Artificial Intelligence could have written this blogpost in a flash. For me, it’s taken days and days. It’s a good thing I’m not working for anyone and being paid by the hour. I’d be fired and replaced by a machine. Makes me glad I’m retired and free to write as I wish, at my own pace.

I and others of us in the pre-digital generation seem to have a fraught relationship with rapidly encroaching artificial intelligence. Is it Fear? Resentment? Anger? Bafflement? Or are we being passive (“Oh, well, whatever…), apathetic (“See no evil…”), incredulous (“I don’t believe it”), dismissive (“That’s just Doomsday talk). Or are we simply exhausted (“Not another looming crisis!”)? 

For a long time we’ve been the smartest kids in this classroom called Life on Earth. But that lofty status is in the process of changing dramatically. Like it or not, ready or not, machine intelligence will soon be exponentially smarter than we are, and we’ll find ourselves wearing dunce caps in the corner of the classroom – if we’re still in the classroom. So the question is, it seems to me – if we want to turn and face it head-on – what are we to do about A.I., if anything?

My own approach, as I mentioned in my previous post, “Meanwhile” (https://blog.bonnieleeblack.com/meanwhile/ ), is to make more of an effort to learn about artificial intelligence (at long last!), and to try my best, as a layperson, to understand what we’re facing.

As I explained in “Meanwhile,” I set myself a goal of reading four reputable books, to begin with, on the subject of A.I. and treating this as a self-created one-semester college course. To date, I’ve read the first two on my list: OUR FINAL INVENTION: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era, by James Barrat, and THE AGE OF AI: And Our Human Future, by Henry Kissinger, et al. Both books have enriched me and deepened my understanding, and I look forward to learning and reading more.

I couldn’t possibly do justice to the breadth of these two books in this short post, so I must urge WOW readers to read them for yourselves and draw your own conclusions. In brief, though, I’ll say that Barrat’s book is more journalistic – he interviews many of the top leaders in the A.I. field and reports on their concerns; whereas the Kissinger book is more historical and philosophical. 

Barrat doesn’t cloke his worries about the future of this phenomenon. Kissinger, et al, seem to me to have more hope for a possible peaceful coexistence between A.I. and mankind – IF, that is, all parties involved (countries, governments, companies, academia, and so on) can agree on ethical guidelines for controlling it. Which makes me think: Good luck with that.

Up until now, if we laypeople have thought about A.I. much at all, I think, it’s been in terms of a helpful, handy, benign tool in our hands. My iPhone, which was a gift pressed on me by a younger friend who bought herself a new model a few years ago, tells me the weather every morning (usually balmy here in San Miguel), how many steps I’ve walked each day (on average, three miles’ worth), the Spanish words for esoteric ingredients when I’m out grocery shopping, the breaking world news — all while keeping me in touch with friends far and near. All good!

But A.I. is in the process of upping its game. 

AGI – artificial generative intelligence – is the next wrung up. No longer just a helpful tool, this A.I. will be (or already is in countless situations) more like a partner, on which humans, in, for example, business, medicine, and the military, must rely for its speed, efficiency and smarts. 

But of course, given the acceleration of all this, A.I. appears destined not to stop there. ASI – artificial super-intelligence, as Barrat defines it – will be so smart (perhaps thousands of times more intelligent than the smartest human beings) it will have a mind of its own. Instead of a tool in our hands or a working partner, it will likely be more like an overlord. It will be out of our hands. Then what? Does anybody really know?

My cohort may not live to see ASI in action. We have trouble even envisioning it. We’ve loved our humanity all these years, warts and all. Yes, we can agree that A.I. is impressive. But it doesn’t have skin or bones or blood. Or tear ducts. Smart? Yes. But cold. And heartless.

We like to think of ourselves as special. When we die, it won’t just be “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” No, we’d prefer, “stardust to stardust.” We like to think of ourselves as stars, shining brightly.

(Stock photo from Pixabay)

You may recall what astronomer Carl Sagan famously said when he hosted and narrated the PBS series “Cosmos” in the early 1980s:

“We are a way for the universe to know itself. Some part of our being knows this is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff.” 

Scientists theorize that all life on Earth, including the atoms in our bodies, were created in the furnace of now-long-dead stars. A.I., which is not sentient, was reportedly born in the summer of 1956 at Dartmouth College.

So we old sentient beings go on! Living and learning, reading and thinking, and, I hope, caring enough to pay attention as this technological revolution speedily unfolds and we explore our place in this new world and continue our mysterious and, yes, sacred journey back to the stars. 

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At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of San Miguel de Allende last Sunday, this poem, adapted from Tony Perrino, was inserted in the program. I’m sharing it with you, along with my wishes for happy and healthy winter holidays, whatever holidays you celebrate this season:

Candles, fire and stars,

these are the symbols of this season.

Candles to dispel the darkness

and mark our days of celebration.

Fires to drive away the winter chill

and warm hearth and home.

Stars to fill us with wonder

and guide us on our sacred journey.

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To read my previous post on the subject of A.I., plus readers’ comments, please go to: https://blog.bonnieleeblack.com/meanwhile/ .