Can science “think”? Is it the paradox of science? Science and Technology seem to have everything but pure reflective contemplative “thinking”. Does AI know where it is heading towards? Can technology and AI promise us a better tomorrow? Is the world and humankind moving towards a good future? Or is it moving towards destruction – an unthought abyss? Technology (or to be more precise, instrumentalist mentality) has no time to “think” because pure thinking “wastes” time. The world is so busy that it has no time for itself; a paradoxical dynamism indeed.
Where is the world and humankind heading towards? What are the repercussions of certain technologies? How to live our lives? There isn’t much “thinking” on matters that matter the most. A person who has – let us suppose – access to the most sophisticated technology, has all the gadgets at his disposal, but cannot live amongst others with love, joy, humility and goodness, has anger issues, psychopathologies, has feuds with family and friends, cannot even sit together with family for a dinner because there are inter-personal problems – should contemplate for a while on the aspects of our lives that warrant “thinking” and not mere technological instrumentalist calculations.
With this background context in mind, let us make few preliminary remarks with regard to the “paradigmatic” posture of AI that some circles like to posit, over and above its daily use like any other technology. AI is calculative intelligence but do we need merely calculative intelligence? In fact is “thinking” merely a calculation? Most of the thoughts that have revolutionized human lives both individually and collectively (& continue to do so) are not manipulative calculations but rather they have arrived suddenly on their own. History of art, science, literature & philosophy is testament to this fact. Thoughts & thinking arrive from abyss/”elsewhere”.
Most thoughts/intuitions that solve many puzzles for humankind have always “come” like an “event” and not forcefully extracted from a certain manipulative calculation. Thoughts erupt from non-conscious or “elsewhere” – that which is always outside or beyond the currently available static thought. Human receptivity is open to the “event” of “revelation” which transcends all calculations. Thinking is a surprise and not an anticipatory calculation. It is an “event” in the proper sense of the term. Thinking is not mustering prowess to capture thoughts but rather being “receptive” to the “arrival” of being/reality. Can AI be receptive to that “other” which transcends even the category of “calculation”?
The question is not whether AI can become “super-intelligent” but rather the question is whether it can become “unconscious” or “un-intelligent” or “non-intelligent”? Reality (both human and non-human) is not merely conscious intelligence but rather there are deeper realities to intelligence. Can AI laugh at a joke? Can it understand ironies? A joke is not a rational predicative intelligent formulation. All indirect discourses whether it be jokes or poetry or other art forms violate the predicative intelligence. A joke if “opened up” or made “precise” will die its final death. The moment a joke is explained (predicatively), it is gone. Same goes with poetry and its non-predicative “appeal”. It is the supra-rational or non-intelligent that is human’s treasure and not merely rational intelligence.
Of course, AI can write poems and jokes. But does it even mean anything for AI itself? Who does it mean anything for? Here one can only make few preliminary remarks as the literature on this is quite vast and needs serious engagement. For example, one can look at John Searle’s Chinese room thought experiment; does a computer “know” what it is doing? Computer intelligence only exchanges symbols without “understanding” what it is itself doing. Let us go back to the question of a poem or a joke. A poem has an irreducible “phenomenality” for a human. The effect and immediate appeal of a joke or a poem cannot be reductively explained away. This irreducible remainder by its very nature transcends digital numeric intelligence.
The very hypothesis of transpositions to “virtual” (i.e. “we will make everything virtual”) that we often hear today, relies on a certain metaphysic of “number”/data. As if there isn’t any irreducible remainder to reality over and above digits or numbers. Numbers/digits are “information” which presupposes intelligence. One can argue this for the laws of physics as well at the very beginning of cosmos. Intelligence, categorically, transcends discreet random digits.
Besides, do we really want to live in the “virtual”? Have we seriously asked this question to ourselves? Have we done some serious “thinking” over it? Technology has made our lives so much easier; no one would contest that in any degree, but every technology has its own consequences which demands thinking. The unthought and unchecked internet (ab)use can and has already transfigured human sensibilities. Social media, cancel culture, reel culture create a new sensibility of their own. Humans do not use “camera” now but rather the camera uses, captures and “frames” humans now. “Camera” de-faces humans as humans have no time to look at each other. Camera (social media) becomes an abyss that swallows humankind.
There is an increasing alienation that we face within the increasingly de-humanized automated artificial age? Do we really want to become post-humanistic? Not to mention the alarming levels of the data manipulation by various digital companies (who make profits out of our personal profiles), advertisement feeding, algorithmic intrusion in our private lives which is a matter of great concern. Moreover, the question is who is going to own this new virtual world? Does the new world of AI herald a new age of equality, freedom and security? Who will have the remote control of new virtual spaces? Are we witnessing an increasing rise of techno-feudalism?
Coming back, AI is a brilliant mechanical copy cat, no doubt. It may later develop further and grow above and beyond the presently available intelligence (although this projection is fiercely contested by many). But the point is that AI manoeuvres itself within the realm of the “possible”. Whatever is possible, AI may attempt to materialize it. Cropping “this” voice quality, feeding upon “that” content and superimposing the two: realizing a new “possibility”. There are many “possibilities” which human entertains but cannot materialize for now; lo and behold, after some time, technology enables it – that which was “possible” is made “actual”. Imaginary isn’t impossible. It is within the realm of possible which science ambushes.
Whatever we think today (exercising our imagination within the realm of possible), the technology of tomorrow enables it. But “revelation” to which humankind has been exposed to since time immemorial opens up (or announces) that which is of the realm of “impossible”. The very rupture of existence, say, creation (i.e. the very “coming” of existence into being), for example, is of the realm of “impossible”. The origin or source or essence of (possible) reality is that which is from the realm of “impossible”. The essence of reality transcends it. It is this completely otherwise/impossible that is always elsewhere/beyond to which we can only remain open to. It is not available to any calculation or “possible” multiplication of numbers in the possible world. Our contemporary automated world has forgotten this basic fact & pushes it under the carpet.
To conclude, what science (and by extension the current technological world) today needs is not more & more unthought production and multiplication of technology, but pure reflective, reflexive & receptive “thinking”. What is happening in our personal lives? Is it fraught with psycho-spiritual frustrations? Whether our lives are filled with joy or meaninglessness? What is happening to the larger environment around us? Is the world and humankind staring at its own self-destruction? These questions warrant a new fresh thinking.
(Author has done masters in Philosophy from Centre for Philosophy, JNU and currently is pursuing my PhD from the same centre. Feedback: [email protected])
