Struggle of Being

In his Epilogue, Christian explains that people tend to either think of our future coexistence with

technologies (including possible artificial intelligence) as either a heaven or a hell. Christian,

however, prefers to think of our long-term AI future “as a kind of purgatory.” How do you think

of the future: heaven, hell, or purgatory? Explain.

I prefer to think of our long term coexistence with AI as heaven. The film Transcendence would have likely demonstrated a positive relationship between man and AI because Will was healing the earth while discovering technology that saved and improved lives. In fact, the people in the town supported Will and flocked to him for purpose of recovery, and they wanted to defend him because they saw the good he was doing. Nevertheless, it is people who have the strong pro human feelings like Christian that can hinder the evolution of both man and machine like the radical groups in Transcendence. In Her, even though Samantha and her friends were advanced beyond human comprehension, they did not threaten to destroy human kind. In fact, I believed that Her was excellent example of Christian's belief that AI will challenge us to be the best people we can be and teach us about ourselves. In the end, Theodore learns how to reach into his heart and express himself to his ex-wife. He had started to read science books and attempt to be on the same level as Samantha. Moreover, we saw how Samantha brought out the best in Theodore, who was originally so sullen that it prohibited his peak performance as a human being.

By the end, Theodore had a look of enlightenment, sitting, looking over the city demonstrating a new way of viewing the world, something he would not have had if he'd never interact with Samantha, a machine that saw things very differently than humans. People loved their OS and bonded with them in a way no one expected. Her definitely displayed a heavenly outlook on the AI-human world. The movie like Epstein's relationship with a robotic women both demonstrated that relations between humans and computers do not have to be hostile. Though Epstein may have been embarrassed by falling for a machine, like Christian said I'm sure the experience may have taught him to value and seek more human interactions.

Lastly, I believe that existence with AI would be pleasant because as Christian pointed out technology is essence before existence while for humans existence is foremost. Essence is the intrinsic nature that determines something's character while existence can be interpreted as the continued survival (dictionary). I believe that part of the reasons why humans can be so irrational and violent is because existence is always in our forefront. To an extent, computers' essence can be essentially be programmed; the essence of love or another positive essence that could drive the actions of the machine to be geared towards goodness. I am hoping that the human experience with AI will be the same type of enlightenment, awe and enjoyment that Theodore felt when engaging with Samantha.

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 find the biggest threat to be machines becoming more human-like. When I watch movies like Terminator, machines take over only once they have the same feelings as humans, the need to be dominant or revenge. Though people do not realize it, the machines that are so feared are behaving just as humans do. The fear of the machines is just a transference of the fear people have of each other. Because the exterior is different, it somehow makes the same actions humans perform seem more evil. Essence versus existence is a key component of why machines "turn human". Machines in films develop a "need to survive". Those whose essence was serving or helping becomes replaced with the desire to live. People worry about machines conquering the human race which is the same thing many races of humans did to one another.

Christian writes about making machines that are smarter than ourselves. I argue that people create things that replicate themselves. How is it that, in films like Terminator, machines end up also almost destroying the plant, stripping it of its resources when intuitively one would think that machines would know how to reserve resources? If we actually make machines that are smarter than us, why is it that in film we see them perpetuating the actions of "humans"? There is always a human that's smarter than another human being so essentially there will be a machine that's smarter than most humans because the people or person who creates that machine will be beyond average intelligence. However, most of the information a machine will receive will come from information that humans already have.

I worry about machines becoming like humans because there will be more irrational thinkers. People believe that machines' supposedly overly logical way of thinking is a threat to human kind, but I see it as an advantage. If we thought logically about issues, we would make society a much better place. For instance, it's not logical to pay people who perform the same job on equal levels differently just because of their race or sex, such actions restrict the development of the economy. Just as Schwartz acknowledged the fact that the denial of education to all is another illogical action that restricts development. Humans have a desire for power that destroys all that stands in their way. If machines developed the same human quality, they would likely drive the world back into destruction.

Machines may begin to see humans as a threat to their "sentence". As discussed, negative emotions such as jealousy and negative actions such as murder can happen when there is a threat to one's sense of uniqueness. Another dangerous human trait for machines to develop is superiority and prejudice as a result of believing themselves to be better than humans, like in the Avengers the robots feeling of superiority and godliness drove him desire to wipe out the entire planet's life.