Re: <nettime> They know not what they do

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

> But the problem is, does IQ measure intelligence? Or is IQ uniquely
> the measure of that aspect of intelligence associated with the
> treatment of technical tasks, from which computer reasoning is
> derived? IQ has little to say about such essential aspects of
> intelligence as affectivity, perceptual sensitivity, creativity,
> intuition or imagination.

For the current argument, let's just assume that 'intelligence' is what 
IQ tests measure, repeatedly and reliably, and which reliably predicts 
many aspects of performance and behavior.

There is no difference between mythologizing 'human mind' and describing 
'intelligence' as something elusive, impossible to measure, from the 
other dimension, but which somehow forever differentiates humans from 
machines. Same thing, The Undefinable Something That Makes Humans Humans 
(USTMHH) implies, by definition, that nothing (except God or Cthulhu?) 
can replicate humans, because it cannot be defined, so we are safe. Word 
game. I totally agree that USTMHH is umeasurable and unattainable, and 
it doesn't matter one bit, its unmeasurability and undefineability are 
irrelevant, its existence is a matter of belief.

What matters is the end game of symbiotic relationship of humans and 
machines. Right now it's kind of delineated, and if an autonomous drone 
deposits a bullet in you because your cell tower connection pattern 
looked sinister, the command chain and responsibility can probably be 
traced to some law enforcement official, MAGAf data collection and coder 
from General Dynamics. But it will get twice and trice removed, and it's 
easy to imagine that at some point you get hunted down without obvious 
or indirect explanation. It's a small step from there to the system that 
figured out how to protect itself from the likes of you. Say, in 50 
jurisdictions 'the people' disabled such system, but in one they failed 
because of a bug in electoral process. Now that is called Darwinian 
evolution.

This is an artificial example, and proves nothing one way or another, it 
simply illustrates possible parallels between the evolution we know 
works, and conditions that may get replicated in the future with 
machines as subjects.

But the most important thing to understand is that not understanding 
underlying mechanisms is not a barrier to exploiting, replicating or 
accidentally triggering them.

We (humans) already have capability to completely terminate life on the 
planet, so it's high time to admit that we are gods. I know, terrifying.





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