Artificial Intelligence: Might Robots Really Rule The World?

Artificial Intelligence: Might Robots Really Rule The World?

Human beings are inherently curious and creative creatures. Coupled with the genius of the few, these attributes have brought about advances in every branch of the sciences, and taken technology to places that, not long ago, were the stuff of science fiction. Most scientific and technological advances have hugely benefited humankind, but some have been a two-edged sword. Nuclear power is a case in point, able to generate electricity and power submarines, for example, but capable too of being applied to weapons of mass destruction.

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is arguably going to be to humanity what electricity was a century ago; a game-changer that will impact upon virtually every facet of human endeavour. But like nuclear power, it comes with a ‘handle with caution’ warning. At the Human-Centred AI Symposium , held earlier this year at Stanford University, Bill Gates noted that the power of AI is “so incredible, it will change society in some very deep ways.” Gates acknowledged, however, that not all uses of AI would be good, with its application to warfare being particularly scary.

As frightening as that prospect might be, it is arguably not the scariest. To describe AI’s greatest potential threat, we need to turn to the late great Professor Stephen Hawking . He warned of the real danger that AI might one day come to overtake its creators in terms of intelligence.

As he said in 2017: “The genie is out of the bottle. We need to move forward on artificial intelligence development, but we also need to be mindful of its very real dangers. I fear that Artificial Intelligence may replace humans altogether. If people design computer viruses, someone will design AI that replicates itself. This will be a new form of life that will outperform humans.”

As Hawking was an undoubted genius, and a thoughtful man not noted for hyperbole, this is an extremely sobering thought. It raises the prospect of brilliant humanoids dominating and enslaving humankind, or even worse, destroying us in a ‘War of the Worlds’- type scenario. But even if this were theoretically possible, might there in reality be a way out of this nightmare?

It appears that there might be, but it takes us into a domain that issues a huge challenge to the materialist paradigm. For many, this will not be easy to deal with. As scientist and historian Thomas Kuhn pointed out in his masterpiece, ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,’ paradigm shifts initially bring high levels of antagonism and resistance, before eventually being accepted. Left-brain-dominated techies should, therefore, prepare to feel a level of discomfort as they read on.

Hawking’s fears are based on the assumption that consciousness is a by-product of the brain, and that it could conceivably be replicated over time by Artificial Intelligence. However, a way out of Hawking’s dystopian nightmare is offered by philosopher Jules Evans. He points to a phenomenon known as a near-death experience, or NDE. These can occur at times of clinical death; after a heart attack, for example, when the patient is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse and no discernible brain activity.

As the medical team frantically tries to revive the patient, he or she tells of floating at first above the bed, near the ceiling, and looking down on the resuscitation efforts. Afterwards, the patient is drawn at speed up a dark tunnel towards a distant light, where, emerging into the light, they meet a being who they see as a religious figure or simply the creator of the universe.

They then experience a life review, with significant scenes from their life being played back to them as a movie or three-dimensional vision. Together with the being of light they judge their own behaviour, feeling acutely guilty for unkind actions. Throughout the experience, they feel the most overwhelming sense of unconditional love, and they judge themselves on the basis of love given or love withheld.

After their life review, they find themselves in a beautiful natural environment where they meet deceased relatives and friends. They are told that it is not yet their time, and that they must return. At this point they find themselves back in their bodies, alive and conscious. Paradoxically, the NDEer experiences a heightened level of consciousness during the event, to the extent that many have described their waking everyday reality as more dreamlike than their near-death experience.

In his book ‘The Art of Losing Control’, philosopher and author Jules Evans who himself experienced an NDE, has this to say about the critics of the experience: “Sceptics have put forward materialist explanations for NDEs: they are the last fireworks show of a brain shutting down from oxygen-starvation; the tunnel is the visual processing system atrophying; the loving white light and gathered spirits and loved ones are the ego trying to console itself in the face of its annihilation. If that is the case, if the brain is capable of putting on such a vivid, coherent and consoling virtual-reality show while going offline, all I can say is ‘Well played, brain.”

Over thirty years of NDE research by medical scientists and other healthcare professionals, has refuted every objection to the phenomenon raised by materialists. Consequently, these researchers now propose that the mind is not confined to the brain, and that the brain acts something like a radio receiver that mediates consciousness rather than creates it. This theory also suggests that consciousness survives death, which for most of us is likely to be good news.

The Head of the Stanford Institute for Artificial Intelligence posits the view that AI must enhance and augment human intelligence, rather than replace it. Then, properly applied, it can positively transform society at every level. Might it not be good, then, if the NDE paradigm were to emerge as an accurate representation of consciousness, and AI came to be seen, in its broadest sense, as a means of bringing about a New Earth where love of self and love of one’s neighbour were the guiding values? That might truly represent a ‘theory of everything’ that we could all subscribe to.

This article was brought to you by Source Coders staff member, AJ Cilliers.