WATERMARK

I’ve been a voracious reader of science fiction since I was a child, so I’m familiar with most of the dramatic imaginings of what artificial intelligence (AI) might be like. The real thing, so far, turns out to be a bit less exciting and a lot more complicated. 

(For example, as I type this into Google Docs, something keeps anticipating my next word, and it’s often right.)

The effects of AI today are not dramatic, but may become more so. Some of its makers promise major medical breakthroughs and almost-magical technology. They also warn of possible god-like creatures who will care nothing for us. 

Unanticipated negatives are already occurring, and the headlines announce those and the ominous predictions day after day. I began to make a list, but I suspect you are already aware of them. Many of us believe them; some offer counter arguments. 

Anticipated disasters may be modulated by technological progress, or never occur. Anticipated boons may be insignificant, or never occur. The super-AI may never be built, or may appear and surprise us all. 

Prophets are often wrong. None of us know what will happen. Certainly I don’t know. 

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Unlike J.D. Vance, I have no particular opinion about UFO’s. And I don’t believe AI’s are demons. It got your attention, though, didn’t it?

Two incidents from my childhood have been nagging at me lately. Both involved experts on television. Aside from demons, I also believe in experts. Really. Real experts. I believe in science and research and updating same as we learn more. 

One memory is of an expert on television stating with absolute confidence that animals (this was before we began saying the other animals) have no thoughts, and no feelings. 

I thought “Have you never known a dog?”

The second was a panel of experts discussing whether there might be life, intelligent life, on other planets. It might have even been whether there are other planets. The  consensus was no. We are unique, our planet is unique, life is unlikely to have occurred elsewhere. 

I thought “Have you never looked up into the night sky?” 

I was lucky, in my childhood, to have spent time with many other animals, dogs and cats and horses. Even cows. And I got to spend nights outdoors, far from city lights, looking up. Looking up into the night sky was magic. I could imagine anything. I still can. 

Of course, these experts were that. It was a very long time ago, and we hadn’t yet learned much of what we now know, about the other animals and about the universe in which we live. Those very experts may be among those who expanded our understanding of animals and planets and our universe.

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