“Artificial Intelligence will destroy us. It’s just a matter of time” writes the anti-AI technophobic on Twitter. “This is going to be like the invention of fire” declares a Medium article with more claps than reads. Our voices are getting mixed in a massive never-ending, infinite-scrolling, future-predicting stream of opinions. AI is riding the swing of progress, one day is salvation, one day is damnation.
We won’t stop. We never did and we never will.
After all we are drawn to magic. Like flies in summer nights we buzz around zapper lights looking for a safe place, hoping it won’t kill us. Automation will either evolve us into heaven or make the planet an impossible hell. The AI discussion is incredibly complex and beautiful, but we condensed it into its extremes, creating foes and heroes to write the great tech odyssey of our generation. Stories spread faster than everything else on this planet, but who we can blame for it?
The promise of technology has never been so personal and visceral like the AI promise. In the night we dream of thinking machines, in the day we think of dreaming machines. Inebriated by the mystery of our own consciousness we advertise a radiant future of digital immortality, love stories between organic and metal lifeforms, all-mighty virtual gods at our service. We are so obsessed by cracking the code of our mind that we lost sight of the real implications of this technology and the consequences are starting to rush on us from every angle. Deep-fakes, fairness problems, ethics dilemmas, information bubbles, cheap human labor, etc… We are so focused to find the ghost in the machine that we don’t notice how powerful and jaw-dropping is the machine just by itself.
We are in a need for a different kind of conversation. One where we can distance ourselves from the appealing power of easy stories and epic dreams. A middle ground and a playground, where AI can be put under the realistic scrutiny of the modern eye and where it can finally shine for what it really is. A place where we are more excited by the consequences of being able to extract and replicate the essence of things. Emotions, driving a car, business emails, the beauty of the sound of poetry, financial fluctuations, customer care requests, Van Gogh paintings, the most efficient ways to run a factory or to have an orgasm. With enough data, the right sensors and proper AI models we can unlock the secrets behind these and many more. We need a discussion focused on the incredible opportunities that a tool like this can create in the hands of artists, middle-aged women, CEOs or taxi drivers.
The stakes are high and the threads to follow are too many.
This is why we ask you to consider the pilot whale.
The best indicator of intelligence in animals is called General Information Processing Capacity or IPC. It takes in consideration a variety of factors, such as the number of neurons in the brain, neuron packing density and interneuronal distance. It’s the closest thing we came up with to describe the range of different animal intelligence we have on the planet. Basically, the number of neurons in your brain, plugged into some function, can spit out your IQ. The highest IPC is found in humans, followed by the great apes, Old World and New World monkeys. It’s such a good indicator of intelligence that people with larger brain volumes tend to be smarter than people with smaller brains.
A Pilot Whale Can we really trust them?
The only problem with this relentless IPC theory is pilot whales. They have about 37 billion cortical neurons, which is twice as many as humans. So, either pilot whales are twice as smart as humans and consciously decided to retire into an aquatic technology-free heaven, or there’s something we clearly don’t understand about the way intelligence works. We still don’t hold any certainties about intelligence and its development, being it human intelligence or cetacean, let alone build an artificial one.
Consider the pilot whale, how it baffles modern scientific theories, how little we know about intelligence and then consider how fast modern AI is changing the world around us as you read this. Consider how powerful could be the applications of AI yet to be experimented. Imagine the consequences of ignoring these discussions because we are too focused on discussing the creation of a true artificial mind. Is it worth it?
The threads of AI are countless and all deeply interesting, but this is an invitation to pick the ones that will influence our society sooner. This is an invitation to focus on the ones that are changing the world right now.