Brain and the Inner World: An Introduction to the Neuroscience of the Subjective Experience – ISBN – 9781590510179
[3] Elizabeth Tunstall – Decolonizing Design Innovation: Design Anthropology, Critical Anthropology and Indigenous Knowledge in Design Anthropology Theory and Practice – ISBN – 9780857853691
[4] Kenneth Einar Himma – Artificial agency, consciousness, and the criteria for moral agency: What properties must an artificial agent have to be a moral agent?. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(1), 19–29 – ISSN: 13881957
[5] Stuart Armstrong, Kaj Sotala – How We’re Predicting AI or Failing To – In Beyond AI: Artificial Dreams, edited by Jan Romportl, PavelIrcing, Eva Zackova, Michal Polak, and Radek Schuster, 52–75. Pilsen: University of West Bohemia.
[6] Dietmar Möller – Guide to Computing Fundamentals in Cyber-Physical Systems Concepts, Design Methods, and Applications – ISBN – 9783319251769
[7] Arlindo Oliveira – The Digital Mind: How Science is Redefining Humanity – ISBN – 9780262036030
[8] W. R. Ashby, An introduction to cybernetics – ISBN – 9781614277651
[9] Stafford Beer, Brain of the Firm – The Managerial Cybernetics of Organization – ISBN – 9780471948391
[10] Roger Harnden and Allenna Leonard – How Many Grapes Went into the Wine: Stafford Beer on the Art and Science of Holistic Management – ISBN – 978-0471942962
[11] Andrew Pickering – The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future – ISBN – 9780226667904
[12] Stafford Beer – Diagnosing the systems for organizations – ISBN – 9780471951360
[13] Woodrow Barfield – Cyber-Humans – Our Future with Machines – ISBN – 9783319250489
[14] Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid – ISBN – 9780465026562
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