In my
last article, I discussed how computers were being taught to cooperate and
compromise with humans using morality algorithms. Of course, as I explained, computers with
artificial intelligence can’t really cooperate and compromise, because they
don’t have an organic sense of self from which cooperation and compromise can
radiate.
The
present article discusses an advance in computer technology that focuses on
what computers do best: computing. Now
we have the creation of super microchips that are faster and more efficient in
their processes than the human brain.
All the power of a human brain can be put into a small neuromorphic chip
(so called because it supposedly imitates a neuron) that can, in turn, be put
into a hand-held device. In effect, all
cognitive tasks, both large and small, can be put into a small microchip that
can be controlled by an average person.
These
chips go beyond binary digital systems. They use binary analog processes. In analog technology, the focus is on using a
signal that is a wave and using it in a direct manner to produce a stimulus,
whereas in digital technology, the wave is sampled thousands of times and then
these samples are converted into numbers that are stored and then treated as
data. These data are reconverted back
into another kind of wave which produces the stimulus. So digital processes are based on defined
discrete stimuli, which are the triggers and signals of most modern machine
processes. Analog processes, on the other hand are primarily based on flowing
blendable continual stimuli which more closely approximate the foundations of
the organic processes of humans. The super
microchips that use analog processes can be said to come close in some ways to
imitating human mental processes in certain areas of thought without being
generated by an organic sense of self. Notice
I say come close, because, when all is said and done, these flowing blendable
continual stimuli, are being used in the service of the defined discrete
structures of machines that lack direction stemming from an organic sense of
self. It is humans that are directing
the usage of these machines. But just
imagine if an average individual human being can have all this power on a small
hand-held device using a super microchip, the ramifications are enormous.
First of all, people
won’t have to solve most problems themselves anymore. They can refer all their concerns to the super
neuromorphic microchip in their hand-held devices. On one level, this will make life a whole lot
easier. But on the other hand, it will
take away whole areas of opportunities for people to make and preserve organic
imprints. People will no longer feel
friction grappling with all the different kinds of problems with which they
grapple in everyday life. As a result
they will lose the narrative to their lives.
Many of the rich vibrant experiences that come from grappling directly
with life’s problems will be eliminated.
And of course, without having the challenge of making and preserving
organic imprints, people will be unable to prepare for death with a surrogate
immortality.
Life will become
easier. But it will also become blander
and ultimately more meaningless. Maybe
for many, it will become a frictionless cognitive paradise. But on some levels, a paradise is not always
a paradise. A paradise is a beautiful
picture. It is a beautiful frozen moment
in time. But with such a frozen moment,
there is no allowance for the evolution, for the development of the human
individual. Some friction, some stress
is necessary to properly propel a person through a life cycle. Without that stress, a person never develops
a defined coherent organic sense of self.
And without self-definition, a person is subject to undifferentiation,
to being reduced psychologically to a more impulsive instinctive animal.
A person living in a
tropical paradise can develop organic coherence from all the bonding that
occurs in a warm embracing natural environment.
But without the challenges that occur in a more climactically taxing
environment or a more urban environment, a person is not as likely to be
confronted by the problems he needs to come up with the solutions that become
imprints that he makes and preserves and that lead to self-definition.
In a modern frictionless
technological paradise like we are creating in different places with things
like super microchips, people can develop a brittle self-definition from all
the defined discrete frictionless interactions they have with the devices. But they won’t develop self-coherence because
there will be a lack of real organic grounding and a lack of organic phenomena
in their living environment with which to bond.
In this case, a person is subject to being reduced to becoming a brittle
non-bonding entity: a robot. Or as
technology continues to evolve, and frictionlessness leads to living in an
experiential vacuum with fewer and fewer floating figures of substance, a
person is threatened with vacuumization, and becoming an avatar of himself.
In
all these cases, the proper balance that leads to a rich vibrant meaningful
human life is lost. In today’s world,
very few of us have the opportunity to put ourselves in a situation, where we
will be subject to the dangers present spending long periods of our lives in a
tropical paradise living environment. To
the extent that a person immerses himself in the mediated experience world of a
super microchip, to that extent he becomes vacuumized and increasingly like an
avatar, a technologically created complex behavioral entity that lacks the
substance or the opportunity to make and preserve organic imprints on the field
of experience in which he is spending so much time.
The
super microchip will create a lot of process and activity for the world of
technological complex behavioral entities.
But it will contribute to the continued loss of human narrative. All these so called improvements - the
Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, super chips - they are all pushing
us into a living death, where there is little left to do except watch the
action that is occurring among other entities.
© 2018 Laurence Mesirow
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