September 19, 2023
Hello!
Yesterday my friend wanted to discuss at our luncheon meeting at our home artificial intelligence AI. In our usual rambling sometimes disjointed way we expressed our opinions and experienced our disagreements when the participant seemed driven to argue and show a person he disagreed with his errors in our discussion. Nothing new since I recognize myself at times taking this tack in our previous discussions. Mostly we shared our opinions with friendly curiosity and and maybe dawning insight. I did learn how to make pizza using a stone base. I became more aware to appreciate how we can be misled while we suspend our critical analytical science seeking mindful investigations in the subject we're discussing.
Is AI an advancement that can improve and solve problems or is AI a tool that may increase the cruelty and evil nature of humankind? Certainly one can argue analytically on both sides. Since one of the controversies concerning AI is whether a machine can become conscious have a mind of its own. The other concerns how we our small group understand what AI is, how it gathers informations, how its sources may control its information flow, how the AI corporation group program the structure. Can the AI at some point begin to make its own program structure and gain access to information not thought possible?
Well, as we discussed and pondered we were reminded on how various cognitive biases can cause us to think with conviction when this may be an illusion. Recently I watched a NOVA episode on PBS concerning how our brain processes information and how we are aware of ourselves https://www.pbs.org/video/your-brain-whos-in-control-q6suyy/. The scientists research that was presented on this program showed how there seems to be an area in the brain called the insula that gives us the sense of agency. Agency is defined as the perception that we are present and are the actors of our behavior. Though using an external magnet on the skulls that interacted with the electric signals of our brain area motor cortex the magnet could cause the subjects finger to twitch. The subject then was asked who caused the twitch either the magnet or the subject. The subject could accurately tell the difference between his initiating the movement and the magnet. Then the experimenter was able to interrupt the data signal electric flow from the insula which had a delay from the flow to the motor cortex from the insula of 50 mseconds. So the experimenter told the subject through a signal to initiate the twitch but the signal then was interrupted from the insula. The subject then could not tell that he had initiated the twitch.
More information in other experiments was presented showing how people who sleep walk and do complex maneuvering when out of bed for example going to the refrigerator from their bed and getting something to drink have no memory of doing any of this. The split brain cognitive experiments were shown also in which the subject had their corpus callosum severed to treat intractable epilepsy. The experimenter showed how the subjects non verbal hemisphere receiving visual information could respond while the information was not available to the verbal hemisphere. Each side had awareness and information but did not know of the existence of the other side. In other experiments on gifted jazz players and rap artists the prefrontal cortex seems to be inhibited or ignored so the gifted player or rap artist now used other parts of his brain out of his awareness. This reminded me of the very gifted mentally musician who could play from hearing a piece very accurately and with feeling and could improvise! He was seen to use the non verbal side of his brain yet he could hardly communicate and could not care for himself. His dominant hemisphere was severely damaged.
So this brief survey of some brain research show how the structures in our brain have certain functions that influence other parts and our awareness of these processes are often hidden while we attribute agency when this may be an illusion.
I'm still on this AI subject but bear with me. The other day we went to see the movie A Haunting in Venice directed by Kenneth Branagh. Going to a seance reminded me of my reading many years ago how a famous group therapist debunked the various methods used to create illusions that fooled us into thinking we're communication with the dead through their spirit. My interests in illusions and hallucinations brought me to the issues of hysteria as misconstrued in the eighteenth century but studied through hypnosis. The charlatans using hypnosis and group interactions to bamboozle the crowd and church goers is well documented and I've written about this before. The best recent example is the psi research facility at Stanford University in which a professional magician coached some reported gifted psi subjects in creating a hoax that was published as facts showing psi abilities.
We appreciate and have a deeper understanding of all things and our place in this context through our awareness slowly revealed through science and the scientific method. However, this vantage point alone gives us a distorted and therefore incomplete understanding. Art, literature, story telling, myth, legend, religion all human creations do reveal more through their medium to assist us through our interaction and participation in these human activities. We become the audience and the actors in storytelling, myth and imagination that entertain but also reveal some truth not otherwise seen. Our participation as audience and actor include the political arena where as a group member we are privileged to be part of a greater whole. Our loyalty gives us membership in something greater than ourselves so power, privilege, and being part of a special affiliation may enhance our self esteem. If we allow our loyalty and group membership primacy then the rational error correcting questioning methods of science threaten and left to the devises of storytelling and narrative reasoning with all its pitfalls.
My interest in 2001:A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick is placed here since art and storytelling can assist us in our quest for understanding and emotional satisfaction through adventure, awe, and music. Kubrick used his collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke and others to achieve a monumental epic immersive puzzling adventure into the unknown. The aliens left the monoliths to nudge evolution. Inventions of tools leads to destruction and war. Artificial intelligence in the space ship creates a crisis for the human astronaut while HAL pursues a seemingly destructive frightening suicidal mission. A rebirth occurs towards the end with a puzzling conclusion. The music, the visuals of space and the earth, the descriptions and dialogues all are captivating, immersive, puzzling, and emotional. Here is a story of artificial intelligence interacting with the human and the unknown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001:_A_Space_Odyssey#Plot.
My quest in this blog is to delve into how we can understand AI. A recent article in the New York Times Magazine gives me another approach Animals Are Talking What Does It Mean by Sonia Shah https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/20/magazine/animal-communication.html.
The issues discussed in her article have to do with the current research into language, meaning, learning, and communication. There is no doubt that other animals use sound as a means to communicate and even can use the sound to label various objects, needs, dangers, etc. With humans language now seems to have evolved so our thinking and understanding depend on the abilities we have associated with our brains development and evolution so that language now is needed for thinking, communication, and understanding. Now to me I puzzle over how a language communications devise and information sharing or distorting devise can "evolve" toward AI! Another article highlights the controversy of Integrated Information Theory. A theory that suggests how consciousness emerges in biological and possibly computer systems (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02971-1) .
Now back to AI. The Atlantic Magazine has a well written article by Judish Shulevitz Alexa Should We Trust You? https://www.theatlantic.com/
She shares information on how Alexa and similar tools are crafted to simulated the human voice and prosody so accurately that we respond to the voice sometimes like it were a person. She shows how there is an industry of companies and individuals working to parse out machine generated speech and then modify the replies so that the result seems like an entity with service to you is at our beck and call. These machine driven programs that interact with the requestor now include photo and video and art creations that are difficult to tell from original creations of a person. The AI interface have fooled some of the workers and researchers to conclude that some agency and independence is present (so far unproven). She shared how interaction with the machine may alert a responder such as a doctor or mental health professional that some emotional problems need addressing. This article is worth reading since the current state of the AI interface with the corporate world is presented very well. Again as have many other critics she points out that AI responses may be totally fantasy with made up facts and opinions.
Rebecca and I have been enjoying watching the Secrets of Blue Zones on Netflix. This travelogue takes you to different parts of the world with beautiful landscapes, heartwarming visits with very elderly people living beyond 100 years who are very physically active, productive, social, connected and thriving independently with good social supports. The diet may be a factor but the active lifestyle and meaningful involvement in life with activities of creation, food gathering and making, and art creation are presented for consideration.
Well for me I do use the tools of AI available using my wit and intellect as best I can. I work at piano pieces that are just beyond my grasp reaching and sometimes attaining some semblance of the art. I hike still getting challenged and even lost for a time though I don't like that. I'm reading some fiction besides my curiosity in the mind and with matter and energy reading. I sometimes take too much time reading the news which can set me off towards consternation and disgust over our inhumanity. I'm surrounded by art and see new pieces come up from my artist wife. I enjoy movie going and occasional live shows of musicals, theatre, and museums.
I'm not discussing my main concerns here now since solutions so far evade me. Our pollution and changing the environment and weather continues. We continue to have terrible weapons for war which are being used in various part of our planet destroying lives and the environment. We can still unleash nuclear holocaust on ourselves. That imagined meteor may slam into the earth with devastions. Our congress is unable to pass laws which may cause government shutdown at the end of this month.What is predictable is change. Many of us do not like change so they seem to endorse political fictions of a more glorified present or past that is exclusionary to many who just want to live their lives without prejudice or discrimination.
Can AI make some progress is solving these problems? I hope so.
Leonard
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