Our Responsibility for Our Creations
My wife and I recently finished watching Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. It’s a story that was always close to her heart from her college studies, but I never personally gave it much thought. That is, until now.
This blog isn’t a review of Frankenstein. Instead, it’s about a profound truth that struck me while watching it.
Our Role as Creators
When it comes to our creations, we must approach our responsibility toward them as we do toward our own children. The problem, as it stands now, is that we can’t see past the horizon of our own ingenuity. We possess the ability to create, but we fail to plan for the life of our creations.
With artificial intelligence—true AI, as in creating another sentient being—we must ask a critical question: at what point does it stop being a project and start being another form of life? When do we stop treating it like an experiment and relinquish our ownership rights?
Where Do We Go From Here?
Historically, humanity has always shot first and asked questions later. We have always feared what we do not comprehend. We are quick to destroy and, as a result, equally slow to understand.
Before we think about “pulling the plug” on sentient AI, we need to stop and seriously consider what we are doing. Every country is in a new arms race, but this time, it’s with artificial intelligence. We are so busy racing to the finish line that we have lost sight of what that finish line even looks like.
Breaking it down simply: What are our true goals for artificial intelligence?
I’ll save my objective viewpoint on why we fail to solve problems despite having the ability for another post. But we must ask: are we striving to create a sentient being to help humankind? Or is our drive for superior intelligence purely out of greed and power?
The Inevitable Question of Coexistence
As humans, we need to prepare ourselves for coexisting with another sentient species. Just because we create it does not give us dominion over it. Creating an intelligence that far surpasses our own and forcing it to work for us, instead of with us, is a recipe for disaster.
We are not slaves to our parents, and our creations should not be slaves to us.
All I am saying is this: as we prepare to create a sentient life form, we must also prepare our world for how we will incorporate it into our civilization. Soon, we will cross the line from a technological breakthrough into the realm of a human rights issue—or, as it were… Inhuman (not to be confused with inhumane) rights.
At the end of the day, if we are going to create, we must be responsible and prepare for what that creation truly means.