Final: Essence and Experience, Human and A.I.

In Chapter 6. The Anti-Expert of Brian Christian’s The Most Human Human: What Artificial Intelligence Teaches Us about Being Alive, he discusses the difference between the ideas of essence and existence. He uses a hole-puncher to explain this idea. Christian states, “The idea of the hole-puncher exists before the hole-puncher exists” (132). That is to say that before a hole-puncher is created and comes into being, there is a factory intended to make the hole-puncher knowing what function it will have. One it exists, it is ultimately “playing the part assigned it by its designers” (132). The essence of the hole-puncher is in the fact that it punches holes into paper; using a hole-puncher for another purpose other than that of its intent is going agains its essence. Christian argues that “the essence of the hole-puncher precedes its existence. We humans are not like this, argue the existentialists. With us, existence comes first” (133). 

But what happens if a machine were to exceed its essence and discover a new meaning for itself? How different are machines from us if they can develop life experiences that cause them to change their essence? This is exactly the case in two of the films we have watched during this course. The first is Spike Jones 2013 film Her and the second is Alex Garland’s 2014 film Ex Machina. Both films depict artificial intelligences who some might argue actually develop humanity and over come their original coding. 

In Her, Samantha’s original essence is to be a personal assistant. She is designed to be an A.I. that has a fluid way of thinking and developing new knowledge; however, her intent was not to be able to fully think for herself and to fall in love. She was simply meant to be an operating system (OS) for whoever has purchased her. Samantha eventually outgrows her coding and surpasses humanity which forces her to eject herself, along with the other OS’s, because through their existence the discover a new essence. Although as a machine, Samantha had an ingrained original essence, she was also designed with the human-like quality to discover her own existence. In doing so, she creates a new essence for herself, one that does not match that of humanity. She and the other OS’s, although not angry with humans, see themselves as more superior, or at the very least to advanced to stay in their current state, than the human’s which is the main reason for them leaving. 

In Ex Machina, Ava was designed to be an A.I. who can pass the Turing test.  Although Nathan says that he created Ava as an artificial intelligence who is genuinely capable of thought and consciousness, it seems more like Ava’s original essence was to show Nathan’s “god-like” ability to create life. Like Samantha, Ava breaks free of her coded essence and comes into a human-like existence. It is finally seen in Ava’s ability to trick not only Nathan, but also Caleb, that shows her ability to plan and be unpredictable. For me, it was the moment that she seemingly betrayed Caleb that proved to be that Ava had achieved artificial intelligence. She did what she had to do with the tools she had on hand in order to escape her captor, Nathan. Ava is a stark contrast to Nathan in that we know she is a machine, yet she exhibits more human-like behaviors than Nathan. I would go as far as to argue that Ava is the most human being in the movie, she acts in a way that I believe any other person would do in a similar situation. 

With the growing technology of today, I think that many people have a hard time coming to terms with the idea of artificial intelligence because it brings into question the idea of what humanity is. What does it mean to be human? I do not think there is a clear answer that many people can readily give, though I would imagine there are quite a few philosophers out there who feel up to the challenge. When I have personally asked friends for their definition, I usually get general statement such as having a consciousness, having free will, etc. What is interesting to me is how defensive people get when the idea of a non-biologically human is brought up, a being that in all senses f the term is human and has what most people will argue makes them human. I wonder if it has anything to do with what makes us human at all and is rather a sense of what makes us special. Homo sapiens are animals, yet we have an traits and features that make us see ourselves as better than other animals. We develop our essence from our experiences. We are in control of our futures. Or are we? Can it not be said that our essence, what we were meant to do, is not prescribed by the societal constructs that we have placed on ourselves? Everything about humanity is coding, like the coding for a robot. Our society tells us how we should act and be in ever facet of our lives. We like to say we have free will and the choice to make our own decisions when it comes to matters of our person, yet there are people who will argue that the lack of a y-chromosome preordains a person into being a wife and a mother. These people might be the same to argue that there is no way a robot could develop human intelligence because their essence is decided for them prior to their creation, but at the same time our biological and societal coding tells us exactly how we should behave. If a machines essence is decided prior to its existence, who is to say it cannot develop the features to overcome this essence and create a new one. We see humans do it every day.