AI is rightly getting a lot of attention, but rarely from a cogent perspective.
That technological man can make make a machine smarter or more capable than himself seems to be at the heart of the debate. This possibility worries people. People do not want to be displaced by machines. Or do they? People are often unaware that the entire history of technology is a progressive displacement of human activity by the machine- which is an extension of the tool. This should come as no surprise. It is completely obvious.
But somehow many now feel challenged by the alarming possibility that machines can think- or kinda-think, think well enough anyway, to fool some and maybe everyone. Now, were this the case, this would turn the long cherished concept of “Progress” on its head.
Progress as an idea coming out of the enlightenment and industrialization was rarely considered an ironic development. Europe and America quickly embraced industrialization as a god-send. One notable and celebrated exception to this view was William Blake, as expressed in his poem
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands[b] mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these[c] dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold:
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Blake contrasted Reason and Imagination, the one faculty leading to bondage among satanic mills, the other to freedom. The faculty of imagination is opposed to reason because it accesses heavenly realms more proximate to God- which then transfigures this world into Jerusalem.
Progress is about the perfectability of human reason. This is the quest of AI, and as applied to an utopian vision of this world. Blake’s Imagination is the visioning of heavenly worlds- and their incarnation, artistically, aesthetically and practically, in place of the world created by Reason. The sheer genius of Blake’s work testifies to the building of Jerusalem in the here and now.
AI mimics the activity of Reason- but not Imagination. AI is like a gifted monkey imitating man, seeking to improve upon him with expert gesticulation. Imagination is not a mime or a copyist; Imagination reveals what has never been known before.
The advent of AI is very significant as it heralds the utter duplicity of Reason, and the futility of Progress. And this is because Reason is based on binary logic, just like the computer chip. Imagination is based on a unitary perception of experience far beyond the binary world of logic.
What the world of AI cannot approach is the world of symbolic thinking and perception. The world of AI is strictly limited to the world of data- the world of binary facts. It can ape Reason well enough, but nothing more. What it can do brilliantly is impressively flatter the mind obsessed with data.
