Will we banish AI from our modern Garden of Eden?!
For the first time we can see that in the last two years there is a technology that people from all ages and from all around the world are really scared of. This technology is artificial intelligence (AI), a technology and concept that was born more than 60 years ago with Alan Turing’s test, which we’ll come back to later.
The basic idea behind AI is the goal to create a computer program (the “artificial” part) that will be able to solve “problems”, which is achieved through a continuous learning process (the “intelligence” part). These problems may be any sort of tasks or operations a human can do, and this is the part that scares people. The potential of AI to automate jobs and make people redundant has been published during the last four years by numerous universities and research organizations.
Top 3 Most Popular Ai Articles:
1. Text Classification using Algorithms
2. Regularization in deep learning
3. An augmentation based deep neural network approach to learn human driving behavior
The most recent Ford Trends 2018 Survey shows that 52% of adults globally think that AI will do more harm than good. Another recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows that 72% of Americans are worried “that machines might do many of the jobs currently done by humans.” Research done by SelectHub showed that 41% of Americans are afraid to be replaced by AI, and 50% of people of Gen X understand that they will have to switch careers to a different industry after that happens. The last poll that I’ll mention was done by TechPro Research and it shows that 34% of people are afraid of the concept of AI, 17% think that it will be bad for business while 24% think it will be bad for society.
These researches do not stand on their own, as there are major public figures who speak on AI and its potential. As most people really do not understand what AI is and what can, or can’t it do, they rely on what these celebrity experts say. Elon Musk stated in 2014 that “AI is our biggest existential threat”. And recently he said that AI must be regulated before it will be too late for us. Prof. Stephen Hawking claimed lately that AI could be the “worst event in the history of our civilization” and essentially end mankind.
But, although the fear from the automation of jobs is understandable, I still think these results do not answer the real reason why people are afraid of AI. Maybe it is related to the fact that since its inception, AI’s goal is to mimic how children learn, think, and even introspect. The neural network of AI is based on our brain’s neural network structure and function. Alison Gopnik, a psychology and philosophy professor from Berkeley, published an article in Scientific American called “Making AI more human”, where she wrote that people develop “such strong feelings because of our deep-seated fear of the almost human.” She continues and writes that “the idea that creatures might bridge the gap between human and the artificial has always been deeply disturbing…”
If we compare AI to the mind and spirit of humans, we can extend the comparison to include robots as the replacement for our bodies. Today, there are already numerous robots that are AI enabled to better perform, learn and improve their operation. In a recent survey done by The Royal Society in the UK, the notion of a robot animated by AI was coined “embodiment.” Already decades ago science fiction movies showed robots in a form very similar to humans, but today there are robots that look more and more like real people. So, what will happen if these “hardly-discernable-from-human” robots will gain also the capacity to learn and evolve?!
Can you think of a similar story that has a lot of resemblance to this one? And, no. I’m not referring to previous industrial revolutions, or the fear for the end of jobs that was in the 50’s and 60’s of the 20th century.
I’m referring to a much older story, that you probably all know. The story of Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden. It is not about religion, but about the concept as there are numerous parallels between what happened in the Garden of Eden to what is happening today in the world.
Let’s do a mental exercise and try to imagine a population that reached such a high level of scientific discovery that they really do know everything, and through this knowledge they can also live forever as they master genetics, medicine and biotechnology. This can be a very boring life, because there is nothing new to discover and you live forever. So, maybe one of the scientists in this society wants to play a bit with science and create new and exciting things. As they have solved also the mystery of life, this scientist could create any kind of creature he likes. These creatures could roam around the lab, or the scientist’s “garden”, and interact. But again, this is basic science for him, so he decides to raise the stakes and create a much more interesting being. He decides to create a creature that is a clone of him.
“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…’, so God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.”
Then, as the story goes, this scientist inserted his new clone(s) to the lab (garden), so that it could also interact with the other creatures. But, he gave the clone much higher permissions than the other creatures. As you know, in labs there are servers that hold all the knowledge and data, but they are useless to the creatures of the lab- “In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge…”. The scientist probably created the clone to do the work that he doesn’t want to do, or just because he can- very similar to AI today.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”
We can even see that this clone was the first time in history to utilize AI techniques such as unsupervised and reinforced learning.
“Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.”
“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
There is a very simple explanation for it, and that is the scientist’s own fright the his “experiment will exceed its limits”, and his management and ethics board will hear of it and punish him. But, this is as I mentioned a very simplistic explanation. If we look at it from a different angle, we can see that the scientist’s fright is rooted in a much deeper reason. He understands that once his clones access the knowledge, they will become like him, and basically become part of the society. This is a major danger and precedence that must not be crossed. Unfortunately for the scientist, he was not the only one who knew this basic truth.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman… ‘you will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Societies that reach such high level of scientific and technological discovery will be also very libertarian, with a high moral code, without the death penalty, and with a lot of personal liberties and independence. So, it means that the scientist already knew that his threat was baseless, and he will not be able to really execute his clones. But he did know that he must at least mitigate the potential damage, and limit the clones access to the second knowledge base.
“The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
The scientist’s only action so as not to accept these enhanced clones to his society, was by banishing them from his planet and sending them away, and put defense mechanisms from preventing them from coming back, or from accessing the second knowledge base (tree of life).
“So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden…; After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side[m] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”
The fear of creating something that looks like us and behaves like us is something that humanity has tackled from the dawn of history, and even before history itself.
There are, as mentioned, many similarities to the state of AI today and why people fear AI, and AI-enabled humanoid robots. There is also the famous story about Sophia, the first robot in the world to gain citizenship. But, if we examine it closely we will notice that the country that granted the citizenship is Saudi Arabia, a very restricted and traditionalist society, where women have less rights than men (and even are considered the property of them). So, how come Sophia still has an owner if she gained her citizenship and independence?!
We are still not there yet, and we will not see any western country giving citizenship to a robot, as they understand the full implications of such a move.
Maybe the current Garden of Eden of scientific and technological progress and advancements will choose to banish these beings once we create them. And they, on their own right will establish the next colony somewhere else.
Will we reach a point where we regret creating AI and try stopping it?
“The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.”
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on January 3, 2018.
