I’ll begin with one of my favorite lines from the popular HBO show, Westworld.
“You want to ask. So ask.”
“Are you real?”
“Well, if you can’t tell, does it matter?”
This character later turns down the sexual advances of an AI being because he has someone back home. The synthetic experience has become too human for him and therefore, the AI has passed the Turing test in this fictional world.
I'll begin with the all-important question: what is the Turing test? It was developed in the 1950’s by Alan Turing to address the progressing intelligence of machinery. Essentially, the test is a measure of whether a synthetic being/intelligence can pass as human. This was created long before home PC’s were even a concept. And in the past 60 years, we have exceeded so many expectations. Sure, we aren’t living like George Jetson, but that was hardly the goal to begin with. As a species, we believe that the greatest advancements come in small packages. Just look at that little device you pay $75 a month for. And with advancements like this, the march towards artificial intelligence has never been more fervent. While there have been some speech programs that have been successful at passing a psudo-Turing test, they cover only a single facet of human interaction and to this day, a complete Turing test has still not been passed. At least, as far as we know.
Turing was one of the most profound minds of his age, and dared to ask the question: “Can machines think?” Can life be summarized by simply creating a body and programming within it our own reasons for existence?
But, what if these questions are more dangerous than we suspect? Sure, Artificial Intelligence has been the subject of numerous literary works and Hollywood productions, such as “Blade Runner” and “Ex Machina.” Most often in these films, the artificial beings exploit the human’s (usually male) weakness for sexuality. But how different is genuine AI? It is difficult to say as ambition is a fundamentally human trait. Should AI be developed to match human ambition, the results could be catastrophic.
There are some truly brilliant minds who have warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence. Most notably, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have made prophetic warnings to humanity against the development of fully-functioning AI. Their warnings should not be taken lightly. Our reliance on technology may very well prove to be our undoing. Imagine the loss of the internet, if only for a week. Now imagine that most of a person’s assets are little more than numbers on a computer screen. Easily manipulated from within the system itself. The dangers of AI will not come in the form of The Terminator, but rather in empty bank accounts, a firewall blocking connection with other people, holding hostage our national defense systems.
As humans, we are prone to playing God on numerous occasions. But eventually, our greed and curiosity will be our undoing. As a species with a very finite lifespan, we are often short-sighted in our decision-making. We rarely look beyond our own lifetimes to see the impact our actions will have on future generations. But I implore the brightest minds among us to think critically about our endgame. Is the goal of technology to make humanity obsolete? Or do we set a threshold for ourselves now and limit our innovation only to improving our quality of life in less dramatic ways?
It is a terrifying concept to believe that all of those complex thoughts that pass through your mind in a given day are little more than basic mathematical functions performed by the biological calculator in your head. And what's more, that they can be replicated by a computer, our own creation.
As foreign as comic book villains may seem to the average Jane and Joe, the one that resonates the most in regards to AI is Marvel's Ultron: "Everyone creates the thing they dread. Men of peace create engines of war, invaders create avengers. People create (...) children, designed to supplant them. To help them... end."
Time will tell.
