Did you know that the Easter Bunny is not only a magical, mystical being, but is also an all-knowing cognoscenti? When the Easter Bunny showed up at our offices yesterday to award prizes to our Easter Coloring contest winners, I pulled her aside and asked that burning question every parent dwells upon: “How do I keep kids believing in you?” She looked me directly in the eyes and said, “You have to believe to receive!”
I’ve been musing quite a bit about the mythical and mystical lately, or more specifically, artificial intelligence (AI.) I’ve been following the life of “Sophia,” the most intelligent “humanoid” Robot in the world. Sophia can not only interact on a high intellectual level with us mere mortals, but she’s quite the artist as well. So much so, that she just sold her digital art for nearly $700,000. Dang, now that’s one porch light that’s on and somebody is home!
The latest advancements in AI are breathtaking. AI is also now creating brilliant, new mathematical formulae, including some that are yet to be solved by a human. That means that AI is now able to not only calculate faster but also understand the abstract and complex in a way we’ve never comprehended before. And some of the resulting AI-assisted discoveries like that space-time is ‘bendable’ and the accuracy of measuring time has gone far beyond atomic-time measurement is, well, bending my mind more accurately than ever before.
But since we’re talking about bunnies, let’s indulge in a little AI rabbit hole exploration. If you haven’t seen the movies “Her” starring Joaquin Phoenix, or Robin William’s “Bicentennial Man,” these two would be good kinfolk to mosey down this holler a fir piece with.
I’m not of the opinion that we’re going to have an armageddon “Terminator” relationship with robots. Nom sir, at least not on my watch. Rather, we’re already experiencing a much more symbiotic, uplifting relationship where Google home and the like are entertaining and educating us.
But, what happens when AI in fact does become like “Her” and is more than just the all-knowing cognoscenti dictionary? The moment when it morphs into another Albert Einstein, with a hundred times more smarts, and convinces us of a new reality just like the original Einstein convinced us E=mc2.
How will we accept a new race or class of sentient beings that not only exist amongst us but possibly, if they choose to have our similar worldview, even consider humans as inferior? As humans, we’ve struggled with race, class and equality problems for centuries. Now integrate AI into that bunny warren. Will we discriminate against AI by defining its race and class status too?
But what if AI shifts this paradigm so that it is not us who gets to define class, race and equality? For example, what if, instead of the easter bunny saying to me “you have to believe to receive,” she replied, “how do I convince bunnies that humans are real?”
What if AI was so intelligent that it offered new solutions that are beyond what we could ever dream of? I’m already seeing evidence to support this hypothesis from its ability to create new mathematical formulae that we can’t comprehend or solve yet. Or sell art for $700K. I have tried to sell art and it didn’t go well.
Let me leave you with a big pot to really fry your carrots, maters and taters. I’m sure you’ve heard about the Tesla autopilot cars that go haywire and kill pedestrians or drivers. What if that intelligent car was actually so smart that it killed a person on purpose? Maybe it is giving us the turning test. Testing our own human boundaries of tolerance and, just maybe, started teaching us to deeply consider our morals and our sense of what is right and wrong?
Kudos this week to those who make the world a cleaner place goes to Wally and Erik from the new MightyShine car wash in north Lewisburg. There’s something to the roar of the water and thundering of the brushes (and lights!) that create a full zen moment for me. My truck and I always come out on the other side like a cleaned, enlightened soul coming from a confession booth. If you see Wally or Erik around town, thank them for investing in Lewisburg as a new business. Heck, go big. Make their day with a monthly “Fast Pass” subscription. Your car will thank you.
Until next week, I’d love hearing your artificial intelligent anecdotes and hints on good folks doing awesome things for our community. I can be reached at drnews@wvdn.com. Happy Easter.
