Lots of talk now about Artificial Intelligence and whether it will supplant human beings. (I will call it “Artificial” Intelligence, not (“Super” Intelligence) as commanded by our Orange Julius “(O.J.”). Most human beings say that they don’t want AI to replace us. However, most human beings are now becoming ever more comfortable with it actually happening.
For example, suppose you’re sitting at a bar and arguing with the guy next to you about who won the 1974 World Series. These are, after all, the types of things guys at bars argue about. Both guys are sure they are right. What do they do to resolve this dispute? They ask their phones. Once the phone tells them the answer, neither side disputes it. Their phones can’t be wrong.
I was watching a baseball game the other night. The game was close. The umpire called a strike that struck out the home team’s batter. The batter was sure that the pitch was too high and he was irate. So was the rest of his team. So was the crowd. The way it used to be, that would inevitably result in the batter spinning around and yelling directly through the ump’s mask and right into his face; the crowd would cast aspersions on the umpire’s lineage; and beer and pretzels would rain down on that single human being who called the pitch.
Well, not anymore. Now, if a batter is unhappy with the umpire’s call, he can challenge it. When that happens, the non-humans take over. The pitch is analyzed by some algorithmically programmed artifice, and the result is broadcast on a giant screen for everyone to see. Sometimes the , sometimes he isn’t. But that’s not the point. The point is that, like the phone at the bar, no matter what the integrated circuits display on the magic screen, nobody argues with it. It’s as if everyone is saying, “Well, that human being umpire can surely be wrong, but whatever that Central Processing Unit can’t ever be.
I don’t consider myself a luddite. I accept and even welcome new technology. We should surely use it. It is one thing, however, to use it, it is quite another to deify it.
I’m reminded of the classic experiment of the frog in boiling water. If you place a frog directly into boiling water, it tries to escape its inevitable fate. If, however, you place the frog in comfortable water, and then ever so slowly increase the temperature, the frog doesn’t realize what is happening and eventually boils to death.
As we become increasingly comfortable with AI, as we continue to accept it’s answers as flawless, are we like the frog in the slowly boiling water?
I certainly can’t answer that one. I’d better ask my phone.
