The recent goings-on within OpenAI last week reminded me of an article I read several years ago, when self-driving vehicles were still in the experimental stage. As I recall, an engineer was in the passenger seat of a self-driving car, and had programmed the car to turn right at a certain intersection. When the car started to turn left, the engineer tried to stop it and reprogram it to turn right. The vehicle did not stop, and continued turning left.
Thanks, Jeffrey. Yes, I forgot to mention Frankenstein. The material that Rossum made his robots from in R.U.R. was actually some kind of biologic facsimile that made the robots even more human-like than the machines we've come to think of, so more like Frankenstein's monster. Mary Shelley was way ahead of her time: she also wrote a novel called The Last Man, in which all of humanity is wiped out by a pandemic, and only one human being is left alive. (It wasn't Frankenstein or his monster.) I think we should listen to novelists and poets, because they aren't afraid to give expression to our worst fears.
Yes, exactly, Lia. I think we should ask that question about a great many technological "advances." Why do we need this? Why do we need rabbits that glow in the dark? If, instead of devising ways to travel to distant planets, we spent the money fixing this one, we wouldn't need to move. Perhaps it's time to recognize that "Why?" is an ethical question. Thanks for your comment.
Excellent essay! One of the things I’ve always been curious about with AI art and writing is why? Why do we want AI to make art of any sort? As an artist whose calling it is to make things, I have no desire to offload my work to any sort of AI.
The thing that worries me about AI is exactly the part you mention, that "science doesn't know". The developeers of AI don't really know how it works. Frankenstein's monster is already twitching on the slab.
Thanks, Jeffrey. Yes, I forgot to mention Frankenstein. The material that Rossum made his robots from in R.U.R. was actually some kind of biologic facsimile that made the robots even more human-like than the machines we've come to think of, so more like Frankenstein's monster. Mary Shelley was way ahead of her time: she also wrote a novel called The Last Man, in which all of humanity is wiped out by a pandemic, and only one human being is left alive. (It wasn't Frankenstein or his monster.) I think we should listen to novelists and poets, because they aren't afraid to give expression to our worst fears.
Yes, exactly, Lia. I think we should ask that question about a great many technological "advances." Why do we need this? Why do we need rabbits that glow in the dark? If, instead of devising ways to travel to distant planets, we spent the money fixing this one, we wouldn't need to move. Perhaps it's time to recognize that "Why?" is an ethical question. Thanks for your comment.
Excellent essay! One of the things I’ve always been curious about with AI art and writing is why? Why do we want AI to make art of any sort? As an artist whose calling it is to make things, I have no desire to offload my work to any sort of AI.
All scary. . . Well done
Great post, Wayne. And I enjoyed the Goofy story!
The thing that worries me about AI is exactly the part you mention, that "science doesn't know". The developeers of AI don't really know how it works. Frankenstein's monster is already twitching on the slab.
Excellent, as always, Wayne.