There were two very thought-provoking, I might even say, mind boggling blogposts on Artificial Intelligence that I happened to read this morning.
The first one below ⬇️ made me fearful that a new-age Frankenstein has been unleashed into the world by this new-age Technology.
https://shumer.dev/something-big-is-happening
The second blogpost ⬇️ however soothed my nervous fear a bit. It assured me that Technology was not going to be some unshackled, unbounded and irrepressible Dr. Frankenstein running amok through our world, rampaging people’s jobs, livelihoods, self-worth and life-purpose.
https://cetfreedom.com/spiritual-intelligence-vs-ai-intelligence-knowing-the-line/
Both blogposts are certainly worth patiently reading and contemplating upon seriously.
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Serious contemplation is exactly what I myself did after I had finished reading the above two perspectives on AI. If there’s a bit of the great store of your patience still left in you, you might want to perhaps read just one more blogpost : mine below ⬇️
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Today , after having spent 37 long years in my life as a Chartered Accountant and a practising corporate-finance professional whose “bread, butter and raison d’être” had always been defined and endowed by “spread-sheet analyses of investment appetite and returns, risk-profiles, cost-of-capital, strategic alignment with shareholder value” etc.… I think I’ve had enough of all things and affairs of the world that can possibly be computer simulated and impersonated by this technological wonder toolkit called Artificial Intelligence.
At 70 years age , I’m glad I’ve moved on in life and now more in search of not intelligence generated through computation but in the pursuit of the wisdom that intuitive understanding begets; in discernment, not just in utility; and in the real deal viz. trying to experience meaning far beyond the mere chimera of inferences
No longer do I find myself fond of analysis … not ever since I began wanting to intuit. Intuition doesn’t need Intelligence, either biological or artificial . Instead, all I need is what in Sri Vaishnava Vedanta is called “nirhetuka krupai”… the Prayer for unconditioned, unconditional Grace … Grace of Almighty.
निरहेतुका कृपा (nirhetukā kṛpā), meaning “by the causeless grace”, refers to spontaneous, unconditional divine grace bestowed on devotees without they having to merit it through endeavours or qualification. It underscores total dependence on a greater-than-human Intelligence to whom Prayer is addressed for compassion and all-pervasive intuitive understanding of Matter, Mind and Soul … all in one sweep, as it were. Such Grace flows freely, enabling spiritual upliftment and liberation purely out of divine compassion.
Of course, I am aware that to speak of AI Technology and extra-terrestrial or metaphysical Grace in the same breath here might seem rather odd, out-of-place, and perhaps even incoherently absurd. But then, if one thinks deeply about it, it is not all that ridiculous to assert that even AI Technology will find it impossible to reach realms of human experience that only Prayer easily can. … If you don’t want to believe me, well… then you are going to have to contend with minds and intellects grater than mine! Read below ⬇️:
“More things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of …” wrote the poet Alfred Tennyson … echoing the words of Shakespeare too in “Hamlet”:“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Both the wise poets, we know, knew nothing about Artificial Intelligence but both were indeed categorical in suggesting that the human imagination is limited and that there would always remain (and it won’t matter if AI rules the world or not!) many things we won’t know, things that won’t have been discovered or experienced and, in fact, things we won’t have even dreamt of.
Years after the poets Shakespeare and Tennyson had emphatically affirmed that it was Prayer and not so much Intelligence or Philosophy that was really the key to fathom “more things in Heaven and Earth”, there was this endearing exchange of letters ⬇️ below between a very intelligent sixth-grade school-girl and the great wise old physicist, Prof. Albert Einstein (extracted from Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Children (public library collection).
The Riverside Church
January 19, 1936
My dear Dr. Einstein,
We have brought up the question: Do scientists pray? in our Sunday school class. It began by asking whether we could believe in both science and religion. We are writing to scientists and other important men, to try and have our own question answered.
We will feel greatly honored if you will answer our question: Do scientists pray, and what do they pray for?
We are in the sixth grade, Miss Ellis’s class.
Respectfully yours,
Phyllis
Only five days later, Prof. Einstein wrote back — and his answer speaks to an interesting spiritual quality that can never be possessed by what today we know and are all either bedazzled or befuddled by— this Frankensteinian creature called Artificial Intelligence that threatens to render human intelligence redundant.
January 24, 1936
Dear Phyllis,
I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer:
Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.
However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.
But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.
With cordial greetings,
your A. Einstein
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AI will no doubt achieve superhuman performance in narrow tasks like pattern recognition and computation, but fundamental limits will still persist in replicating core human cognitive experiences. Certain domains of human knowledge and intelligence will always appear conceivably beyond AI’s reach due to philosophical, experiential, and ontological barriers.
AI’s Intelligence may certainly be as Einstein said “vastly superior to that of man” but all the same, as we must all now believe, AI’s “religiosity” will always be “naive” because it simply cannot comprehend what lies beyond the limits of its boundaries as vast uncharted space where “more things are wrought by prayer than the world dreams of”.
Sudarshan Madabushi