1. Are We Sleepwalking Through Life?
In Langdon Winner’s “Technologies
as a Form of Life”, he writes about technological somnambulism and how it is
altering our lives. Technological
somnambulism is defined as how we “willingly sleepwalk through the process of
reconstructing the conditions of human existence.” Winner claims that humans willingly sleepwalk
through our lives because of the affect that technology has on us. Our involvement with technology is a non-problematic
interaction; we simply make and then use it.
We do not take the time to examine or analyze what it is that we are
doing with technology. Our sleepwalking
begins as a habitual interaction with technology that we do not think twice
about. Once we do this same interaction
over a period of time, it simply becomes a part of our everyday lives; it
becomes normal. Humanity has taken
advantage of the ease and convenience of technology instead of actually taking
the time and contemplating how to use it in the best way that would maintain the
conditions of human existence. For
example, most teenagers today have an intimate relationship with technology
such as their phones and social media.
It is so normal to log on to Facebook or Twitter on your phone and spend
time emailing and texting friends that people do not even realize how the use
of their phones have changes their interactions and relationships with other
human beings. Technology can, in some
ways, limit our social interaction with other people when face-to-face
communication is taken into account.
But, when it comes to the sharing of information, modern technology is
an invaluable asset to the modern world.
Phones make it so easy to get in touch with someone and efficiently
share information without ever having to actually talk to the other person or
persons. Animosity has led people to be
crueler in saying their opinions because they are able to hide behind the mask
of social media; they do not have to look the person that they are criticizing
in the eyes. Technology has changed our
actions towards one another by gradually changing our daily routines into
becoming more and more physically isolated.
When people communicate face-to-face, they are not as emotionally
connected as they used to be because they are losing their understanding of how
to connect with each other. Some
examples of technologies that we so nonchalantly use and take advantage of are
microwaves, cell phones, of course, modern medicine, and GPS. We see GPS as a convenience that helps us
know where we are. But, GPS can also be
used for evil. It can be used to track
us without our knowledge; the government also has GPS in drones in order to spy
on certain locations and drop bombs on specific places. In the case of the drone bombings and spying,
it is difficult to say who is responsible; it is not the technology its self,
so is it the creator of the technology or the person who tells the technology
what to do. The use of new and advanced
technology brings forth a question of moral responsibility. Many people are not sure where these lines
are drawn because of our technological somnambulism. Modern medicine has enabled humanity to make
amazing improvements when it comes to healing previously incurable diseases,
creating prosthesis, and preventing future disasters. But, it also has brought about the concern of
whether or not some of the things that we do are actually moral; should we do
them just because we are able to and they make our lives easier? Our phones and social media especially allow
us to expand the range of people who we know, but it gives us a sense of
constant affirmation. If we do not have
this constant affirmation of our surroundings and people that we know, we
become terrified of the unknown. Because
of new and emerging technologies, we so frequently see the world as new and
strange. When we do experience the world
for what it really is, we cannot see through the fear that the lack of
technology has created.
5. AI: To Be or Not To Be
Ava, in Ex Machina,
was a true example of artificial intelligence due to the fact that she was able
to set goals for herself; her goal to escape was not pre-coded into her
operating system. If she was not AI, she
would not have felt the need to be free.
The word “need” is very important when considering AI. Does a true AI
actually feel emotions or is it just programmed to respond a certain way to
specific situations? This is a question
that we, as emotionally affected humans, must consider when determining whether
a machine is AI or not. Even though Ava
had never been outside of the research facility that she was created in, she
longed to be free from all constraints.
Ava had the ability to make the necessary decisions needed to escape her
confinement. Ash 2.0, in Be Right Back, was not a good example of
AI because he could only be what social media made him. Ash 2.0 was the version of himself that the
real Ash wanted the world to see. Martha was able to make the robot Ash more
like the real thing by providing pictures and other information, but the
information and memories that she provided came from her perception of Ash. Due to the problem of the other mind, no one
could give information about how Ash truly was to the robot besides Ash himself. Ash 2.0 could not make his own decisions; he
was controlled by the actions and decisions that were actually performed in the
past by Ash. Martha got frustrated
because she expected him to act just like Ash and make decisions that Ash would
make, but the robot did not have that ability.
Ash 2.0 had no fear or longing for life when Martha told him to jump off
of the cliff. He was going to jump
without fear until Martha got upset and explained how the real Ash would have
reacted to the situation. He felt no
need to preserve its life and therefore was not a true AI machine. Marta was able to keep Ash 2.0 in the attic
for years without having him rebel or even attempt to escape at all. It is not that he did not think that he
could, but rather, that he did not have a problem with being confined to the
attic. He did not feel the need for
freedom like Ava did. This is one of the
major defining differences between the two machines.
Obviously, we have some moral obligation to other
intelligent beings; we have moral laws that we, for the most part, abide by
when interacting with other humans. We
have a consciousness of what is morally right and morally wrong to do to
another being. Even less intelligent
creatures claim a moral obligation. We
know that it is immoral and evil to treat a pet in an abusive manner; we have
an obligation to protect the animals and keep them from harm. PETA and other animal protection
organizations have been created for this very reason. But, what constitutes a moral
obligation? In class we touched upon the
subject of souls. But then the question
becomes that of the location of the soul.
Do trees and viruses have soul?
How can we determine which organisms possess souls? So then, we turned to the topic of
consciousness. Will a true AI have a
consciousness? If it does, then I
believe that we would have a moral obligation to that machine. If the robot can feel and be affected by its
own emotions, it should be treated the same as we treat other beings that have
a consciousness. We would have to
understand that they deserve respect and that we can no longer take advantage
of their knowledge for our own selfish purposes; they would have the ability to
possess things of their own and not be used solely as devices to make our lives
easier. The AI machine would be held
responsible for its own actions and would be treated just as any other
conscious human would. Humans would also
have to accept the fact that if the machine had a consciousness, we could not
just turn it off like we would a normal computer because that would be similar
to killing another human. Killing causes
pain and ends the life of a conscious being.
These moral obligations would hold true regardless of whether or not the
being is “organic” because it would still possess a consciousness. If we can create a being that has an
awareness and consciousness, that would be something truly amazing, but we
would have to understand that, when we are to cross that line, AI will claim
the same moral obligations that we give to all other conscious beings, metal or
not.
6. The Turing Test
The Turing Test is a test that is performed to determine if
a computer possesses artificial intelligence.
If a computer possesses artificial intelligence, it will be able to
think, make its own decisions, and have a consciousness. The Test is conducted with a board of humans
who have several five minute chat conversations with so-called
“confederates”. The board members do not
know if the confederates are human or computer.
At the end of five minutes, each board member has to make a decision on
if they think that the confederate that they were just chatting with was human
or computer. If a computer convinces
seventy percent of the board that it is human, it passes the Test. In other words, it wins the imitation
game. The award for the most human
computer goes to the computer that tricked the most board members into thinking
that it was human. Alan Turing, the
creator of the Turing Test believed that by the year 2000, we would have
achieved artificial intelligence; obviously that did not happen, but we are
getting closer and closer each year.
Turing believed that if a computer won the imitation game, it would possess
intelligence because it would be able to make a human believe that it was just
like them; the only way that a computer could convince a majority of humans
that it also was human, would be if it actually possessed intelligence. Without any form of intelligence, it would
not be possible for a computer to imitate an actual human so well. The computer programmers who participate in
the Turing Test code their programs to make grammatical mistakes and to respond
two or three times in a row to try to provide a stream of consciousness. These tactics trick some board members, but
not enough for the computers to be determined AI. All of
the things that humans thought would be hard for computers are easy and all the
things that humans thought would be easy for computers are actually especially
difficult. Computers are extremely good
at answering questions with no consciousness of who is asking or the context in
which the question is asked; their answers tend to be a collaboration of how
other humans would answer. Something
that is very difficult for a computer but easy for a human is image recognition;
humans are able to easily identify others through facial recognition, while
computers have a much more difficult time.
Also, computer programs tend to start over after each questions, so it
is hard for them to carry on a continuous conversation. This is a tell-tale sign for a board member
that they are chatting with a computer. The
Turing Test presupposes that if a computer can trick a human through
communication, it possesses artificial intelligence due to the fact that we are
fundamentally social beings. But
computers cannot have an actual conversation without having the ability to
think. They are expected to communicate
in a rigid and very formal way, while humans are expected to communicate with a
more laid back and lazy style; humans will be mistaken, while computers will
not. In order for computers to pass the
Turing Test, they have to be able to communicate in a humanistic way, but who
is to say that this way of communication is the only style of communication
that will determine a computer intelligent?
Computers are typically seen as void of emotion. They can exhibit programmed reactions that we
could easily take to be emotions. The
thing that makes humans different than computers, with respect to emotions, is
that we have the freedom to feel emotions, while computers must have
emotion-like reactions coded into them; we can go beyond code. Computers are expected to be perfectly
rational. In class we discussed the idea
of something being perfectly rational. I
feel that there is no way that a computer can be perfectly rational if it is
created by imperfect humans; the foundation that computers intelligence is
built on is in essence imperfect.
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