{"id":21,"date":"2017-10-17T15:00:10","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/?p=21"},"modified":"2017-10-17T15:00:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T15:00:10","slug":"ai-is-overwhelming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/2017\/10\/17\/ai-is-overwhelming\/","title":{"rendered":"AI is overwhelming"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember when I was in fourth grade and I discovered Cleverbot with my friend. We said some pretty vulgar things and it responded with even worse things that previous users had said. This was an example of a chat bot that used users\u2019 responses to build up a huge database; this approach is different from the idea of pre-programming the database before interacting with humans. Cleverbot passed the 2011 Turing test, but what is the significance of the Turing test? I personally don\u2019t believe that it proves consciousness, and I don\u2019t think any test ever will. The thought experiment outlined in Kerzweil\u2019s paper is very intriguing: the gradual replacement of Ray\u2019s brain with a nonbiological equivalent (a continuously conscious Ray) is essentially identical to scanning and reinstantiating Ray\u2019s mind file into new (nonbiological) Ray, and then terminating old Ray. But even though the two results are essentially identical, the latter is much less accepted as having true consciousness. I remember watching WALL-E and Big Hero 6 (spoilers ahead!!!) and seeing the robots \u201cdie\u201d made me really sad. Even though their memory chips or whatever had been saved and they were reincarnated into new bodies, I still felt weird about it. Many of my friends firmly believed that the robots were the same afterwards so they didn\u2019t actually die but I couldn\u2019t shake off the fact that they were different. <\/span><\/p>\n

The conversation in class was so philosophical and at times I felt quite overwhelmed. I think one thing I really started thinking about is what we mean by intelligence. I do think the singularity will eventually occur, but I am also skeptical that it will happen within the next couple decades. I agree with Paul Allen\u2019s view that achieving singularity will \u201crequire many more discoveries, some new Nobel-quality theories, and probably even whole new research approaches that are incommensurate with what we believe now\u201d. I also struggle with the value of intelligence. I can\u2019t help but feel that although the quest for higher intelligence is extremely important and valuable, we are failing to consider the rest of life. For example, I greatly appreciate the useful things that AI or technology can do for me, like wash my dishes, translate my essay, etc.. However, I have the privilege of WANTING to seek higher education and do other things with my newly found time. But many people are content with not freeing up so much time, and perhaps people should be more okay with moving at a slower pace; it is great if people can find happiness in doing the dishes, in farming, in doing things that the tech world thinks are boring\/should be automated. <\/span><\/p>\n

In no way do I think that we shouldn\u2019t be pursuing great technological advances; I think that technology is extremely valuable and even if I didn\u2019t, the research would happen anyway. I just think that sometimes there is this bubble in the tech world that needs to be checked up a little (with some philosophy\/humanities) and people should be encouraged to feel content with what they have and what they want. I feel like the current researchers of the technology have to be so invested that they can\u2019t really stop to think enough about the implications, but for the many of us, we don\u2019t have to be so caught up in it and we can slow down a little and find pleasure in the smaller things in life. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I remember when I was in fourth grade and I discovered Cleverbot with my friend. We said some pretty vulgar things and it responded with even worse things that previous users had said. This was an example of a chat bot that used users\u2019 responses to build up a huge database; this approach is different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8866,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8866"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/22"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cindizzle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}