In about 2015, I knew there was trouble when we started using an abbreviation — two vowels — to replace the two-word term that had been hovering in the news for at least a dozen years before. The two vowels were our first and third ones: AI.
When I first saw that abbreviation, I knew it meant that the scary term “Artificial Intelligence” was so commonplace that just its initials were now enough to send a collective shiver of dread through mankind.
I think the nebulousness of the term itself is intimidating. “Artificial Intelligence” is defined as “the simulation of human intelligence processes by computer systems.” Excuse me? Most definitions simplify terms; this one keeps the term almost theoretical because the whole threat of AI still seems immense and unlimited, especially compared to our own limited human intelligence.
Trying to define AI reminds me of the futility of trying to define other ideas too big to be comprehended. Take a term like “death”, for example. Nothing expressed the futility of such an endeavor better than a joke book for pre-teens I ordered way back in the early 1960’s from my Bar Mitzvah gift money I received that year. It was entitled Daffy Definitions. My favorite entry: “Death: Patrick Henry’s second choice.”
With AI, it’s not impending death that we’re worried about but rather impending domination by some kind of inhuman brainiacs who will easily outsmart us mere mortals. I keep reading about “the end of civilization as we know it.” Not in all of Chicken-Littledom was there quite the panic as that which is now frothed up by media-hyped stories, warning us of dire job displacement, utter lack of accountability, the death of individuals’ privacy, the heartbreak of psoriasis. OK, I made that last one up. So far nobody’s mentioned that AI will make the sky fall — but it’s still early days.
My view on the issue is quite different. And it began with my realization that the term “Artificial Intelligence” is actually redundant, isn’t it? After all, “artificial” simply means something made or produced by humans, rather than something natural. And as much as we want to believe that our particular intelligence quotient (which used to be referred to by two other initials—IQ) belongs uniquely to our brain, it does not. All intelligence is “artificial,” since it involves our acquisition of knowledge from others’ observations, not ours. We simply receive it and use it. It is in no sense organic.
AI can never threaten what truly makes our lives worth living, something that is as organic within us as our intelligence is artificial. It is our emotional life, which we alone develop from within. Some of it is based on our DNA, that our parents organically passed on to us at birth; some of it is our unique spiritual relation to the universe around us. It is our empathy, our connection to our feelings; and it’s how we turn our intuitions into actions. It gives us deep knowledge of ourselves, which is far more fulfilling and enriching than the knowledge that intelligence provides us and that can be duplicated by AI.
So when panic about AI’s malevolent future rears its ugly head, take shelter in knowing intuitively that it can never touch the joy we feel when hearing a child’s laugh, or when gazing at a fully-blossomed peony, or cherishing a pet’s utter devotion.
And remember Chicken Little’s friend, Goosey Loosey. It was she who pointed out that it was an acorn, not the sky, that fell on her freaked-out friend’s head. Think back to New Year’s Day, 2000, when all our skies were supposed to fall due to that malevolent Y2K bug. It turned out to be no more deadly than Goosey’s acorn.
In our current age of senseless panic and outrage over vicious hourly clickbaits, let’s not forget to take it easy on ourselves and seek whatever emotional fulfillment gives our life its greatest value. It is Goosey’s name that has become an adjective needed for these overwrought times: “loosey-goosey,” meaning “notably relaxed.” To swim through chaotic times, don’t grab hold of the water, because you’ll sink. Just relax — and you’ll float.
Email Elliot at huffam@me.com or click here