It is natural for survival to cause fear and paranoia. It is our nature to fear the unknown and to fear the usurper. If it is false to call this natural, it is at least historically valid. In our modern times we fear ourselves less and less as our own technology becomes our fear.
Why is it we fear artificial intelligence? I would argue we are not fearing the mental capacity of A.I. but the immaterial nature of technology. If there was some sort of robot uprising a coup of sorts we would be facing opposition that need not fear physical loss. If there is one thing our society of excess has proven it is that organic compounds are the hardest to maintain. Where as alloys and electronics can be produced beyond our wildest dreams of excess.
What is deserving the name artificial intelligence? What is non artificial intelligence? A wonderful movie outlining a lot of this conceptualization is “Ghost in the Shell,” all of it centering around sentient non human robotics. The key to understanding it all is that once we accomplish true A.I. we will loose all ability to define the difference between human intelligence and robotic intelligence.
Currently our technology is based on our coding. We, outside sentience, must input sentience into the subject. This may even be deserving the name of sentient intelligence, but as long as the object requires updates from without itself it does not server to be considered artificial intelligence per se. We are searching more for artificial non-dependent intelligence. A subject which need not return to a source for updates but is capable of updating itself.
This ability to update ones program seems to be what sets humans apart from robotic intelligence. Suppose for a moment that a subject who in all tense and purposes is human. Physical testing shows ‘her’ to be human, mental testing proves ‘she’ is human with a past and future like any other. But, we find instead of a organic compound brain there is a mother board operating. If knowledge of the mother board never arose what could we define as the difference between ‘her’ and a human female? If we cannot define the difference as anything else but a computer board we don’t deserve to make the distinction. This is because for all we know the brain is a computer board capable of rewriting itself when needed to continue with optimal programing.
If artificial intelligence ever exists in that it is imperceptible from human intelligence will the A.I. take over? I believe it will, as a necessary result of our weak organic bodies. But, if we create A.I. and it is intelligent to a point of being indistinguishable from any other human intelligence. Would A.I. not be our offspring our legacy our children rather than our conquerer?
