HereAfter AI: Bridging Memories and Technology

If we look back 50 years in computing history, we can compare Vannevar Bush's vision of what information technology might one day be able to accomplish to what it has since become. Bush foresaw the use of the computer as an effective memory system, with which humans could store and retrieve information, as well as sort data, and trace a kind of hyperlink trail of reasoning. Not only that, but in Bush's memex machine, one would even be able to print off or magnetically store an information set for delivery to others. Everything Bush described has come to pass, and in nearly every case exceeds what he imagined. Bush was prescient indeed, but he also occupied a good vantage point: he directed certain military research in the war effort. He was familiar with rapid developments in prototype feedback experiments such as fire control and communications theory, among other things. In early fire control a system's state advanced through iterative looping of feedback through the system. Output was re-entered as input. Refinements in such processes led to the birth of cybernetics. In this phase of the information revolution cybernetic systems combined machines doing environmental scanning with human intervention providing the intentionality, or wisdom, to the system. Machines appeared fully capable of combining data structures into information constructs. Information domains were defined by task.

Various Portuguese journals , 2024

At the recent annual general meeting of SenseTime, one of the foremost AI companies in China, the CEO and founder Tang Xiao'ou gave a full account of the difficulties encountered last year but was highly optimistic for success in 2024.

Popular science publications in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) reveal a striking merger between apocalyptic religious thought and scientific research. Three major elements characterize early Jewish and Christian apocalypticism: alienation within the world, desire for the establishment of a heavenly new world, and the transformation of human beings so that they may live in that world in purified bodies. In Apocalyptic AI, these characteristics are attributed scientific authority. Apocalyptic AI advocates, frustrated by the limitations of bodily life, look forward to a virtual world inhabited by intelligent machines and human beings who have left their bodies. Having downloaded their consciousnesses into machines, human beings will possess enhanced mental abilities and, through their infinite replicability, immortality.

Human Ethology

In this paper I discuss a number of ideas stimulated by Max Tegmark's book, Life 3.0. I hope they 1 illustrate that a discussion between approaches in areas around computer science, AI and physics on the one hand, and biological thinking on the other can be fruitful. Essentially the book is strongest where AI and associated near future use are discussed. It is weakest when it moves into biological areas. But this is not a "keep off our patch" stance, but rather a desire to welcome these ideas from another intellectual approach and welcome the way they are usefully challenging. In his excursions into biology and consciousness and the speculation that AI might well create Life 3.0, Tegmark makes a number of errors. These include: a replicator is not clearly specified, he muddles goal directed behaviour with descriptions by function or consequence / end point, he makes some basic errors of logic including "affirming the consequent" (e.g., "if this is a dog, then it is an animal", does NOT imply "this is an animal therefore it is a dog"), and failing to see that consciousness is ascribed not described and thereby seeing it as an entity which can be treated in the same way physical, publically observable, phenomena. Finally, he does not address the energy question: even if AI could achieve super intelligence, this silicon based system would likely consume so much energy as to be unsustainable. All this weakens his arguments. This is a pity because the discussion of the challenges for the near future which the development of AI poses, is valuable, interesting and useful and can stand by itself without his forays into Life 3.0.

“The computational theories of consciousness express a certain technological will to power in that if we are able to create AI simply by designing computer programs, we will have achieved the final technological mastery of humans over nature.”

Long Distance Christian, 2018

This booklet dispels some of the sensationalism around Artificial Intelligence, asking instead how a fresh understanding of humanity can shape the trajectory of AI development. It draws on research interviews from ten leading AI practitioners and thinkers, and provides a distinctly biblical framework for understanding AI. Addressing all levels of expertise, the insights and guidelines provided will enable Christian leaders in church, business and public service to make informed responses to AI that are rooted in their faith.

2019

Law, governance and technology series, 2023

Artificial intelligence (AI) and digital systems are currently occupying a fundamental place throughout society. They are devices that shape human life and induce significant civilizational changes. Given their huge power, namely systems with autonomous decision-making capacity, it is natural that the potential social effects deserve a critical reflection on the opportunities and challenges addressed by AI. This is the main goal of this text. The authors begin by explaining the philosophical position from which they start, and which contextualizes their reflection on technological innovation in general, then briefly considering the genealogy ("before") of AI, in its main characteristics and direction of evolution ("Can machines imitate humans?"). It is considering the path of development of AI and its disruptive effects on human life ("beyond") that it is proposed its systematization in three categories-functional, structural, identity-("Can humans imitate machines?"). Regardless of the optimistic or pessimist expectations towards technological evolution, there is a need for a public debate about its current and future regulation. The text also identifies major ethical principles and legal requirements to regulate AI in order to protect fundamental human rights. 1 Few Presuppositions that Shape the Reflection on AI The structuring, developing and using of AI is particularly complex and challenging for a non-technical, social and human reflexive approach. This is mainly due to the following distinct but cumulative aspects. AI is of a multidisciplinary nature, mobilizing a growing diversity of knowledge and techniques-digital, elec

Philosophy & Technology, 2019

This work opens a new perspective in the debate regarding the relationship between brain and mind. It puts the central question whether in our days, dominated by a scientific view of the world, we really do have an adequate idea of what could be actually meant by terms like "mind", "self" or even "perceptions". Based on the consideration that any "non-material" or "mind" stuff can never be able to move particles around the world we found ourselves forced to believe in a physical monism as the premise for all plausible theories of mind. However, now we face different but still persisting kinds of problems: Why do we have "phenomenal" states? Do we really have them at all? How could phenomenal states be related to neuronal states? The still ongoing heavy debates about these issues demonstrate at least one thing: So far there is no commonly accepted explanation detectable at the horizon.