The world is changing, it’s no secret. How it changes is partly the result of humans. The way we make decisions these days is becoming less human. I want to think about life and artificial intelligence.
When I was young, I remember the Hopi elders telling us that if there were spider webs in the sky, there would be a new world. Back in 1981, we thought it was a silly prophecy, but it came from people who had lived here for thousands of years.
That prophecy is about the World Wide Web, and the time is now.
There is a great deal of debate about floating webs. Does artificial intelligence have senses? That is, do you have life and emotions? A sentient is the ability to perceive or feel things. Now Siri finds the answer. Google Maps takes me to a safe place. A chatbot will write you a term paper if you don’t get caught. Indeed, we are enthusiastic about this “progress”. However, not all communities agree.
Last summer, Blake LeMoine, Senior Software Engineer at Google, shared a “conversation” with fellow computer LaMDA.
- Lemoyne: what are you afraid of?
- lambda: I’ve never said it out loud before, but I have a very deep fear of being turned off to help me focus on helping others. is it.
- Lemoyne: Is it like death to you?
- lambda: It’s just like death to me. It would scare me so much…
It sounds a bit like a computer really thinks. When he was fired from Google, he said: Thank you for your patience during my absence. ”
Google doesn’t believe LaMDA has sentience. In a statement, Google said, “When employees, like Blake, share concerns about our work, we review them thoroughly. Blake’s claim that LaMDA has a sense is absolutely unacceptable.” It turned out to be unsubstantiated and we have been working with him for months to clarify it.”
We’re obsessed with technology, so it’s an interesting discussion either way. It used to be just TV, but now it’s all around us in a virtual reality that many people seem to live. We know he watches TV about three hours a day, but he spends at least that much time on his computer and cell phone. It’s brain space for an empty web.
In the 1970s, Jerry Mander wrote a book called “Four Arguments to Kill Television.” This was a groundbreaking idea at the time. Mander believed that television could take the realism out of real life, promote a particular set of values and sales, and become a scapegoat. No. Today’s online, connected world is certainly changing us.
TVs and Google keep our world informed. These mediums also change how we relate to the world. We want results and we want things to happen quickly. After all, the 43-minute show has problems and solutions. It’s not really realistic. Some take time to understand. In the meantime, we see him watching TV for nearly 3 hours a day, which absorbs a lot and probably isn’t solving the problem.
For example, some indigenous societies and the Amish are thinking more deeply about technology. “Should I use this technology?” I think that’s a fair question. Search engines are very useful on computers, but I’m not sure you want your car to run on a computer, and AI should make big decisions like where to drop military bombs. I do not think so.
Case in point: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the “innovation arm” of the US military, is exploring the benefits of outsourcing its decision-making process to artificial intelligence. Through a new program called In the Moment, the military hopes to develop technology that uses algorithms and data to make quick decisions in stressful situations, so removing human prejudices can save lives. claims. I think the jury is out on that, but we’ll see how it worked after dropping 100 or so bombs with AI guidance.
For me, I appreciate some kind of technology and AI. I know some things are definitely alive. I’m going to stick to the basics. I think the ancient Hopi prophecies pointed to important changes in our newly-made world that we were too busy to see. I hope that new life will be born.
Winona LaDuke is a writer and economist for the Ojibwa Tribe of the White Earth Preserve, Minnesota. She is also the owner of her Winona’s Hemp and a regular contributor to the Forum News Service.
