On Artificial Intelligence and Machine Men : Part Fifteen

[ellyssian]

On Artificial Intelligence and Machine Men
By Everett A Warren
March 14, 2004

Presented as part fifteen of sixteen

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Part One
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"You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness."

Just as arguments about AI itself – whether 'tis nobler to "add like the devil, play chess better than 99.9 percent of the world and dust apartments with no supervision" or to "distinguish... a cat from a dog, navigat[e]... a New York sidewalk or conduct... a decent conversation"¹⁶ – spiral down into a never-ending circle, we shall turn on ourselves and reiterate that many feel it is this "power to create machines" that separates us from the apes. When that was brought up earlier, a distinction was made, led by Chaplin's speech, that went more along the lines of it being better to have "the power to create happiness."

Now we see the two concepts joined together.

It is not wrong to create machines, however it is wrong to value them above ourselves, quoth Chaplin: "More than machinery we need humanity." Without developing our own sense of humanity, of kindness and love, we will become those machine men. We will be set, focused on a goal, perhaps even good at what we do, but we will not have any soul behind what we do.

Our actions will be empty of meaning.

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Reference Links

16. Ashley Dunn - "Machine Intelligence, Part II: From Bumper Cars to Electronic Minds"

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~ Questions and discussion welcome! ~

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