Final Exam: The Most Human Human Experience

1. Using references to Brian Christian’s The Most Human Human, explain what exactly (if anything) distinguishes human intelligence from artificial intelligence.  What do you think will be the greatest challenge that humans will face if we ever succeed in developing artificial intelligence?

Brian Christian does explain in an interesting way the differences in the intellectual processes of Humans and A,I,s. In The Most Human Human, Christian addresses that under the section Computability versus Complexity. Computability and Complexity is something that Christian talks about in reference to understanding the psyche of humans and the motivations of robots. "Computability theory doesn't care a whit how long a computation would take, only whether it's possible or not... Take a millisecond or take a milliennum, it's all the same to computability theory."(154). Computability is the thinking process of robots or probability. Robots will do actions that are only effective through probability which can provide of either a 95%(- 100%) success rate or 75%(or greater) failure rate. Humans on the other hand, are complex creatures. We see and understand things through a more different light. We look at the impossible and scream possible; we see the everyday tasks of life and call them mundane.

Humanity fails to realize the beauty in our complexities and imperfectness. In the movie I, Robot with Will Smith and featuring the A.I. Sonny, Will Smith interacts with this problem and sees conflict in it. Back before Will Smith met Sonny in the movie, Will Smith had an exchange with a robot in an experience that created his dislike for robots and their thinking process. "Computability theory, Achley says, has the mundane 'Produce correct answers, quickly if possible,' whereas life in practice is much more like 'produce timely answer, correctly if possible.'"(156).Will Smith was in an accident trying to save a child from drowning however as he was struggling to save the little girl, a robot saved him instead of the little child because the probability of survival (or life) for the child was lower and Will's was higher. Will Smith argued that a human would have saved the little child regardless of probability.

Our greatest challenge after successfully creating artificial intelligence would honestly be within ourselves. The artificial intelligence would be an asset to humanity if we work together for the greater good however it would be hard to say that when humans ourselves can't do it amongst one another. Granted, many people won't see robots as fellow intellects however even today some people don't see African Americans as humans (or civilized beings). Ultimately, we would have to provide an answer for the same question that Will Smith stood strongly for pre-meeting Sonny; To accept artificial intelligence with all of its logical decisions or to deny them and leave them doing simple mundane tasks? I, for one, am open to entertaining and cohabiting with Artificial Intelligence.  

2. Throughout The Most Human Human, Christian reminds us that we should be just as worried about humans becoming more machine-like as we are about machines becoming more human-like. Which do you think is the greater threat?  Why?

I like this question because it does rise an interesting point in the direction of humanity for itself as well as the relationship with machines. This immediately makes me think about the movie Ex Machina. Seeing Ex Machina in class threw me for a loop because it was mainly centered around A.I. trying to pass a certain test. That test was to see if an A.I. could fool someone into believing that they were interacting with another human. A key response that the A.I. gave the young man asking her what would she do if she could be out in the world; she responds with "stand at a busy intersection" which doesn't seem to pose a threat. She wanted to simply observe. I honestly don't see the threat in people watching and aiding when useful in society. FunFact; Humans people-watch all the time and have been doing for eons, they just like to call it something else, "observation" in anthropology.

Hart actually discusses a similar topic under his section concerning Human as Anti-Expect System. I believe this highlights an interesting aspect of the question which is communication. He does rise the example of calling and talking to either a telephone chatbot, human chatbot, or the manager lol. "So we've got, you know, voice recognition on corporate phone menus: you exploit the fact that you're in a limited context and people either say digits or 'operator.' or 'fuck you,'"(144). From the human perspective, we quickly dismiss the telephone chat-bot and attempt to go with the human-chat bot and sometimes further to the manager. In the same selection he does bring light to how the beauty in humanity is that we have the ability to access other things to bring up the outside life while at work. It is easy for us as human to move around with machine like motions as we knock off the things on our to-do list. Not being aware of our surrounds and moving about missing out on the lively events and connections we could make everyday. It is truly quite scary to think that human are able to loss their humanity and become more operational than evolutionary.

I truly don't believe there is a threat with Artificial Intelligence unless it is programmed or uploaded with some form of virus to corrupt or be ill-manipulated. As previously stated in class, I do fear the threat of mankind and the many different illogical possibilities we can come up with, In the event humans lose their humanity would be a frightening sight. Doing such would place us behind the Artificial Intelligence two steps on the evolutionary ladder.