AI’s Brave New World Or Bust?

Noonan’s “Artificial Intelligence in the Garden of Eden” warns “People in the tech world want … to be God … something bad is going to happen” ala Adam & Eve. She might have cited scientists’ creation of the A-Bomb ...

Peggy begins at the beginning, i.e., by reciting the Biblical prideful downfall of the first humans. She suggests the famous Apple icon of a pomme de terre with a bite taken out of it is a subconscious metaphor warning us that the inventors themselves knew full well about the looming dangers of the Internet revolution WITHOUT ANY CONTROLS OVER WHAT THEY WERE ABOUT TO GIVE US: “Political polarization for profit, the knowing encouragement of internet addiction, the destruction of childhood, a nation that has grown shallower & less able to think – we have come to understand the visionaries who created it all, and those who now govern AI, are only arguably admirable or impressive.” Well, the pundit pointedly calls guys like Gates & Zuckerberg “half mad” tech gurus without normal brains. More damning still: “The men & women of Silicon Valley have demonstrated extreme genius-like brilliance in one part of life, inventing tech. Because they are human & vain [as was Adam & Eve], they think it extends to all parts. It doesn’t They aren’t especially wise, they aren’t deep and … their consciences seem unevenly developed.”

Of course, Noonan acknowledges all the good things the Internet have brought us & the next-generation Artificial Intelligence promises. And, as during WWII & the frantic effort to be the first nation to develop the Atomic Bomb to end the Holocaust, there are already clarion calls to beat the enemy [i.e., Red China] to the AI dream of becoming God-like. Again, she could have but did not ask, “How has that atomic lesson worked out?” But, Noonan did conclude: “This new world cannot be left in [Silicon Valley’s] hands.”

Davd Soul