AI is here, but our memories will endure
Don't rage against the machine. Artificial Intelligence can never erase our most precious keepsakes.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is upon us. It is rolling downhill like a digital snowball, gaining momentum and ready to co-opt significant fractions of our daily lives. Sooner or later — under the presumption of efficiency and readiness — AI will become fully autonomous.
You may not see it, or even be aware, but it is happening. Technology already dominates just about everything we do, say, think or hear. Moreover, human control is being methodically phased out of the equation. Eventually, the machines will be making machine decisions.
But we mortals possess a sentience that is immeasurable and far more precious. We have bonds and emotional connections to the past. Technology and progress will never eclipse our memories.
What is AI really?
Actually, predictive AI has been around for a while, but under various pseudonyms … “smart” technology, “data ranking systems” (aka algorithms and search engines), chatbots and voice translations. It also is integrated into business operations and supply chain systems.
Just recently, generative AI applications such as ChatGPT began authoring communications reports and marketing programs, creating fine art and writing computer code. Integrated robotics are manufacturing a wide range of products, building cars and performing surgical procedures.
We’ve even personified it with cutesy names such as Siri and Alexa. Google Assistant — not so cute.
We can’t stop AI’s progress — that genie has bolted. But is it for our own good? Sometime down the road will mankind have buyer’s remorse? Will human advancement degenerate into social entropy? Can our primitive brains — barely superior to chimps — keep up with God-like technology?
We’ve completed Phase I of the STEM revolution: computer processing, the Internet and robotic engineering. Technically, those are still under human control. For the time being. Phase II (AI) involves ceding that control to full machine autonomy. Most everything we know will be rewired.
It may not exactly be a SkyNet scenario or a “Fail-Safe” crisis. But imagine if that Wuhan lab was run by renegade cyborgs?
Technology and Progress: A cautionary tale
In the 9th century, history was forever altered when the Tang Dynasty in China created an effective mixture for gunpowder. Five centuries later, mankind took a great leap forward when Johannes Gutenberg first pressed letters and symbols onto vellum and parchment in 1455, thus extending common human knowledge to the masses.
Such is the capricious nature of technology and progress. In one sense, technology propels civilization forward, advancing social prosperity and maximizing human potential. Concurrently, it can set in motion a catastrophic path toward self-destruction.
Nowhere is this contrast more evident than with Christopher Nolan’s historical new biofilm Oppenheimer, which opens in theaters today. The story follows the conflicted life of scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer as head of the Manhattan
“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” — J. Robert Oppenheimer
Quoting Vishnu, from the Bhagavad-Gita
Project (1942-45). In harnessing the power of the atom, Team Oppenheimer effectively ended the most costly war in human history. Simultaneously, they unleashed a monster with the potential to annihilate human existence.
Like Oppenheimer, we’re facing a crossroads… to embrace progress while weighing unknown consequences it may precipitate.
It is a cautionary tale. Only time and history will judge.
What AI doesn’t have: Memories
Human memory and machine memory are two entirely different things, an organic gap between analog and digital processing. Human memories are biologically linked to emotions and feelings. Machines apply logic and predictive models; the past exists only in 1’s and 0’s.
Their neural networks are designed to loosely mimic the function of the human brain, but they structurally differ from real brains in form and function. AI is infinitely smarter. It can store enormous amounts of information, and perform tasks far beyond our limited capacity to process.
But … we can do things — more important things — that technology will never experience.
AI can’t laugh or cry.
It can’t feel the unbridled joy of childbirth … or mourn the death of a loved one.
It can’t recall lazy summer days … seeing that first shooting star … or having its breath taken away by the beauty of a first love, the sound of her voice, or the song that played at the time.
(AI) doesn’t recall lazy summer days … seeing that first shooting star … or having its breath taken away by the beauty of a first love, the sound of her voice, or the song that played at the time.
AI doesn’t remember where it was when Neil Armstrong took that first small step. Nor did it weep with a nation in mourning for JFK and MLK.
It can’t be serenaded by a Gershwin classic … or moved by the perfect harmonies of Simon and Garfunkel …
… It can never breathe in the heavenly smell of night-blooming jasmine … adore the angelic face of a toddler eating an ice cream cone … or marvel at the elegance of Shakespeare’s words in Sonnet 18.
These will always be the exclusive domain of human sentiments. Nothing — not even progress — can ever take them away.
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Jim Geschke was inducted into the prestigious Marquis Who’s Who Registry in 2021.
