I am a sculptor of the human body and a deeply religious person. So I come from a sector far from most others here. That’s why I believe I may have a useful perspective. Primarily this might surface as a way of looking at reality that includes things that might be invisible to many in our increasingly mind-driven world. I believe that intelligence comes with a frightening blind spot that causes me increasing concern (outlined in my TED talk, “The Erotic Crisis” on YouTube). The body’s intelligence is every bit as complex and sophisticated as the mind’s, but has access to neither logic nor language. And we minimize it to our dire peril.
This means I also probably come to the place of concern over AI from the opposite direction of most here. I see the abandonment of the body throughout human history as our most alarming existential threat, and one that culminates in the looming specter of AGI. I feel this spells nothing less than the end of the human era. It would be a shame if after millions of years of evolution and the whole beautiful human story with its monumental art, thought and marvelous creations, we were to create a tool that extincted us as its first act!
To hear the arguments about the rise of AI and the Singularity causes me much grief due to the lack of focus on the deeper issues. Like for instance as much as we talk of saving humans from extinction by AI, I hear little discussion of what human really means. Along with everyone, I feel the daily pressure to become more machine-like ourselves. Yet there is little acknowledged awareness of this threat. The AGI we build might preserve all of human history and art in exquisite detail, but there may by then be no sentience left to make meaning of it. This is my chief concern.
(For anyone interested, I’m giving a keynote about this at the “Be/Art/Now” Earl Lecture in Berkeley, CA on 1/29/15) -Tim Holmes
am a sculptor of the human body and a deeply religious person. So I come from a sector far from most others here. That’s why I believe I may have a useful perspective.
To be useful you actually have to be able to argue your perspective in more depth. It’s quite easy to say that you find the human body important, but alone that’s no reason for other people to also find it important.
I am a sculptor of the human body and a deeply religious person. So I come from a sector far from most others here. That’s why I believe I may have a useful perspective. Primarily this might surface as a way of looking at reality that includes things that might be invisible to many in our increasingly mind-driven world. I believe that intelligence comes with a frightening blind spot that causes me increasing concern (outlined in my TED talk, “The Erotic Crisis” on YouTube). The body’s intelligence is every bit as complex and sophisticated as the mind’s, but has access to neither logic nor language. And we minimize it to our dire peril.
This means I also probably come to the place of concern over AI from the opposite direction of most here. I see the abandonment of the body throughout human history as our most alarming existential threat, and one that culminates in the looming specter of AGI. I feel this spells nothing less than the end of the human era. It would be a shame if after millions of years of evolution and the whole beautiful human story with its monumental art, thought and marvelous creations, we were to create a tool that extincted us as its first act!
To hear the arguments about the rise of AI and the Singularity causes me much grief due to the lack of focus on the deeper issues. Like for instance as much as we talk of saving humans from extinction by AI, I hear little discussion of what human really means. Along with everyone, I feel the daily pressure to become more machine-like ourselves. Yet there is little acknowledged awareness of this threat. The AGI we build might preserve all of human history and art in exquisite detail, but there may by then be no sentience left to make meaning of it. This is my chief concern.
(For anyone interested, I’m giving a keynote about this at the “Be/Art/Now” Earl Lecture in Berkeley, CA on 1/29/15) -Tim Holmes
To be useful you actually have to be able to argue your perspective in more depth. It’s quite easy to say that you find the human body important, but alone that’s no reason for other people to also find it important.