Emotional Intelligence

1. Christian makes a fine point about the world we live in. If we are neither in heaven, nor hell that leaves purgatory. This has been a concept within the Catholic religion that I have always tended to struggle comprehending. But I have come to realize how much sense it truly makes. As humans, we typically try to create a heaven on earth. We constantly try to invent ways to make life simpler, safer, or entertaining. We try to create a society in which technology is the method and the way to create a “heaven on earth” so to speak. However this is a perpetuation. The heaven most envision is a place of perfection, but this is something we have not come to understand is that there is no such thing as perfection but only the pursuit of perfection. When trying to create a place that embodies all of the things we so strive to have technology do, we find that there is always an improvement to made. We want one thing to do everything but then find that another thing would be better to do all of these things, and then another thing and suddenly we find ourselves down the rabbit hole. Very soon it no longer is human, it all becomes AI. This is what Christian mentions in The Most Human Human, it is called the “Singularity”. I would not necessarily call it a “techno-rapture” as it is put but a new wave of evolution. It is spurred by the fear of the afterlife. It is a way to ensure that after your body no longer functions, it does not keep your consciousness from functioning. With the ability of technology to release those from their bodily bounds, they will “live” eternally. It puts people at ease about their fear of death because they will know to some extent, they will always exist in the human world. That is why everyone strives so hard to “leave a mark” on the world before they are left without mention in history. Leaving a mark on the world or a legacy is what gives our lives meaning. There is an obsession with it in fact. Be it that we have no clue as to a reason why humans, animals, planets, etc. exist, we become consumed to the mission of giving our lives meaning. An example of this can be seen in the movie Transcendence with Johnny Depp. When first watching this movie I believed that the term transcendence was used to transcend the body and that was all. But what I did not realize was that this included the transcendence of death. The movie mostly hides this by showing the transcendence of modern science, peopling healing faster, living longer, being stronger, etc. But ultimately, they are cheating death. And as I previously stated, I believe in the future of purgatory. Death does not like to be cheated. In the biblical understanding of this we can look at the people who tried to create the Tower of Babel. These people were trying to build a tower that would reach heaven. They were trying to escape what I believe to be purgatory and reach the gates of heaven. As the story continues, God is very angered by this and he cut off the one thing that would never allow them to continue their work. He changed their communication and thus did not reach heaven until as Christian states, they are dead and sent to either heaven or hell. This is somewhat parallel to what humans are trying to do on earth. God will not allow us to forge our own path to heaven, then we will create our own heaven. But in terms of Christianity what we are meant to understand is that we are not meant to live in heave or anything barring resemblance to heaven. So the more we try to create our own holy immortality, the more we cease to exist. I am not saying that God will come down and give us the confusion of tongues, but if history does in fact repeat itself, something will come along and prevent us from further either continuing in the pursuit of perfection, or we will wipe out our own species with the new evolutional form of AI. 

2.  

1.     Christian explains in The Most Human Human that humans do have one intellectual understanding that yet to exist in the technological world. This is reaction. He calls AI “static”. They are not sensitive. In real world application of AI programs what would they do to communicate without reaction. This is a part of emotional intelligence.  In the movie Her we see that Samantha is coming to understand the way of humans. Her intelligence socially is growing as well as her intelligence emotionally. However there is also something non-human that is also growing within her. And the audience is meant to believe that it is in a way that exceeds human intelligence but I do not agree with this. I believe that it differs from human intelligence but not such that it better than human intelligence. Samantha did not have full emotional intelligence in the human world. She did not understand Theodore’s outburst of emotion. She found it to be illogical. And that is the key difference in AI and human intelligence. There is no need for a definition of logic. Feelings are not logical. This is why she created so many bonds with so many people because her interactions with all of the people she met where based on logistics. She met the bottom line of human interaction. But she did not meet the reactionary line of humans. Emotional intelligence is something that is very much undermined in our society, which is why it is undermined in technological advancements in terms of AI. However it is a key trait in emotional intelligence. We find people who are intelligent but lack in motivation. They are brilliant but do not put forth application. They are lacking in emotional intelligence. The emotional intelligence to put forth what they know and apply into the real world because some are bound by the ideal that nothing they do in this world matters. In the long term, this could be completely accurate but in the present situation the effects of its importance is inherently unknown. The lack of emotional intelligence that leads to a lack of empathy outside of themselves. This is a lot like AI however it is programmed to always do it. If given the question, “Why?” which intrinsically asks for a reaction for an action, will be given a logical answer. But what if the action is not logical? It is not logical to help someone who is an addict to substances. The probability of them relapsing is too high to invest into. But we as humans do, because we know the proper reaction is empathy. The knowledge that there is a possibility for that person to no longer live in addiction, is enough to continue pushing and seeking that rehabilitation. Empathy is a component of emotional intelligence, and thusly intelligence. AI would not see this as logical or necessary. This is what distinguishes human intelligence from that which is artificial. In fact Christian even states, “…How does empathy work? What is the process by which someone comes into our life and comes to mean something to us? These, to me, are the test’s most central questions—the most central questions of being human.” It is emotional intelligence that will be the greatest challenge that humans will face if we ever succeed in the full creation of AI.