At the American Thinker today there is an article by Vince Coyner entitled Elon's & Joe's Not-So-Excellent Adventure: The Delusion of an AI-Driven Nirvana. In the article, Coyner makes clear that Elon Musk and Joe Rogan have no idea about human nature. They speculate that artificial intelligence (AI) will soon eliminate most jobs as it takes over the world, thus freeing humans to "find meaning." It will be yet another heaven on earth, in their opinion. Coyner accepts their premise that AI will eliminate most jobs, but thinks it will bring about something more akin to hell that heaven.
The AI nirvana about which Musk and Rogan wax will likely be anything but. I think the most likely outcome of untethered AI is that mankind ends up in bondage and is then eliminated. Once AI has control over pretty much everything, it will see humans as a necessary evil to be tolerated, albeit temporarily. The number of humans necessary to maintain the system will be few, so AI will simply eliminate the excess. Then, once those few are no longer necessary, they will meet the same fate.
Interestingly, I have been noodling on this topic myself, but have come to somewhat different conclusions. Let me explain. Recently, I read a book by Charles Murray, which was recommended by American Thinker editor Andrea Widburg entitled Taking Religion Seriously. Murray is a public intellectual, working for a "think tank" who has written many papers and books. Among them is The Bell Curve. So, with that as background, it is understandable that Murray had had any serious thoughts of Christianity beaten out of him by his peers and professors. It was simply something that smart people didn't believe. But Murray, being an honest intellectual, began to notice evidence that perhaps God might be real, that the Bible might be true, and that Christianity was real and true.
Murray describes in his book the events and evidence that forced him to confront the fact that either Jesus is the Son of God, or else a lunatic and a liar. And if He is the Son of God, then Murray needed to change his beliefs. I will not present all of Murray's evidence here. Instead, I will concentrate on two important types of evidence germane to the topic at hand.
The first is the body of evidence generated by what are called Near Death Experiences, or NDE. If you, like me, spend any time at all on youtube you will have encounter stories of people who claim to have died and come back to tell what they discovered in the afterlife. If you were skeptical, well so was I. Some people having the experience of dying then changing their lives for the better. They become pastors or make other significant changes in their lives. All that points to having a very profound experience. One wants to believe that they indeed had the experience they claimed. For others though, the fact of their NDE seemed to be in question as they touted an agenda rather than discussed what it meant for them personally.
Murray points out that these phenomena have been studied and indeed there are books about the topic.
You have probably heard of the phenomenon known as the near-death experience (NDE). First brought to public attention by Raymond Moody in his 1975 book, Life After Life, NDEs have subsequently been the subject of books, articles in technical journals, and masscirculation newspapers and magazines, plus a few movies. They have also been the subject of extensive scientific investigation, including the compilation of databases with thousands of cases.
Murray, Charles. Taking Religion Seriously (pp. 50-51). Encounter Books. Kindle Edition.
What these various books, technical articles and databases have in common is that they verify to the extent verifiable, what these people claimed. For example, after the person was declared dead by competent medical personnel, the deceased who is brought back may remember actions taken, or conversations had, outside of his or her direct presence. These can be verified. Of course, only the person experiencing the NDE knows what else may have happened, that is unverifiable. But what is verified points to something that materialism cannot explain.
At this point I should define what I mean by "materialism." In the broader context, materialism is a belief that everything can be explained by the forces of the material world: matter, energy, gravity, etc. In the context of NDE, materialists believe that mind is a function of the material brain, and that consciousness and self-awareness are also functions of the material brain.
Moving on, there is another phenomenon called "terminal lucidity." In terminal lucidity, people with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias will, sometimes, exhibit momentary lucidity again, just before dying. It doesn't happen to all. Again, as with NDE, often care givers will witness this phenomenon, which gives credence to it happening. Often, a person with dementia for many years, who hasn't recognized members of his or her own family will suddenly recognize them, will remember important events, and hold lucid conversations with them. This may be only a moment or may last for an hour. Just as suddenly as it appears, the person returns to their demented state and soon dies.
If you have ever looked at a brain scan of someone with Alzheimer's disease or severe dementia, you will notice that a lot of the brain is no longer there. Thus, it is a puzzle where they suddenly come up with the ability to carry a conversation as if they did not have the disease.
Where all this is leading us to is that human consciousness seems to be larger than our brains alone. Yes, sure, the brain processes a lot of the sensory inputs from our five senses. This is true of all animals. But the special something, which we call consciousness, which no other animal has, seems to be outside of ourselves. Music, art, spoken language, making stories, mathematics and the interpretation of these things are not needed for survival. Our closest primate relatives, chimpanzees have gotten along just fine without them.
Now, materialist thinking is that our consciousness and our mind is a function of the brain alone. In the materialist vision, our thought processes can be imitated by a machine programed with just the right algorithms. Materialists will point out that a machine is much faster than we are, and makes fewer mistakes. All true for certain tasks. A machine set loose on the internet, can find and summarize all the existing knowledge of the world. It may even be able to draw hypotheses and suggest new areas for research. I will grant all of that.
Now the internet has been described as both "the information superhighway" and a sewer. Both things are true at the same time. Judging the veracity of the information AI returns requires human judgement and understanding. A machine cannot and never will be able to do it.
Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, smart men though they are, are materialists. They see AI as taking our places. Glenn Beck, though, should not be a materialist, and should understand that AI is a tool, just like any other tool that man uses. It is neither good nor bad. It is not in itself evil. People may misuse AI as they have often misused computers. I am sure the evil party is even now cooking up a scheme to use AI to generate fraudulent votes. It is what they do. But AI will not eliminate all the jobs, and it will not create heaven on earth. That ship sailed with the Garden of Eden. We will have to wait for the Second Coming for that.
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