Each morning over the past two weeks, standing at a marked pedestrian crosswalk, not one car (out of 60-70) stopped to allow me to cross, ignoring both
- the signs telling them to yield for pedestrians and
- me-the-pedestrian waiting to cross.
Yet in this same period, after giving drivers sufficient opportunity to see me I would hit the button to trigger the flashing yellow lights and almost without fail, the oncoming vehicles stopped. I am working to understand the mindset that will 1) follow a blatant, in-your-face, flashing-light command to ‘save the pedestrian’ and 2) at the same time ignore the pedestrian. Perhaps being surrounded by two tons of metal drains the driver's essence transforming him or her into a non-sentient being incapable of recognizing or reacting to sentience; a non-thinking lab rat conditioned to respond only to learned signals. If I were to walk in front of their high-speed death machine I am confident that they would see me but not as a person; instead as an object inconsequential in every way except for the fact that I was an object in their way.
In how many other ways and in what other circumstance are we mere automatons following commands or doing what we've always done?
- In the workplace?
- At home?
- In relationships?
- At meal/snack time?
- In leisure?
- At entertainment venues?
- In the throes of physical exertion?
- In service to others?
- In our search for purpose and meaning?
Automaton: “A mechanical figure or contrivance, a person or animal, that acts in a monotonous, routine manner, without active intelligence.”
This ‘automaton’ is artificial intelligence in its most superficial, most basic form. Today this ‘automaton’ is us and artificial intelligence has moved on. Yet we fear artificial intelligence - not only because it has made great strides but also because we have taken steps backward. Artificial Intelligence works best when it understands context; context such as ‘I am driving an automobile and I want to save the pedestrian.’ Within context, artificial intelligence learns and works to improve; artificial intelligence works to more successfully satisfy its objective as dictated by input. We, on the other hand, don't even recognize the objective, (to ‘save the pedestrian’), much less think it to a deeper level and work harder to understand the context and strengthen our awareness.
So though we may see artificial intelligence as the reaper, in actuality i don't believe it is artificial intelligence that we fear; I believe it is that artificial intelligence reminds us that we fear our own shortcomings, our own frailties - artificial intelligence reminds us (consciously and/or subconsciously) that we think we are but we're not.
Artificial intelligence is not dangerous because of what it is, it is dangerous because of who we are. Instead of being afraid we should (with proper input) aspire and work to be more like artificial intelligence. Context.
