“Augmented” Intelligence…I Think

“Artificial Intelligence” has become quite the buzzword these days, especially in an era of never-ending buzz words. Every day there’s excitement, enthusiasm and mesmorizing anticipation. Along with all the drama of the ages as mankind seemingly climbs the evolutionary ladder a dozen rungs at a time. Like everybody else, I have my own opinions, but what can differentiate mine from anybody else’s. To go along with all the hype comes a tremendous amount of absolutely useless noise. How can my own little voi ce rise above the noise and not become a part of it.

Although I believe that artificial intelligence is overestimated in many respects, I am nevertheless very turbulent about its potential, even if one takes into account all the noise. A large part of this work concentrates on its peculiarities, especially the one where artificial intelligence will outstrip human intelligence. Previously I had to ease mentioning “artificial intelligence”, so it didn’t sound too “sci-fi” and I was scared of people, and now observers are disappointed if your solution is not completely magical. They showed us what we cannot achieve (conscious programmatic intelligence), but how we can create something less dramatic, but at the same time very valuable: unconscious programmatic intelligence.

But, unfortunately, I think people spend WAY too much time thinking about enhancing a machine’s intelligence to the point where it “turns” on mankind. We should be thinking about the possibilities of enhancing our OWN intelligence instead. After all, AI is just a tool like any other. Apparently we fear our machines because we fear ourselves. It’s the “augmented” self we need to become aware of. We are “augmented” whenever we pull out google maps on our cell phone to find out where we are…or send a live video to our friends on Whatsapp and Instagram. We don’t have to try to “out think” a computer. We just need it to help US think. THAT’S the point! We just need to get better at that and then watch what happens.

Any account on Facebook or online is already a link between the human and some artificial intelligence.
Just as the brain recognizes patterns and helps us categorize and classify information, neural networks do the same for computers. Nothing makes it impossible to appreciate human intelligence, such as finding out how incredibly difficult it is to create a computer as wise as we are. Any attempt to interpret human behaviour primarily as a system of computational mechanisms and the brain as a kind of computer apparatus is doomed to failure. If an intelligent machine were able to distinguish between intricate ones, if the dark regularity in the data about what we have been doing in the past, it could be able to extrapolate about our later desires, even if we do not fully know them.

Then I read about the huge commitment of the world-wide software industry to artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Starting from language development and the creation of large, densely populated communities, moving forward with writing and printing inventions and now enhanced by tools such as the Internet. Collective intelligence of humanity is one of the main reasons why we have managed to overtake all other species. Until the 1990s, despite punishing computer chess movements, we were still not very close to artificial intelligence in general. Therefore, while man can always act in new ways (regardless of how impressive our brain is, and perhaps even a cocktail with very human features of intuition and spontaneity), computers will become stuck when they come across situations where they are not told how to act (or how to learn to act).

But the real  “proof of the pudding” is this article itself. It is solely my article and original. However, a part of it was written by me by hand, and  a part of it is written by “Stinky” my AI ghost writer. Can you tell which is which? It won’t be hard to tell the difference between “fact” and “feeling”. After all, that’s what good writing is all about. Just remember, if you judge this to be a good article, it’s not because I used AI to write it, it’s because AI made ME a better writer. I don’t mind a little “extra” intelligence. Do you?