Artificial Intelligence Does Not Dream of Sunscreen (VOlume 1)

Artificial Intelligence Does Not Dream Of Sunscreen.
In recent weeks, Doctor Hawking and other esteemed scientists have signed a petition stipulating that Artificial
Intelligence was the greatest threat to the future of the human species. The argument is that A.I. would evolve to such
technological complexity that it would surpass the human species in every domain and discipline, and in short render the human
species obsolete. A.I. would become an autonomous free thinking entity and would eventually cast-off the shackles of humanity
and enter a post-humanist era, one where A.I. would be supreme.
The problem with this post-apocalyptic vision is that A.I., regardless of how technologically sophisticate, intellectually
sophisticated it becomes, it could never transcend the limits of capitalism, human creativity, human emotions and human intuition
and most importantly, modern contemporary art. First and foremost, A.I. is at the mercy of capitalism and will in my estimation
remain so. No matter how sophisticated it becomes it will always be an appendage of capitalist production because A.I. could
never be an adequate consumer. A.I. does not need sunscreen, diapers, medication, listen to good music, see great art, participate
in social media etc. For example, the automotive industry embraced A.I. technology. Artificial Intelligence was utilize to
mechanized the assembly-line process to such a level of sophistication as to render a great portion of the manufacturing sector
obsolete and out of work. This has had grave consequences on the automotive industry in the sense that A.I. does not purchase
vehicles. A.I.’s production levels may surpass humans but A.I.’s consumption levels lag far behind those of humans. Through the
mechanized process of Artificial Intelligence, the auto industry deprived their greatest consumer advocates and their greatest
proponents, the working-class manufacturer, of the very vehicles they were producing. Consequently, it is no accident that a
large portion of the Automotive Industry eventually required a financial bailout by the U.S. government. A.I. may not have been
the sole factor for the bailout but it certainly was a primary factor for Detroit’s automotive sales decline. A.I. is not Homo
Economicus in any sense of the word, it was brought forth by Homo Economicus to magnify capitalist production. There it has
remained and there it will continue to remain as a tool and a means to an end, due to the fact that it does not have needs, irrational
wants and/or desires to satisfy the logic of capitalism’s necessity for realizing surplus value.
What Doctor Hawking and his cohorts fail to realize is that no matter how technologically sophisticated and/or
intellectually sophisticate A.I. becomes, i.e. it acquires consciousness, it will never be able to consume to the extent that humans
consume. A.I. is devoid of needs, wants and desires and as a result is incapable of participating and transcending the logic and
limits of capitalism. It could never surpass humans as consumers and as a result, the logic of capitalism, the central social relation
of western society, would forever be an insurmountable limit to A.I.’s ascension to power. Consumption as a central feature of
the logic of industrial and post-industrial capitalism, requires consumption and A.I. does not consume or require to consume, and
as a result, according to the logic of capitalism it will forever be a tool and a means, rather than a citizen participant or some sort
of fibre-optic Übermensh. Consequently, no matter how A.I. evolves beyond human beings’ intellectually and autonomously, it
will never be able to accommodate the logic of capitalism and its logical requirements for consumption and more importantly
mass consumption, which humans are its perfect ideal. At best, A.I. will always be a tool, a means to an end, for the logic of
capitalism and humans alike.
Notwithstanding, theoretically, A.I. could surpass the human species in particular scientific disciplines and scientific
professions. For instance, it could duplicate and surpass, humans in mathematics, mathematical physics and administrative
disciplines where rules and linguistic parameters are firm and rigid akin to a game of chess (think of the eventual triumph of deep
blue over the human mind). However, in the humanities and in the arts, A.I., lacking all emotions, instincts and intuition could
not achieve the artistic achievements of humans, such as the Mona Lisa, Guernica, Grunge Music, the Beatles, Marcel
Duchamp’s Urinal etc., regardless of A.I.’s level of sophistication. Only a human can conceive of these irrational and humanist
things. Only a human can encompass the emotional and instinctual fervor of Picasso’s “Guernica”.
Granted, A.I. could surpass humans in hard science-based domains, but in artistic terms it could never master the fine
arts and the avant-garde arts etc. Regardless of sophistication, it could not evolve artistically beyond humans as it lacks the
instinctual, the emotional and the intuitional elements needed to philosophize, to create emotionally charged artworks, conceive
of great poems like T.S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” or songs like Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” etc. In these areas and
disciplines, A.I. is highly inadequate and conceivably will always be inadequate when it comes to the arts and to the humanities,
where rules are lax, pliable, pluralist and in some instances completely lacking.
All in all, in my estimation, what Doctor Hawking and his scientific colleagues are expressing is a legitimate fear, a fear
which I believe is justified pertaining to their own individual professions and academic disciplines. In reality, A.I. Cyborgs may
very well eventually and completely populate the engineering sciences, mathemati cal sciences and the hard sciences, making
humans obsolete in those specific rigid and inflexible rule-based disciplines. However that is the best that A.I. can logically and
realistically achieve, if it reaches its maximum technological perfection. And as for the Terminator/Matrix scenario that these
scientists insinuate and put forward, this is pure Hollywood nonsense, Sheldon Cooper’s nonsensical musings, as if humans
would ever forget to implement into any A.I. technology an On/Off switch and/or, my personal favorite, a solid Blade-Runner
expiration date.
Sincerely,