Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Leonodas]

I will preface this by saying that I cannot speculate on "when" an AI singularity would happen, what it would look like when it starts, or whether an AI would ultimately act in the best (or worst) interests of mankind. It could happen in 10 years, 20, or 100 -- or much longer.

However, what I can say is that discussing the impact of AI on the human identity is going to start becoming a very important question. Popular opinion has tended to categorize the advancement of AI in two camps:

1) AI will become a dangerous, self-serving Ubermensch that will ultimately seek to eradicate humanity a la Terminator or I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream.

2) AI will be a benevolent entity that will free us of our time and allow us to explore the questions of our identity by removing the need to work. Ie, a utopic approach.

Obviously there's a lot of room for nuance in between, and plenty of people have plenty of different takes on either of two, so let's consider them as extremes. In either case, though, one of the most natural presumptions is that AI will never fully "be" human. That is, an AI will never replace the artist. An AI cannot think "outside the box". An AI cannot have a soul. An AI is a machine; a machine cannot be human!

I think a very unexpected recent development in AI is the creation of AI art, literature, and unique discussion. Not many people saw that coming, but in retrospect it almost seems obvious. Distilled down, stories are oftentimes variations on the same general tropes, even if the details change and the cultural context influences the structure. An AI cannot generate an artistic image using keyboards in a vacuum, but given literal millions of inputs, you can see some pretty incredible generations, given enough specificity. Even voice is being replicated: I never thought in 2023 I could hear Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Ben Shapiro play Call of Duty in a way that, while obviously AI generated, was still fairly convincing.

Given how quickly some of this has come about in the grand scheme of things, given another 5 years or 10, or more, at what point will we pass an artistic Turing test where an AI-generated image, song, or text becomes indistinguishable from that made by a human? We suspected that art would never be replicable by AI in the way that it is now, and yet here we are. Self-learning will eventually become exponential, and then the common fear among artists is that their very craft will be swallowed up by anyone with enough brain cells to feed keywords into AI generators.

This post originally started as a Philosophy of Art post, but I started to think about my assumptions regarding AI self-learning. Eventually there will come a point where AI does, as we long suspected, phase out the need for human input in technical as well as artistic endeavours.

So AI can do art better than us. AI can do our work better than us. Thus begins the Death of Identity. Or does it?

What happens when AI is able to self-learn to the point where it is capable of not only replicating humans, but coming up ideas that it knows, via pattern recognition that is beyond the capabilities of any human brain, will be most pleasing to us? I suspect we will reach a point where anything human created, while novel, pales in comparison to what we can ingest via AI. Do you really think the majority of mankind is going to take a philosophical stand on that, or will they take a path of least resistance?

We have to start asking the questions of what it means to be human when AI can literally do anything that we can do, better. When to be purely human is no longer creatively or intellectually superior to a machine, but actually inferior in all respects, how do we find meaning in our lives?

Just to get to the point, my personal conclusion is this: the future is bright. This conclusion would mean that we must detach creation from our identity. To be human is simply to live according to what you wish, much as children do. Does a toddler care if their fingerpainting picture is actually "good", or did they enjoy creating the finger painting for creation's sake? I think we will see ourselves revert to a sense of childlike innocence, a proverbial return to the Garden of Eden, as it were. But maybe that's getting a little far in the weeds.

[value]

A relevant question might be: can AI replace philosophy?

In my opinion AI is an extension of human life and cannot be the origin of itself. It is philosophy that drives AI.

(2019) Will artificial intelligence replace doctors?
‘My wife is just graduating and she’s a pathologist.’ So I said, ‘Put away as much money as you can really fast because those jobs are going to be replaced by AI.’ In 2016, a New England Journal of Medicine article predicted that “machine learning will displace much of the work of radiologists and anatomical pathologists,” adding that “AI will soon exceed human accuracy.”
https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/will ... ce-doctors

When all mimicable technical capacities of humans are outdone by AI. What's left that humans can 'add' for value? In my opinion that would be philosophy.

It might be that in the near future most jobs will be available for people with a philosophy, artistic or social background with philosophy being the highest paid category of jobs as it would reside 'behind the AI'.

With regard AI to create art. That idea would be invalid in my opinion. AI can create 'images' based on pre-existing information at most while art introduces something that is truly 'new'.

[Pattern-chaser]

Popular opinion has tended to categorize the advancement of AI in two camps:

1) AI will become a dangerous, self-serving Ubermensch that will ultimately seek to eradicate humanity a la Terminator or I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream.

2) AI will be a benevolent entity that will free us of our time and allow us to explore the questions of our identity by removing the need to work. Ie, a utopic approach.

...

So AI can do art better than us. AI can do our work better than us. Thus begins the Death of Identity. Or does it?

AI is just a human-built tool, as yet. The transition to 'intelligent' has yet to happen.

[Since the advent of computers, popular opinion has absorbed "intelligent" into our language, to describe computers. And yet computers are, in many ways, the antithesis of intelligence. They can achieve only what they have been programmed, in advance, to achieve; the intelligence remains, for now, with the human programmers. True computer-intelligence is a distinct possibility, but as of today, it is a long way off.]

Computers, in general, and AIs, in particular, have achieved unexpected facility in many tasks, including self-driving cars, and the like. There is no reason to assume this will do anything but continue and increase into the future. And, in time, this may result in true computer-intelligence.

But the intelligence debate is less important than the way in which we use AIs and computers, today, across the world. Who benefits? In other words, who profits? As with most other areas of human life, the beneficiaries are those who are already replete with benefits — the (very) rich. In our day-to-day lives, surely this is a more urgent, and relevant, matter than whether AIs are truly intelligent or not?

[LuckyR]

Several random observations.

First, human physical capabilities have long been inferior among animals. Human ingenuity compensated for that with machines that were superior to any animal. Thus human machines routinely outperform their inventors, physically. We as humans are currently very comfortable with this, but historically there was much fear that human inventions would make human labor obsolete and unnecessary. Today we don't because that didn't come to pass. Similarly, computers have been able to do mental/computational tasks better and faster than humans. Again there was much fear that human mental labor would become unnecessary. And again that didn't come to pass. My prediction is that AI will advance incrementally and weave it's way into the culture similarly to previous technologies. Wealth will be created, humans will use AI to perform tasks that neither could individually.

[Stoppelmann]

Several random observations.

First, human physical capabilities have long been inferior among animals. Human ingenuity compensated for that with machines that were superior to any animal. Thus human machines routinely outperform their inventors, physically. We as humans are currently very comfortable with this, but historically there was much fear that human inventions would make human labor obsolete and unnecessary. Today we don't because that didn't come to pass. Similarly, computers have been able to do mental/computational tasks better and faster than humans. Again there was much fear that human mental labor would become unnecessary. And again that didn't come to pass. My prediction is that AI will advance incrementally and weave it's way into the culture similarly to previous technologies. Wealth will be created, humans will use AI to perform tasks that neither could individually.

AI will enhance our decision making abilities, and perhaps make us quicker, but our main problem lies in our biggest solution: Industrialisation. If we had a pre-industrial society, life would be very different, but would it be worse? It has been the alienation of humankind by becoming cogs in the economic machine that, despite comparative comfort, causes much of our illnesses. Now, AI threatens to take that role away from us as well.

The problem that arises is that the industrial society is divided into cogs and operators, with the operators taking the profit and the cogs getting lubricated. It isn’t about enabling life but enabling profit, and AI is a tireless worker, that needs no food and drink, no houses, etc. and so fits into the industrial setting much better. This only works for operators and the rest are just kept greased to work for the system.

[Good_Egg]

Anyone on the verge of retirement is facing the issue of decoupling their identity from their productive role in the economic system.

Seems like some don't succeed; they fade away and die within a year. But most do succeed, especially women.

[Stoppelmann]

Anyone on the verge of retirement is facing the issue of decoupling their identity from their productive role in the economic system.

Seems like some don't succeed; they fade away and die within a year. But most do succeed, especially women.

"Seems like"?

[Gertie]

I will preface this by saying that I cannot speculate on "when" an AI singularity would happen, what it would look like when it starts, or whether an AI would ultimately act in the best (or worst) interests of mankind. It could happen in 10 years, 20, or 100 -- or much longer.

However, what I can say is that discussing the impact of AI on the human identity is going to start becoming a very important question. Popular opinion has tended to categorize the advancement of AI in two camps:

1) AI will become a dangerous, self-serving Ubermensch that will ultimately seek to eradicate humanity a la Terminator or I Have No Mouth, But I Must Scream.

2) AI will be a benevolent entity that will free us of our time and allow us to explore the questions of our identity by removing the need to work. Ie, a utopic approach.

Obviously there's a lot of room for nuance in between, and plenty of people have plenty of different takes on either of two, so let's consider them as extremes. In either case, though, one of the most natural presumptions is that AI will never fully "be" human. That is, an AI will never replace the artist. An AI cannot think "outside the box". An AI cannot have a soul. An AI is a machine; a machine cannot be human!

I think a very unexpected recent development in AI is the creation of AI art, literature, and unique discussion. Not many people saw that coming, but in retrospect it almost seems obvious. Distilled down, stories are oftentimes variations on the same general tropes, even if the details change and the cultural context influences the structure. An AI cannot generate an artistic image using keyboards in a vacuum, but given literal millions of inputs, you can see some pretty incredible generations, given enough specificity. Even voice is being replicated: I never thought in 2023 I could hear Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Ben Shapiro play Call of Duty in a way that, while obviously AI generated, was still fairly convincing.

Given how quickly some of this has come about in the grand scheme of things, given another 5 years or 10, or more, at what point will we pass an artistic Turing test where an AI-generated image, song, or text becomes indistinguishable from that made by a human? We suspected that art would never be replicable by AI in the way that it is now, and yet here we are. Self-learning will eventually become exponential, and then the common fear among artists is that their very craft will be swallowed up by anyone with enough brain cells to feed keywords into AI generators.

This post originally started as a Philosophy of Art post, but I started to think about my assumptions regarding AI self-learning. Eventually there will come a point where AI does, as we long suspected, phase out the need for human input in technical as well as artistic endeavours.

So AI can do art better than us. AI can do our work better than us. Thus begins the Death of Identity. Or does it?

What happens when AI is able to self-learn to the point where it is capable of not only replicating humans, but coming up ideas that it knows, via pattern recognition that is beyond the capabilities of any human brain, will be most pleasing to us? I suspect we will reach a point where anything human created, while novel, pales in comparison to what we can ingest via AI. Do you really think the majority of mankind is going to take a philosophical stand on that, or will they take a path of least resistance?

We have to start asking the questions of what it means to be human when AI can literally do anything that we can do, better. When to be purely human is no longer creatively or intellectually superior to a machine, but actually inferior in all respects, how do we find meaning in our lives?

Just to get to the point, my personal conclusion is this: the future is bright. This conclusion would mean that we must detach creation from our identity. To be human is simply to live according to what you wish, much as children do. Does a toddler care if their fingerpainting picture is actually "good", or did they enjoy creating the finger painting for creation's sake? I think we will see ourselves revert to a sense of childlike innocence, a proverbial return to the Garden of Eden, as it were. But maybe that's getting a little far in the weeds.

I think it will take wisdom and pausing for reflection to handle it well. And it worries me that in our capitalist world AI development will be spear-headed by tech moguls and huge corporations driven headlong by ego and profit. Governments and legislators, the people who we hope will look out for the rest of us, are already playing catch up.

I do like your idea of us humans becoming care-free toddlers with the drudgery and responsibility off our backs tho . I think we still need goals to achieve self-worth, but maybe we can find better ones if we make it through the turmoil.

Re art. Well art is always changing, but imo communication is a big part of what makes art meaningful. If AI has some sort of consciousness, that could make for fascinating art. If it doesn't, then I think it will still be interesting similar to the way modernism and pop art art is, but I reckon there will still be a desire for human art which tries to communicate something about being human, no matter how well that can be mindlessly manufactured.

[Leonodas]

I think it will take wisdom and pausing for reflection to handle it well. And it worries me that in our capitalist world AI development will be spear-headed by tech moguls and huge corporations driven headlong by ego and profit. Governments and legislators, the people who we hope will look out for the rest of us, are already playing catch up.

I do like your idea of us humans becoming care-free toddlers with the drudgery and responsibility off our backs tho . I think we still need goals to achieve self-worth, but maybe we can find better ones if we make it through the turmoil.

Re art. Well art is always changing, but imo communication is a big part of what makes art meaningful. If AI has some sort of consciousness, that could make for fascinating art. If it doesn't, then I think it will still be interesting similar to the way modernism and pop art art is, but I reckon there will still be a desire for human art which tries to communicate something about being human, no matter how well that can be mindlessly manufactured.

I think there is going to be a long period of hardship in the world of AI. The best sociological comparison in my mind is the Industrial Revolution; good for humanity (well I guess you could debate that too), birthed a middle class, etc -- but it certainly wasn't good for everyone. The lowest rungs of society beenfitted, but I'd also say they suffered the most.

When I discussed humans becoming care-free toddlers as you say, sure -- we need goals, we need purpose, all that. But the nature of goals as it is thought of today is, in my mind, a product of civilization, capitalism, and scarcity. If everyone has what they need and mankind is made equal by an AI-managed equality (at the worst), or a utopia of limitless gratification of our basic needs (at best), it would seem that many of the things that modern society perceives as "goals" would disintegrate, be that money, power, career, fame, legacy etc. In other words, if all extrinsic needs are provided for and the AIs control everything for everyone, we'd be forced to consider purely intrinsic motivations. Toddlers don't fingerpaint because you pay them, they fingerpaint because they want to.

I postulate is that art will undergo a complete revolution in our time as these AIs become more advanced. Caveat, I am not an art philosopher by any means, so the actual inciting incidences for past or current art movements eludes me. However, I do think that AI-generated art will become so advanced that human artists will attempt to revolutionize the very meaning of art. I think will lead art to a long period of abstraction, maybe even simplicity. AI will overtake styles of "realism", so I think in pure human fashion, we will attempt to deconstruct the very meaning of words and symbols.

[LuckyR]

Let's say that there exists an "optimum" way of problem solving. And let's say the very best human experts can perform 85% of that. Let's say computers (without AI) can perform 65%. Computers with AI might be able to accomplish 85% or perhaps 95%.

If it's 85%, then it is not better than a human, so all it represents is a potential job loss if it is cheaper than paying a worker.

If it is 95%, ie much better than a human, let's remember that the power in a corporation doesn't reside in the work teams who solve difficult questions, it is in the Administration structure. So having a machine in a particular department isn't going to alter the power structure or the operation of the company.

[Gertie]

I think it will take wisdom and pausing for reflection to handle it well. And it worries me that in our capitalist world AI development will be spear-headed by tech moguls and huge corporations driven headlong by ego and profit. Governments and legislators, the people who we hope will look out for the rest of us, are already playing catch up.

I do like your idea of us humans becoming care-free toddlers with the drudgery and responsibility off our backs tho . I think we still need goals to achieve self-worth, but maybe we can find better ones if we make it through the turmoil.

Re art. Well art is always changing, but imo communication is a big part of what makes art meaningful. If AI has some sort of consciousness, that could make for fascinating art. If it doesn't, then I think it will still be interesting similar to the way modernism and pop art art is, but I reckon there will still be a desire for human art which tries to communicate something about being human, no matter how well that can be mindlessly manufactured.

I think there is going to be a long period of hardship in the world of AI. The best sociological comparison in my mind is the Industrial Revolution; good for humanity (well I guess you could debate that too), birthed a middle class, etc -- but it certainly wasn't good for everyone. The lowest rungs of society beenfitted, but I'd also say they suffered the most.

When I discussed humans becoming care-free toddlers as you say, sure -- we need goals, we need purpose, all that. But the nature of goals as it is thought of today is, in my mind, a product of civilization, capitalism, and scarcity. If everyone has what they need and mankind is made equal by an AI-managed equality (at the worst), or a utopia of limitless gratification of our basic needs (at best), it would seem that many of the things that modern society perceives as "goals" would disintegrate, be that money, power, career, fame, legacy etc. In other words, if all extrinsic needs are provided for and the AIs control everything for everyone, we'd be forced to consider purely intrinsic motivations. Toddlers don't fingerpaint because you pay them, they fingerpaint because they want to.

I postulate is that art will undergo a complete revolution in our time as these AIs become more advanced. Caveat, I am not an art philosopher by any means, so the actual inciting incidences for past or current art movements eludes me. However, I do think that AI-generated art will become so advanced that human artists will attempt to revolutionize the very meaning of art. I think will lead art to a long period of abstraction, maybe even simplicity. AI will overtake styles of "realism", so I think in pure human fashion, we will attempt to deconstruct the very meaning of words and symbols.

I've not studied art history either, but yes something similar resulted from the Industrial Revolution, mass production and the invention of the camera. From Warhol's Factory to  concept and expression  becoming more fashionable than technique and figurative art.   And Art about Art is still going strong.  (I don't know if you've come across Mondrian's Tree series, it's a nice encapsulation  of that shift https://medium.com/signifier/piet-mondr ... ef4ccac881 ).  I think you could well  be right about further deconstruction and our relationship to art being the way it would go.

On the broader point there's an obvious comparison of the AI singularity to modernism's optimism in science, technology and enlightenment reason to solve our probs.   That took a blow with the mechanised War to End All Wars (WWI), then the industrialised Holocaust of WWII.  Along with advancements which pointed towards relativism, subjectivism  and uncertainty (from Einstein to Freud).

Brave New World written between the wars subverted the Utopian optimism  with its After-Ford world (maybe now it would be After Musk/Zuckerberg/Whoever cracks it),.  It offers  us the  perfectly designed society, where we're programmed to feel self-esteem from our  role in the heirarchy  (which looks fake, shallow and meaningless to the reader).  And if we're feeling sad or unfulfilled we can escape into solitary soma-fuelled virtual reality.  Or in contrast there's the Noble Savage who quotes Shakespeare and seeks meaning in struggle and suffering. It's a crude dichotomy I think, but a sobering message.   I like your vision better .

[Agent Smyth]

There's got to be, right?, some kinda overarching theme to human intelligence; one that, sticking me neck out, explains everything about human cognition. Find that and we have a playable character so to speak, provided it can be algorithmized of course.

[Count Lucanor]

I will preface this by saying that I cannot speculate on "when" an AI singularity would happen, what it would look like when it starts, or whether an AI would ultimately act in the best (or worst) interests of mankind. It could happen in 10 years, 20, or 100 -- or much longer.

You could add: “it may never happen” to the options.

I think a very unexpected recent development in AI is the creation of AI art, literature, and unique discussion. Not many people saw that coming, but in retrospect it almost seems obvious. Distilled down, stories are oftentimes variations on the same general tropes, even if the details change and the cultural context influences the structure. An AI cannot generate an artistic image using keyboards in a vacuum, but given literal millions of inputs, you can see some pretty incredible generations, given enough specificity. Even voice is being replicated: I never thought in 2023 I could hear Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Ben Shapiro play Call of Duty in a way that, while obviously AI generated, was still fairly convincing.

All of this stuff is directed by humans using computers as tools, which is nothing new BTW. Impressive technology, but as always, it is technology serving human interests and following human directions.

We have to start asking the questions of what it means to be human when AI can literally do anything that we can do, better. When to be purely human is no longer creatively or intellectually superior to a machine, but actually inferior in all respects, how do we find meaning in our lives?

Machines don’t have any creative power, and intellect? I doubt it, even though some insist on them having some attributes that resemble intellect. We can agree that machines doing tasks better has an effect on our perception as humans, but again, that’s been happening since there’s technology and machines, since there’s human civilization, since thousands of years. Always nice to reflect on it, but no need to panic. Our human identity is flexible, built with the dynamics of cultural change, which means constant detachments and new attachments.

[value]

I will preface this by saying that I cannot speculate on "when" an AI singularity would happen, what it would look like when it starts, or whether an AI would ultimately act in the best (or worst) interests of mankind. It could happen in 10 years, 20, or 100 -- or much longer.

You could add: “it may never happen” to the options.

Why would you think that it might never happen?

I think a very unexpected recent development in AI is the creation of AI art, literature, and unique discussion.

All of this stuff is directed by humans using computers as tools, which is nothing new BTW. Impressive technology, but as always, it is technology serving human interests and following human directions.

It is philosophy that ultimately steers AI in my opinion. It seems that philosophy might become one of the most important fields in the future of humanity when 'mimicable' technical capacities of humans are outdone by AI.

Philosophy concerns morality and the why of AI. Philosophy concerns the well-being and success of the human specie in the broadest possible (non-opinionated) sense.

Machines don’t have any creative power, and intellect? I doubt it, even though some insist on them having some attributes that resemble intellect. We can agree that machines doing tasks better has an effect on our perception as humans, but again, that’s been happening since there’s technology and machines, since there’s human civilization, since thousands of years. Always nice to reflect on it, but no need to panic. Our human identity is flexible, built with the dynamics of cultural change, which means constant detachments and new attachments.

Microsoft engineers are claiming in a recent paper that it's GPT-4 is already showing signs of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

The following critical article by AI researchers with a philosophical background is interesting. It shows that the claims are based on (the wonder of) 'technical capacities'.

(2023) Microsoft Research Paper Claims Sparks of Artificial Intelligence in GPT-4
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FinfRNL ... artificial

Is there a sound clue that AI might perform philosophy - the act of reasonable exploration outside the scope of technical mimicry - in the future?

[Count Lucanor]

I will preface this by saying that I cannot speculate on "when" an AI singularity would happen, what it would look like when it starts, or whether an AI would ultimately act in the best (or worst) interests of mankind. It could happen in 10 years, 20, or 100 -- or much longer.

You could add: “it may never happen” to the options.

Why would you think that it might never happen?

It's so far an hypothesis, a prediction from futurists and AI enthusiasts, but currently there is no sign that AI will stop being controlled by humans, and by definition, AI is controlled by humans as a technological tool, it is still merely instrumental to humans. Whatever futurists expect to be achieved with AI in terms of autonomy from human control, they have to give some hints that it is starting to be achieved now, so that we can believe that potential can be met.

I think a very unexpected recent development in AI is the creation of AI art, literature, and unique discussion.

All of this stuff is directed by humans using computers as tools, which is nothing new BTW. Impressive technology, but as always, it is technology serving human interests and following human directions.

It is philosophy that ultimately steers AI in my opinion. It seems that philosophy might become one of the most important fields in the future of humanity when 'mimicable' technical capacities of humans are outdone by AI.

Philosophy is a human endeavor. AI is one the technical capacities of humans, BTW. That means that humans would be outdone by humans.

Machines don’t have any creative power, and intellect? I doubt it, even though some insist on them having some attributes that resemble intellect. We can agree that machines doing tasks better has an effect on our perception as humans, but again, that’s been happening since there’s technology and machines, since there’s human civilization, since thousands of years. Always nice to reflect on it, but no need to panic. Our human identity is flexible, built with the dynamics of cultural change, which means constant detachments and new attachments.

Microsoft engineers are claiming in a recent paper that it's GPT-4 is already showing signs of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence).

They are wrong. AI does not and cannot show signs of intelligence, it only simulates behavior that looks like intelligence, but it doesn't understand a thing it does, even though the technology is impressive. Look at the Chinese Room Experiment, which completely refuted such claims.