Regarding "Being Human" - Richard Harper, et al.
Brilliant article. Just brilliant.
I always get excited when I think of augmenting human reasoning, though the reading didn't really take the direction that I thought it would. Always looking for theNTZ (Links to an external site.)
that will keep me in the game when strong AI outperforms humans in a mainstream fashion.
that will keep me in the game when strong AI outperforms humans in a mainstream fashion.
In section 2.6, (p. 49), Harper, et al, points out that, "increasingly sophisticated tools to augment our human capabilities speaks strongly to the human values associated with our desire for productivity and industriousness in our lives." And certainly, the examples of creative collaboration, such as GitHub and "smash-ups," are huge enhancements on the way that I learned when I was in college in the early '90s. Yet, isn't there a more obvious track to human reason augmentation? And why is it that we are all so afraid of AI that we continue to make Terminator and SkyNet allusions?
What if we simply join with the AI? I've been saying "chip me" for years. And now there's a brilliant, wealthy entrepreneur named Bryan Johnson (Links to an external site.) out in California working on just that. His company in called Kernel (Links to an external site.).
Johnson proposes speeding up the human operating system by giving us more RAM. That's certainly an oversimplification, but doesn't that just sound right at this point?
The authors of "Being Human" do point out, and we are all aware, of how physical augmentation has been (read pace-makers) and will be changed by machines. What better way to take the next step and speed up our neurological processes than by implanting a device that increases our internal storage capacity - that with which we all compare each other on intelligence scales (read memory). And of course, that device will interface with the Internet of Things (IoT), as well as the World Wide Web. If the global super highway of information is flowing through your brain- as Larry Page (Links to an external site.), founder of Google, suggested at TED - rather than simply at your finger tips (how obsolete), all knowledge is available just-in-time. Think how this will change education.
I think that kind of interfacing will be a natural human evolution. I love the article and all of it's brilliant moral and ethical philosophizing. I know I sound Transhuman (Links to an external site.). But the plain truth is, as we begin to adopt VR and AR based on economic viability - among other huge exponential innovations, such as machine learning - we will simply go more in the feared direction that "Being Human" suggested was so uncouth - like the cavalier student who sends email in SMS-speak with emoticons for excuses on tardy assignments. Yes, I've received those from my adorable college students, as well. (They're not uncultured swine - we are just getting old and grumpy ;))
The "balance" is embracing what's coming, rather than resisting.
No comments:
Post a Comment