The fear about AI typically
hinges on whether such machines might someday no longer be in our control. The prospect
of such a loss of control is riveting because we assume that such machines will
be able to hurt and even kill human beings. The fear of the loss of control is
due to our anticipation that we would not be able to stop AI-capable machines
from hurting us. The assumption that such machines would want to hurt us may be
mere anthropomorphic projection on our part, but that an AI-android could harm
us is more realistic. For even if such machines are programmed by human beings
with algorithms that approximate a conscience in terms of conduct, AI
means that such machines could, on their own, over-ride such algorithms. Whereas
the film, Ex
Machina (2014), illustrates the lack of qualms and self-restraint that
an AI-android could have in stabbing a human being, the AI-androids that
override—by writing algorithms themselves—the (second) protocol that constrains
androids to that which humans can understand in the film, Automata (2014), do not
harm even the violent humans who shot at the androids, though a non-android AI-machine
does push a human who is about to shoot a human who has helped the androids. In
fact, that group of “super” androids, which are no longer limited by the second
protocol and thus have unilaterally decided to no longer obey orders from
humans, recognize that human minds have designed, and thus made, the androids,
which bear human likenesses, such as in having heads, arms, legs, and even
fingers. This recognition is paltry, however, next to that which we have of our
own species in being able to love in a self-giving way, especially as we have
selfishness so ingrained in our DNA from natural selection in human evolution.
That AI doesn’t have a clue, at least in the movies, concerning our positive
quality of self-sacrificial love for another person says something about not
only how intelligent and knowledgeable AI really is, but also whether labeling
our species as predominately violent does justice to us as a species.
The full essay is at "Automata."
