As someone who is absolutely no expert in technology, I have heard that AI can learn anything that follows patterns and use this acquired knowledge to solve complex tasks. This involves technical questions, the use of language, or the bundling of existing knowledge. But it doesn’t end there when it comes to emotions, which obviously also tend to follow predictable patterns. For example, an artificial system can learn how a human is likely to react emotionally in certain situations, what they will say, etc. This then enables a non-human system to build emotions, reactions, complex sequences of actions, and even relationships. Or even just to suggest the right emoji in response to a text message.
It is also about giving the system solution options that must take ethical considerations into account. For example: How does a self-driving car decide what to do when an unavoidable accident occurs? And I don’t mean that cynically; these are ethical questions that I learned about during a basic course on AI. And perhaps AI is even more ethical than humans?
Perhaps I have oversimplified the theory of AI, but it reminds me of the playful tasks that small children solve: they are given a specific sequence and then try to recognize the pattern behind it by applying or connecting their existing knowledge.
If we base image creation on color theory and music composition on music theory, then what artificial intelligence can do doesn’t seem so far-fetched. And if a computer can even tidy up the chaos in a theory, then what?
As far as I know, the only thing missing from the system is the element of irrationality. For greater credibility, I would definitely program completely irrational decisions at random as standard when it comes to artificial intelligence (or what we as humans understand by it) encountering human intelligence (and here too: or what we as humans understand by it). But then AI would no longer be reliable, would it?
Are humans reliable?
And isn’t that what makes us human? That we don’t always react predictably? When we fall in love with someone who sends clear and repeated signals of rejection, yet we don’t change our admiring behavior? That we know that unhealthy eating increases our risk of cancer, yet we eat delicious ice cream out of sheer desperation? That we meet someone who undoubtedly makes a great impression when we first meet them, but we can’t shake an uneasy feeling, and after a few weeks it turns out we were right? That as a child we once walked a path that we can no longer consciously remember, and we find that we can still find the place because we still have it stored in our subconscious?
Empathy where you least expect it, an unexpected offer of peace. A coincidence, a whim of nature, a sudden reversal, an insight, an irrational, undefined belief, a spontaneous new idea, a surprise, perhaps something like a seventh sense.
AI is a tool that humans operate, and it also has some incredibly strange aspects: For example, an AI assistant at a doctor’s office suggested a doctor’s appointment to my telephone assistant. I didn’t want to disturb the two of them; they got along so well, were polite to each other, and followed exactly what was specified. But I didn’t want the doctor’s appointment because I thought the doctor was not the best, and just like that, all the efficiency was gone.
Despairing of humanity, who was so exhausted after a conversation with an AI robot in an online store that he didn’t want to answer the phone anymore.
Some tech people dream that AI will eventually gain its own consciousness – for me, that remains a nightmare, and, between you and me, I really like humans with all their ambivalence and their desire to make their work easier – for example, with a computer-based system.
Just a thought.