By Daniel Crawford
Published: 05/02/2024
I still remember, some 12 years ago, my family was driving from Pennsylvania to Vermont to do some sightseeing. My dad normally drove on these road trips, but could not make it this time, so it was just me, my Mum, and my sister. Naturally, my mother drove, but she lacked the sense of direction my dad possessed. About 20 miles from home, we stopped at a Wal-Mart to buy the family’s first GPS.
It was a large model, Garmin, I think. We fastened it to the dash of our minivan and took off, putting ourselves in its proverbial hands. I remember watching from the back seat as the directions popped up, the automated voice telling my Mum when to expect a turn. Not only did it determine the correct(-ish) route, but it did so almost immediately.
Today, GPS is so commonplace that it’s hardly remarkable, but that was my first recognizable experience with Artificial Intelligence. The field of AI is not constrained to world-dominating androids or essay writing machines: in fact, there is a school of thought that says Artificial Intelligence has been a natural extension of humanity for as long as it has had “intelligence” itself.
Both professional and coffee-table philosophers can (and do) argue about what intelligence means, but for our sake, let us just say it has something to do with “knowing.” This means that artificial intelligence (note the lowercase) could really be interpreted as artificially knowing something, something that appears to know. So, before we lose ourselves in the world of sentient computers and the AI we have come to know and love/hate, let us begin with those two words: artificial intelligence.
Just like in fabrics, chemicals, sweeteners, and romance, calling artificial just means that it is not found of its own accord. The manner to which something is woven (fabrics), synthesized (chemicals), manufactured (sweeteners), or forced (romance), does not really take away from the simple fact that artificial things cannot, and do not, happen on their own. This then implies that something created these artificial things. There is a creator. Sometimes this creator does not desire, nor is even aware of, what it has done. But nevertheless, the artificial persists.
The second half of the term AI is ‘intelligence.’ While you may not see it in everyone as much as you desire, the fact that you are reading this is a supreme achievement of intelligence. Likely, while looking at the words right here you are doing the following:
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Breathing: this requires coordination of lungs, heart, brain, and the reflex to not hold your breath.
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Maintaining Balance: you are not falling over in your chair, losing your footing while walking, or falling off the side of the couch on which you are laying.
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Focusing: Your mental energy is directed to this paper/screen you are reading on. Further, you are not looking over your shoulder. Nor are you distracted by the myriad sounds and other stimuli that are bombarding your senses. Not to mention the highly coordinated eye movements and lens focusing going on to keep this text in vision.
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Separating: Without being told to, you can separate the text color from the background color, the paper/screen from your hand/monitor, and everything from everything it is not.
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Reading: It has taken learned scholars' careers to understand the intelligence that goes with reading – but suffice it to say that we are parsing, somehow, dots to letters, letters to words, words to sentences, and sentences to meaning: each a monumental task.
So, if you ever feel a little down – just remember how intelligent you are!
But... could you, in seconds, map to the tenth of a mile my family’s trip from Pennsylvania to Vermont? Assuming you are not a savant cartographer, probably not. And that is OK!
The fact that artificial intelligence can do this, and other amazing things, is more so a testament to human ingenuity than to the almighty power of the computer processor. If we left a bunch of metals in a room, they would not assemble into a GPS. And even if they could, without the human ingenuity of computer code and path-finding algorithms, there would be nothing meaningful to be had from the chunk of metal.
Humans have always longed for an intelligence other than their own. There are traces of this that date to the earliest humans. You may see this in aspects of rituals to determine if the harvest would be good – something certainly outside of a human and knowing if the harvest would be bountiful is an intelligent thing to do.
Today, we have taken the culmination of science, mathematics, statistics, and technology and designed the AI (now note that capitalization) that is now sweeping the world. However, it still relies on the basic principles of being artificial: “not naturally occurring” and intelligent: “it can provide knowledge.”
As with all innovations, and more so the ones that simultaneously grip our fears and hold our imaginations, it is crucial that we reflect what we truly have. In this reflection, we are called to remember that we have always been doing this. We have always been innovating, designing, and working to increase our knowledge: from the pre-historic divination, through GPS systems, to Generative AI.
Seeking answers outside of who we are is just part of being human.