Artificial
Intelligence
“Artificial
intelligence, or AI, is intelligence exhibited by a machine or by
software. It is not wise, or compassionate, or at all spiritual. It
is simply smart—pure, raw intelligence, which we define as the
ability to maximize resources to achieve a desired end.”
Jeff
Zaleski (The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence; Parabola, Fall,
2015)
As
you know if you've been following this blog for a little while, I
made a trip with some other women to the west coast of Costa Rica
this summer. When we arrived at the air port, we were taken directly
to a rental car company across town. We rented an SUV large enough to
hold the four of us, all our luggage and my friend's scooter; in
other words, a pretty big vehicle. In addition to the car, we paid
extra for a GPS device to shepherd us to the house some two hours
away. The person at the car rental office assured us of its
proficiency, and programmed it herself for the village we indicated,
then threw in a stylized, fanciful map.
An
hour out of San Jose, we discovered that the GPS no longer worked, in
fact, it simply shut down. We thought maybe it was a bad connection,
so we unplugged, cleaned the prong, and rebooted—you know, the
Leroy Gibbs method of computer control. Nothing. By now, we were high
up in the mountains. The road was narrow, but well paved. The scenery
featured vistas of rain forest, clouds hanging in the valleys between
peaks. We drove through butterfly preserves and green, green villages
with flowering trees the color of oranges. It was breathtakingly
beautiful. After another hour, we knew we were lost.
Since
we didn't speak the language, and the people there didn't speak ours,
we had to communicate by signs, and pointing to cartoon pictures of
mermaids and dolphins on the map. Incredibly, this archaic form of
communication worked, and we were given a police escort back to the
proper road, and sent on our way. We arrived finally at the place we
desired some five hours after leaving San Jose. For
some in our party, that was the most hair raising, terrifying part of
the trip. For me, it was the most beautiful. Artificial Intelligence
failed utterly, but the gorgeous, sacred beauty of this planet was
alive and well, and human kindness was the intelligence needed to
show us the way.
Jeff
Zaleski writes in his article in Parabola that artificial
intelligence will arrive in full sometime this century. We are
already seeing it in the myriad people who walk around with a screen
in front of their faces. Soon it will include virtual reality, and
drone delivery of our groceries. We can sit in our armchairs and see
the moons of Jupiter, while the robot mows the lawn, and the 3-D
printer makes dinner. Some people will absolutely love that world.
As
for me, I'll take the cloud forest, the beach at sunset, and the feel
of sand, real sand, under my feet. I want to stand on to this holy ground, this mother Gaia, for as long as I possibly can. Call me
sentimental, old fashioned—I will wear it like a crown.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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