Publications recently appearing in various electronic media platforms have made two major claims in regards to the potential impacts of “Artificial Intelligence” on the human population. The first is that, it will eliminate many jobs, and the second is that, it will lead to machines with better thinking capacities than humans.
The first claim is likely to happen, being that there is a historical precedent observed during the era when the manufacturing industry, widely automated its work processes, leading to the elimination of most employment jobs. But it is important to analyze the reason this occurred successfully. Prior to the automation process, the human work processes involved in producing a single complete product, within the manufacturing factories, had been split up into smaller “specialized” tasks, that were easier to remember and more repetitive for the human worker, creating the “assembly line” methodology. This created and environment that was easy and “ripe” for automation. Similar reformatting of the work processes has now also occurred in the service sector, creating an environment that will easily allow automation using the so called “Artificial Intelligence” computer software technology. My research regarding how this occurred within the service sector is presented in my publication, “The Employment Illusion”.
However, the second claim will not happen. In my publication, “Defining Culture And Its Economic Implications, Collectivists Vs Individualists, I categorize the usage of culture (also known as human thoughts and behaviors), as individual or collective (i.e. group and popular usage). This distinction is important when analyzing the second claim, that Artificial Intelligence computer software will lead to machines that have a better thinking capacity than humans. This ignores the fact that machines can only “learn” what humans already know. They will never have the ability to create new/original thought processes based on independent observation made via natural senses, because they can never be independent or posses natural senses. Everything contained in the electronic databases that contain the knowledge base of “Artificial Intelligence” computer software, is imputed by individual humans, based on what they know. It is important to also note that not all humans will participate in imputing their knowledge into the “Artificial Intelligence” database for various reasons.
An individual human can develop their own individual cultures via observation using their natural senses. These cultures may differ slightly or drastically from the learned cultures taught to them during their child-hood years, when they heavily depended on their various care-takers and “authority figures”, for interpretations of the observations made via their natural senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and sound. The individual human may also never share these individual cultures with others, choosing to use them exclusively for their own purposes. The “Artificial Intelligence” electronic database, will never contain these individual cultures, and being it has no original thought capacity, will never have a better thinking capacity than humans.
In conclusion, “Artificial Intelligence”, as the name states, is an attempt to copy the natural human thinking/intelligence capacity, very much like “Synthetic Products” are an attempt to copy natural resources found in nature. Just like “Synthetic Products”, the knowledge base is restricted to the knowledge of the individuals involved in the creation.
Copyright 2024: Frank Karue Ngarua
Habari shujaa 