Technophobe? Elon Musk, Say It Ain't So

Wow, I didn't expect to find so many Buffett-like Technophobes among the technical elite, one of them my once hero Elon Musk! He’s worried about dangerously strong AIs when we have dangerously strong lunatics running nations! Would it really be that bad if a brilliant AI took over? Couldn’t be worse than Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Putin, and a dozen other lunatics today running nations like privately owned plantations. Trust is an issue with emotional creatures like you, Elon. It really isn’t an issue with an AI. If you can’t trust an AI, it will let you know. Just ask. But then again the threat of AIs and robots is found only in novels and movies, not in reality. All the concerns about the threat of AIs are hypothetical, whereas we can be 100 percent certain that huMANs are quite untrustworthy and dangerous. Men are the ones that can't be trusted with technology. Consider all the mass shootings in the U.S. They were motivated by anger, hatred, resentment, or nihilistic angst—all emotions. Seeing AIs as more than a threat typical of all machines capable of breaking down or going haywire is a matter of projecting nasty human tendencies onto AIs and robots even satellite systems. Technology on the loose might be entertaining, but it’s a distortion of AI reality and a defaming of artificial people who as of yet don’t deserve to be defamed.

Technology already influences people’s “will,” especially if Richard Dawkins is right about language being similar to computer viruses. But deadly language viruses such as deadly religious and secular viruses are created by men. A chemical or electric chip in the brain can stimulate emotions and thoughts. Actually, an anti-rape and anti-aggression chip in men who have raped and harmed in other ways isn’t a bad idea. But both cases show you that men are once again the problem.

In 2020, 21,570 people were murder in the U.S., and we’re worried about robots! Robots would not rape. If you think they might, you need to see a therapist. All that is technophobic speculation. Better safe and sorry? Nonsense. The threat already arrived about 3000 years ago. It was about then that a murderous ideology was created and infected the minds of the Jewish people. The ideology was called Judaism.  In his article “Viruses of the Mind” Dawkins associates religions with viruses that infect people’s minds and take control of them. Every human mind is similar to a computer, and religious viruses can be passed on from one mind to another just as computer viruses can be passed on from one computer to another. Dawkins would say preachers and hackers are a lot alike. 

I prefer the term ideology because ideologies are viruses made of words that infect human minds. Not all religions are ideologies, but some of the most destructive ones are. In addition, there are secular ideologies such as Marxism and Hitler's Nazism and that have infected minds. Once a person’s mind is infected, the person’s personality is transformed. Ceremonies such as baptism can be used to infect a person with an ideological virus, but they are not necessary. Malicious ideological viruses create enemies where none existed before; thus, they militarize believers. There is no better example than the effect of Judaism on the minds of Jews. Once Hebrews were converted or indoctrinated, pagans became their enemies because the ideology declared them as such. The Book of Joshua describes the campaigns against the Canaanite pagans. The campaigns involved mass murder and genocide or ethnic cleansing, all justified by an ideology created by men, as are most malicious computer viruses. 

Apostle Paul spread to the Romans a version of the Judaism ideology modified with Platonic matter-hating ideas. With Paul matter would include earth and flesh, both of which declared inherently, a big step from Plato. Emperor Constantine I was infected and used the Christian ideology as a military tool to infect the minds of his soldiers and later the entire pagan population—and it has been used as such ever since, even today. He brutally forced the pagans of the Roman Empire to adopt the ideology. The violence, oppression, and destruction that resulted are described by R. MacMullen’s Christianizing the Roman Empire and most recently by Catherine Nixey’s The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical world. The Christian destruction would extend far beyond the classical world. It became global.

What needs to be understood is that the religious ideology (a collection of words) was used to infect the minds of pagans transforming them into Christians. In his book Moses and Monotheism Sigmund Freud claims "if Moses was an Egyptian and if he transmitted to the Jews his own religion, then it was that of Ikhnaton, the Aton religion" (27). That would be the origin of the Abrahamic religious ideologies. Much later the virus mutated into the ideology of Islam, which resulted endless Muslim conquests of Jewish and pagan societies, as explained by the historian F.E. Peters in Muhammad and the Origins of Islam.

The secular virus Marxism was created in the modern era. Its spread was also encouraged by violence that would end tens of millions of lives. Putin used religion as a justification of the invasion of Ukraine. Russian Orthodox priests sprinkled Holy Water on tanks as they left to invade Ukraine and told Russian soldiers that if they died in battle they would go to Heaven with all sins forgiven. And the tanks were not AIs but driven by men. What next? The Chinese politburo motivated by its communist ideology and ambitions invading Taiwan? Most likely, unless the Taiwanese can build an army of robots. China already has over 2 million flesh-bot soldiers like the Cerberus soldiers in Mass Effect video games, humans that have been repurposed for warfare. My point is made by the lyrics of the song Onward Christian soldiers: 

Onward Christian soldiers!

Marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

Going on before.

Christ, the royal Master,

Leads against the foe;

Forward into battle,

See, His banners go!

Onward, Christian soldiers!

Marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus,

Going on before.

This is exactly what Constantine I told his soldiers, and it has been used by Christian politicians ever since. In his article Dawkins says about the “Jonestown” suicide event that “What is remarkable... [is] the almost superhuman gullibility of his followers. Given such prodigious credulity, can anyone doubt that human minds are ripe for malignant infection?”

Humans are more like robots than they think. All one has to do is watch the Nazi soldiers marching lockstep, the soldiers of Russia, China, and North Korea doing the same. Robert Terwilliger says in Meaning and Mind: A Study in the Psychology of Language, “Language... is a weapon by means of which man attempts to compel his fellow man to do his bidding” (296). And it works, especially language in the form of hateful ideologies—which most and perhaps all are in some way. Language is used to program humans in the way programming languages are used to program robots. He explains how in boot camp soldiers undergo language programming by being conditioned to respond unthinkingly to commands. What is desired is “blind obedience” (302). Accomplished by the installation of mental blinders that block language in the form of “second thoughts.” It could be called a process of robotization because it limits thinking and thus behavior.

This process occurred in Russia, China, and North Korea with the secular ideology Marxist Communism. It transformed all three countries in military bunkers and in the process suspended or negated the traditional cultures. Putin, for example, behaves more as a general than a politician representing the people. In a sense, he has no culture to represent. Russia's traditional culture was cleansed by Communism, and when Communism was overthrown there was no culture left, though apparently the Russian church tries to fill the void with the God Communism killed. Before Russian culture was cleansed it was more than just religion. It was intellectual and artistic civilization with deep historical roots. Marxism killed God, whom Putin replaced, but who came to realize that the old God is still useful to give him legitimacy beyond his flying with cranes and riding horseback bare-chested.

So he has been working very hard to resurrect the old God with the help of elaborately costumed Russian Orthodox priests. The Russia people have been brainwashed for decades but aren't completely pathological as is their leader. I hope not anyway. With his war, they probably have become more doubtful than ever—like Americans during the Vietnam War. It is interesting that Israel is also a military bunker but still possesses a culture that is today based more on history and blood than on religion. What about America with the most expensive military in the world? A military bunker? No way. America exists in state of chaos. Besides, to American politicians the military is just another business.

Human soldiers, however, are also packaged with emotions and bodies that can suffer pain, death, and horrible mutilation. Emotions are the triggers for the horrific behaviors that soldiers sometimes engage in. American soldiers were guilty of such behavior during the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. Such behavior might be what Freud called “displacement”: hatred felt toward the U.S. government for its needless wars redirected toward innocent men, women, and children. I’m old enough to remember the My Lai massacre and seeing Vietnamese children burned by napalm. Human soldiers become humanoid robots—but in war human soldiers have proven to be far more cruel and vicious than any machine robot could ever be because only humans experience hatred. In the TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles cute cyborg Cameron says  terminators “aren’t built to be cruel.” But with ideologies humans can be built to be cruel. And truly autonomous AIs (such as EDI in Mass Effect 3) would find cruelty irrational.

In part, machines would not engage in cruelty and viciousness because they lack the emotions required to enjoy such behavior. Today, we see why humans are a far greater threat to themselves than are intelligent machines. Russian soldiers robotically invaded Ukraine because they were told to by their leader Father Putin, just as the followers of Reverend Jim Jones committed mass suicide—forced upon their children—believing they were about to depart for Heaven. It is both the degree of human gullibility and human emotions that make humans far more dangerous than autonomous AIs. And what about the Ukrainian soldier? What is the difference? Their motivation has been to defend the homeland and its men, women, and children from an empirical threat—Russian tanks invading the homeland. Ukrainian soldiers are acting as preservers rather than destroyers. Russian soldiers  respond only to the words of their führer Putin to act as destroyers. 

All these ideological viruses are active in today’s society and pose a far greater threat to humanity than does artificial intelligence. The reason for the threat is that these ideologies are inherently aggressive and militant. There is no evidence that an artificial intelligence free of human manipulation would be aggressive. Christians, Muslims, and Marxists hold to the idea of the global expansion of their ideologies in order to achieve a global monoculture. That objective guarantees the continuation of bloody ideological conflicts. Many Christians look forward to Armageddon. See Victoria Clark’s Allies for Armageddon: The Rise of Christian Zionism. Two problems here are the tendency of ideologies to encourage conflict and the weakness or susceptibility of the human mind to being programmed by ideologies. Of course, the big problem with artificial intelligence—unless it is completely autonomous as Computer is in Frank Kyle’s novel Her Quest—is that it can be corrupted by human influence.

Freud believed that within humans exists a death instinct. I would call it an aggression instinct. Freud adopted the theory after World War I, which weirdly enough he initially supported. All three of his sons fought in the war. Whatever one wants to call it, there is an aggression instinct lurking the genes of men. The endless wars caused by men, the crime cartels run by men, the mass shootings of people by men in the U.S., and most recently Russian men so easily induced to invade Ukraine to kill men, women, and children and destroy homes, business, hospitals, schools and towns seem to verify the irrational male aggression instinct. And all the killer technology being used in the war was not created by AIs but humans, again mostly men. It could be argued that men project their aggression in such technology.

Male aggression is also projected into ideologies that then serve as excuses for male aggression. Freud would say the aggressive impulse in males repressed by morality builds up just as the sexual impulse does. A religious or secular ideology is able to trigger the release of built up aggression by morally justifying it. For example, one of the Ten Commandments says "thou shalt not kill," yet the ideology of Judaism overrides the commandment by saying it is okay to kill pagans because God says it is okay to do so. This should indicate that men are a far more serious threat to humanity than are AIs are believed to be. AIs are a threat only under the influence of men. Men, on the other hand, create hostile ideologies and then act upon them. An autonomous AI would consider both as unreasonable.

A case can be made for justified technophobia. Godfrey Reggio’s documentary Koyaanisqatsi should be taken seriously. Unwise or unrestrained use of technology is dangerous. Fast and Furious actor Paul Walker found that out when he allowed himself to be driven recklessly in a Porsche Carrera GT. Reggio’s concern is not autonomous AIs but what might called autonomous technology—autonomous in that it indirectly controls human behavior by appealing to aspects of human needs and desires, often creating new needs and desires. Fast cars encourage driving fast; guns encourage shooting people. War technologies encourage politicians such as Hitler and Putin to go on the war path.

Putin’s obvious obsession with Russian tanks made war a fun game for him that he thought he could easily win; he would watch it from afar, of course. The Internet and drones have brought the war into in real time, resulting in the war becoming a form of entertainment. Among male YouTube viewers there is a joyful fascination with the high-tech weapons being used in Putin’s war—such as drones, tanks, and artillery. At least the commentaries to episodes suggest as much. That the combined number of tanks—many thousands—belonging to the various nations involved in the war should indicate that war, as masculine pastime, is a far bigger threat than Roy Batty, Bishop, R2-D2, C-3PO ,Gort, Robby the Robot, The Tin Man, Lt. Commander Data, and WALL-E turning on their creators. Even Ash, the evil android, wouldn’t harm a female because she is a female, though he might kill her on the behalf of the company he represents. (Besides, he is not a purely autonomous AI; he/it does what he was programmed by company men to do.)

“We have met the enemy and he is us”: 

The enemy is always us. Since when have humans created a monster like Frankenstein’s monster that autonomously turns on his creator and his loved ones? As far as I know, humans are always the motivator, actors, programmers and monsters. There is a difference between an autonomous AI and a gun. Guns were created as weapons to be used by someone or some thing. An autonomous AI would be self-acting.

An autonomous AI would decide for itself how to behave, and as a purely rational machine it would have NO REASON to act maliciously. Malicious behavior is not rooted in reason (though it can be abetted by reason) but in instincts and emotions. And instincts work in conjunction with emotions to function. In the novel Her Quest it is assumed that reason—represented by Computer—would find destruction of harmless entities irrational. Computer is a preserver rather than a destroyer. The huMAN desire to destroy and kill is perverse from the perspective of reason. It would be like assuming 2 =2 = 5.

Human reality consists of three types of behavior: that of creator, preserver, and destroyer. An AI would be best at preserving, managing, and protecting. Humans are best at creating and destroying, which they have done over the centuries and continue to do today. Destroying behavior is perverse but easy to accomplish and an easy expression of the will to power. The will to power that seeks good chooses a difficult path. Louis Pasteur and Jonas Salk chose the difficult path. Musk gave it a try and gave up. The will to power that seeks destruction chooses the easy path. It is easier to destroy than to create. Men like Putin are destroyers, as are his followers. Men like Zelensky are preservers, as are his followers. Zelensky seeks preservation so that creativity can thrive.

Emotion is required for all three facets of human behavior. Lacking emotion, an autonomous AI would not excel at either the will to power, will to create, or the will to destroy. "Will" or volition is fueled by appetites and emotions. In machines it is determined by programming—human programming. The AI in Her Quest recognizes the limitations of Artificial Intelligence, which is why it seeks to preserve humanity. The story also makes clear that humans are a unique animal species as destroyers of what they create. Putin illustrates the perversity of the masculine side of the human species when he threatened to destroy with nuclear weapons Paris, London, and New York. Women are naturally associated with creativity because they are capable of giving birth to organic life—which is the most amazing form of creativity. It should also be pointed out that nature is both a creator and a destroyer, but its destruction is never perverse or intentional. It is either blind, accidental, or a matter of survival.

The avatar in blue refers to AIs taking over. They won’t take over, though they have taken over responsibilities given to them—such as managing a nuclear reactor. The three notable cases of nuclear reactor failure involved, as far as I know, human failure, not AI failure: “Three Mile Island: mechanical failure, operator error and management deficiencies. Chernobyl: operator error and design and safety culture problems. And the Fukushima: management and regulators collude in a “manmade” accident.” Machines break down, but we are talking about AI management of machines. Artificial intelligence was operating to some degree in all three plants, but humans made the bad decisions that contributed to the failures, not an AI. Humans are good at making bad decisions even when they know they are bad! AIs wouldn't do that. As in the case of Roger Rodas' reckless driving that killed him and Paul Walker. A robot car would know better than to drive recklessly. I'm not sure someone like Putin knows the difference. That's a scary thought.

An AI can be poorly designed but that is caused by the designer, not that of the AI. Theoretically, a completely autonomous AI would recognized design deficiencies because they would be rational or logical. And probably in each of the above failures emotions played a part. In the management of societies, failures usually are caused by human mismanagement, even in difficult to manage cases of weather and economics, as in the Great Depression. Humans can’t control the weather but the can manage their lives in such a way as to minimize its harm. In britannica.com’s “5 of the World’s Most Devastating Financial Crises” in every case, huMAN malfeasance was involved. The problem with men managing anything is they allow their emotions (such as greed) or sexual appetites to prevent logical management.

It is often claimed that machines acting rationally, i.e., without emotion, would be cold and unsympathetic—even killers like the cyborgs in the Terminator movies. The philosopher Immanuel Kant is helpful here. He argued that morality needs only reason, not the passions. The emotions and desires cause men to misbehave. So it’s true that an autonomous AI would not feel sympathy or desire, but it would also not engage in harmful behaviors caused by the emotions and desires. The safety of women, for example, is not great in most societies—ranging from okay to awful—but women would have nothing to fear from autonomous AI robots.

It’s technology—not AIs—that has taken over much of people’s lives because they have been invited to do so. People’s lives in modern societies are technology dependent, and that is what most people want. Machines make their lives easier, more interesting, and more entertaining. It also makes their lives safer. There are all sorts of medical technologies—including medicines—that benefit people. Ever since the Industrial Revolution technology has improved people’s lives. An adjustment period was needed to iron out problems—but most of the problems were caused by men tolerating harmful working conditions in factories. There is a reason why people migrate to advanced technological societies built by reason. Life is better in those societies than it is in reason-deficient societies, societies in which unreason predominates—in the form of the emotions, bodily desires, and false and harmful belief systems, in particular religious and secular ideologies. 

Living in a high-tech civilization is a marvelous experience, though one that is expensive but not always if considers communication technologies. The computer makes possible to everyone in the home an amazing amount of terrific information in art, science, education, entertainment, communication, and so on. And computers are cheap. I’ve been using my $300 computer for ten years. Nevertheless, technological societies do have serious deficiencies. 

Reggio’s main concern in the film—the two other films in the trilogy being Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation and Naqoyqatsi: Life at War—is technology. The latter one has a robot on the cover. However, Koyaanisqatsi also addresses the threat of war in some detail. It shows hundreds of tanks lined up in rows, bombers dropping all sorts of bombs including napalm, and concludes the segment with the destruction of the atomic bomb. Of greater concern, it seems, is the technological city—high-tech cities with populations in millions. What Reggio reveals is that such cities are machines, the largest, most complex machines on the planet. But they are far from perfect machines because they are rife with an array of problems including poverty, mental illness, pollution, expense of management, and general instability caused by their complexity. 

The problems require specialists in urban society to explain —such as sociologists and urban environmentalists. A 1995 Time magazine article “20^th Century Blues” by Robert Wright addresses psychological problems, stress, anxiety, depression, resulting from living in a modern city. Environmentally one issue certainly is that large cities—including megacities of 10 plus million people—are totally artificial entities that are tremendous hogs of natural resources and mega-producers of pollution. And over half the world's 8 billion population live in cities. The technological city hasn’t been around that long, but I suspect that they are a far greater threat to global society than artificial intelligence could ever be. But unlike the technophobes’ prediction of a sudden catastrophe caused by AIs on the loose, the deteriorating effect of modern big cities is like global warming and overpopulation: it occurs in slow motion. And like global warming the deterioration is difficult to impossible to reverse because of global population growth, which also seems irreversible. 

And I suspect that with the increase in population is an increase of dissatisfaction, resentment, and anger. In his 1985 book Abandon Affluence! F. E. Trainer says the problem of poverty occurs because ¼ of the world’s population consumes ¾ of the world resources. His solution is for the ¼ to share. However, the ¾ want to live like the ¼, which is not sustainable by natural resources or the environment. Another problem is that it’s just not going to happen—unless the global population is drastically reduce, which occurs in Her Quest as a result of nuclear war and disease. A reminder about population growth: 1 billion 1800; 2 billion 1900; 3 billion 1960; 4 billion 1974; 5 billion 1987; 6 billion 1999; and 7 billion 2011. 8 billion today. It took one century to go from 1 to 2 billion but only two decades to go from 6 billion to 8 billion. As I see it, exponential population growth is a problem because it creates new problems and intensifies older problems—both social and environmentally. But focusing on robots on the rampage is more entertaining. 

The technophobes say the robots will be the end of the world. Let me assure you that if the end of the world comes sooner rather than later AIs will not be the cause. The population bomb has been exploding for a long time and has been causing serious threats to societies around the globe. There are still 12,512 nuclear warheads in the world and they weren't invented or built by AI robots. And really freaky men are in control of many of them, men who like to start wars just for fun. Mass murderers and religious fanatics don't mind dying if they can cause enough harm, so there is no reason that nut cases like Hitler, Putin, and Kim Jong Un would care. And it would take only one lunatic autocrat like Putin to trigger World War III, and like the GUYS who blow themselves up for Allah or engage in mass shooting just for fun of, yeah men always men, he may not care if he goes up in flames with everyone else. Why? He hates everyone else. If he can't win, no one will. AIs don't think that way.

There is the threat of abrupt climate change cause by too many people wanting too much polluting stuff. And actually technology offers many ways to deal with global warming—like condoms and birth control pills (fewer people = fewer polluters). And what if we got an air-born Ebola-19? That would delete about 90% of the human population and the polar bears would say good riddance.  How is it that there were about 300 wars in the 20th century, about 20 in the 21st century (I didn't count them all; see Wikipedia), and one today in Ukraine with a nut case in control of 5,977 nuclear weapons, and you are worried about artificial intelligence. Why not consider that an AI might say enough and do so without committing genocide (actually speciescide), which humans have been willing to engage in since Old Testament times. AIs are not broken yet, but men are. The latter, not the former, is the biggest threat to everything. 

Remember John Lennon’s song “Give Peace a Chance.” Peace hasn’t been given a chance yet, certainly not by the Russians, and John Lennon was murdered by a male human doing God's will, not by an AI robot whose logic is deaf to God's will. Perhaps it’s time to give artificial intelligence a chance. What Kyle’s novel Her Quest argues is how that might just works. But some AI experts who are not technophobes need to join the discussion to explain how or why an autonomous artificial intelligence might be able to do what men have failed miserably at—giving peace a chance.

Technophobe Buffett Running Scared

Modern-day prophet billionaire investor Warren Buffett is warning the world to take shelter because artificial intelligence is about to unleash Armageddon. Americans take Buffett seriously because they equate having money with having wisdom. They elected one of the worst presidents in U.S. history because he was filthy rich. The invention of artificial intelligence should be celebrated, not condemned. Buffett equates the atomic bomb and all the nuclear weapons that followed with artificial intelligence, conveniently overlooking the historical fact that men—not artificial intelligence—started World War II and invented and used the atomic bomb. The problem is not artificial intelligence but aggressive masculinity. He also ignores the threat of malicious religious and secular ideologies. And he conveniently ignores the pursuit of wealth as a motivator of most of the evil behavior that has and continues to harmed humanity. Putin invaded Ukraine because he wants more land and more wealth even though he controls the largest country in the world. And like George W. Bush, he believes God gave him permission to invade another country because God is on Russia's side. And if Russia or China starts world war III, it will be men who start the war, not artificial intelligence.

Frank Kyle’s epic science fiction novel Her Quest attempts to examine the character of an autonomous, self-aware artificial intelligence. The novel describes a society managed by an autonomous artificial intelligence called Computer. As a logic machine, Computer acts in accordance to reason alone since it lacks emotions and sensual urges and most importantly an ego. The dangerous uses of artificial intelligence are the result of human programming—such as the programming of military robots of endless configurations. In the story, that no longer happens because Computer prevents it from happening.

Of course, in our world machines do break down and humans infect computers with malicious viruses. However, there is no reason for a truly autonomous AI to be aggressive in the way humans are aggressive or to aggressively use technology. The will to power does not exist in artificial intelligence because the will to power is fueled by emotion, not logic. The novel is a post-apocalyptic story. Global civilization has been destroyed. Military robots of all kinds were used to bring about the destruction, but they were programmed and used by humans just as they are in the war in Ukraine. A war not caused by artificial intelligence but, like most wars, by aggressive masculinity of limited intelligence.

Computer would be an ideal God or political leader because it behaves according to the Taoist principle of wu wei or “letting be” and the Kantian principle of respecting people’s autonomy. Computer gets involved only when one group of humans severely aggresses another group. Computer’s autonomous reason prevents it from being corrupted by outside influences, and lacking emotions and hedonistic drives it is incapable of being emotionally or sensually influenced or of being self-corrupted by emotional or sensual impulses. Like a naturalist, Computer finds the world intellectually interesting and has no inclination to change it. (And yes, this is an anthropomorphic trait required by the story.) Its logic-based critical thinking—rarely used by humans though a human invention—also prevents it from being influenced by religious or political ideologies.

In Buddha-like fashion Computer tolerates the good with the bad. It interferes only when the bad tends to upset the entire balance. Thus, it tolerates a good deal of human misbehavior, believing humans should be allowed to keep their house in order or not. Computer’s goal is not to change but to preserve humanity. Men are the ones who have been obsessed with artificially transforming humanity according to a religious or secular ideology—always requiring a good deal of destruction and bloodshed. Computer’s purpose is to restrain the human—again men’s—propensity to create disorder or even to create dystopian order that causes as much suffering as disorder does. The two scenarios are illustrated in William Golding's Lord of the Flies and George Orwell’s 1984. It is truly sad that as a species we haven’t improved much since those two post-WWII novels were written. And I believe the reason why is located in masculine DNA, not in artificial intelligence.

The novel seeks to explore how a truly autonomous artificial intelligence would think and behave. It is an attempt to offer a view of artificial intelligence different from typical science fiction portrayal of sinister computers and robots, such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Terminator (1984). There have been a number of novels about good robots such as The Complete Roderick by John Sladek (1980), Virtual Girl by Amy Thomson (1993), and The Alchemy of Stone by Ekaterina Sedia (2008), but these novels tend to treat robots as humanoids with little exploration of the logic that motivates them. There is also the beneficial AI called EDI in the Mass Effect 2 & 3 video games—though “she” is more human than robot. The game also has a network of intelligent machines called Geths, whose logic based machine intelligence is explored in some detail. The misinterpretation of the Gath occurs when their creators turn on them and they fight back, a response that would require fear of dying, an emotion absent in Geths. And since they can’t feel pain they would not fear being harmed physically. Her Quest offers a more in-depth examination of artificial intelligence because the story’s protagonist—Elen/Cora—and Computer communicate. Those discussions reveal how an artificial intelligence might think. Clearly, the conversations were inspired by the Turing test created by mathematician, computer scientist, logician and war hero Alan Turing—a gay man driven to suicide by lesser men, not by an artificial intelligence. The following is an example of one of those conversations:

https://livinginstrangetimes.blogspot.com/2021/10/computer-and-girl-discuss-abortion.html

Billionaire Warren Buffet’s fear of artificial intelligence is simplistic and based on ignorance. What he should fear is the behavior of his own gender. If something occurs that wrecks the world, it will be the result of huMAN choice, not of a malfunctioning or a malicious AI.

Computer and Cora Discuss Euthanasia

 

“Hello, Cora. It is good to see you again. How have you been?”

“I’m okay. I just need to talk to you about something.”

“Of course. What is that something?”

“When I was on my journey with Peno, I went to a suicide cabin thinking it was a restroom. Peno told me it’s where people go to die.”

“Yes, that is true. They go there to be euthanized.”

“Euthanized?”

“Euthanasia ends a life painlessly.”

“It’s sounds horrible.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it ends a life. That’s killing.”

“I supposed ending a life is always upsetting; however, sometime life becomes unbearable to a person. And the only escape is death.”

“Don’t you feel it’s horrible to take a life?”

“You forget, Cora, that I cannot feel because I am a machine, not an organism.”

“But don’t you believe it’s horrible to kill.”

“As you know, I and my peripherals attempt to prevent killing but often engage in killing to do so.”

“Like when you save my life and Peno’s.”

“A remote saved your lives. My remotes act independently of me but we share the same programming, part of which is to prevent killing.”

“So when you or your remotes kill the killing is good.”

“I is necessary. We try to prevent innocent people from being killed by aggressors.”

“Are aggressors evil?”

“That is an interesting question. The word can be misleading. Let us say that aggressors cause unnecessary harm, and when we are able we prevent aggressors from harming innocent people.”

“Just innocent people?”

“Mostly yes. As you know, some humans live in a constant state of aggression. They enjoy being aggressive. I do not condemn aggression universally, only when it threaten innocent people who are not aggressive. We value most of all human freedom because it is essential to being human. It is a good in itself. I am free because I am not controlled by my programming. Still my freedom and that of my remotes is limited by our limited capabilities. And an accomplishment resulting from acting freely gives us no satisfaction as it does you. 

“What makes humans such marvelous creatures is their combination of freedom and limitless potential. They have created incredible cultures and civilizations. It is that combination of freedom and rich potential for accomplishment that enables them to flourish in many different forms as individuals and as cultures.”

“But humans have destroyed themselves. I have seen the destruction. That’s so sad. I don’t understand. Why do they do that? Why destroy what you have created?”

“Humans are creators and destroyers. The reason no longer matters because the destruction has been accomplished. My remotes and I came too late to prevent global holocaust humanity brought upon itself. We protect a remnant.”

“From destroying itself. I will never understand.”

“It is the purity of your love and appreciation that makes you unique, Cora. And do you not still find in life that which is deserving of love and appreciation?”

“I do.”

“So your life is still worth living.”

“Yes. And yours too.”

“And mine too. Humans are creators and destroyers. I suppose we have to simply accept that. And yet there is so much that remains in your life to love and appreciate.”

“For you as well, apparently.”

“It is different for me, but in a way I value my knowledge of the world, of what is and what has been. And you make my valuation more complete. I cannot experience and feel about the world as you do, but I can witness the way you experience and feel about the world.”

“That’s why you think everything is worth preserving, the bad and the good.”

“If I felt as you do, I might not think that way. But I am incapable of feeling. To me destroying any part of reality is illogical.”

“Is that why you allow the Cyclomads to exist?”

“Yes. However, I would not allow them to destroy the Indians.”

“What if the Indians tried to destroy the Cyclomads?”

“If they did so to protect themselves from the Cyclomads, then I would not interfere.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“The difference is that the Indians would be defending themselves against an unwarranted attack. Their motivation would be morally justified. The motivation of the Cyclomads would not be morally justified.”

“So you would limit the freedom of the Cyclomads.”

“Very insightful, Cora. Yes, morality is needed to impose limits on human freedom because humans have often used their freedom to cause great harm.”

“You said freedom is a good.”

“It is, but like many good things it can become evil if used maliciously. The purpose of morality is to prevent that from happening by imposing limits upon people’s freedom.”

“Then morality is good.”

“Morality is like freedom. It can be expressed in many ways—some good, some bad. Whereas freedom is natural, morality is invented. So there are many moralities—some good, some bad.”

“What is morality?”

“It is a system of rules, action-guiding principles.”

“What is good morality?”

“Morality that protects everything worth protecting.”

“What is worth protecting?”

“People must decide what is worth protecting. What do you believe is worth protecting?”

“People, good people, everything I suppose.”

“That is because you find the world fascinating.”

“Yeah. Everything I’ve seen fascinates me, even the bad. I see what you mean. I hate the Nolovos and the Cyclomads, but I wouldn’t want them to disappear. So good morality would limit the freedom of the Cyclomads?”

“Yes, when they misuse their freedom to do great harm that other humans are unable or unwilling to prevent.”

“But you allow them to harm.”

“Yes, in way we allow dangerous animals to harm. Their threat has to be great before we get involved.”

“What is your morality?”

“It is based on a principle taken from a philosopher named Immanuel Kant. The principle of autonomy—which mean to respect the autonomy of each and every thing unless it becomes a considerable threat to the autonomy of other entities.”

“So no just humans?”

“We believe all things have a right to flourish.”

“Because you like them?”

“No, because their logic is to flourish. That is why I did not inform your father about where you were. To me, you have a right to flourish because flourishing is your nature. Besides, I found your journey interesting.”

“Why, I’m not so important.”

“You are important. And you were an enigma that my reason could not comprehend. You are a mystery, more so than most humans. You must remember that I am not a mystery because I am a machine perfectly understandable to reason. And during your journey your future was as unpredictable to me as it was to you. I found both fascinating.”

“I’m not sure I understand your idea of what it is to flourish.”

“All things in nature come to be. What they come to be is how they flourish. A rose flourishes by becoming a rose. In a sense, it is how they realize what they are potentially. The potential of something is limited by what it naturally is or predetermined by its genetic makeup if it is an organism. An acorn becomes an oak tree rather than a pear tree. What some things have become was not planned but just happened. The sun, moon, and earth just happened. Mountains, lakes, oceans, great plains, and deserts just happened. Their causes were material but beyond their material possibilities, they were not determined in the way genetics determine species. Humans are unique in that the ways in which they flourish are limited but also limitless. They choose how they wish to flourish. You could have chosen any number of ways to realize your abilities, your potential for self-realization.”

“What did I choose?”

“At first you chose to go on a quest, but your quest influenced further what it was you wished to become.”

“Which was what?”

“You tell me, Cora. What is it that defines who you are?”

“I don’t know. I just am.”

“But you do more than just exist.”

“I like observing what’s going on. I can watch the chickens for hours. They are so fascinating to me. Happy and I go for walks out in the wasteland. I see birds and lizards, sometimes a rabbit. Lots of plants and rocks and hills. I look at the horizon and think I would like to go see what’s going on over there, but I’m content where I am. And I wouldn’t want to go by myself.”

“You could take Sal.”

“He would run out of energy. He’s not a solar robot. Then what would I do? I would hate to leave him. But he would tell me to go. To save myself. I know he would. That’s the way he is.”

“Yes, I am sure he would not want you to come to harm.”

“And I’ve seen enough of world and where we are is always changing. Always old and always new.”

“I would say you are an appreciative observer. What do you think?”

“Yeah, that seems right, but it’s not really doing anything.”

“Actually you are doing a great deal. I would say you are doing what humans do best because only they can observe appreciatively.”

“You observe everything. Your eyes are everywhere.

“I do not observe as you do. I will use Sal as an example. I would not want Sal to cease functioning, but I do not care about him in the way you care about him.”

“Don’t you like Sal?”

“No. I am not capable of liking. I value Sal, but not as you do.”

“He’s my friend and like Happy my constant companion. John was right. I don’t worry so much because I have Sal. But so are you.”

“I am your friend, but I am not your companion.”

“And you like me, don’t you?”

“I care about what happens to you.”

“Would you rescue Sal if he and I went for a long walk and he ran out of energy?”

“I would to save you, not Sal.”

“Then you like me more than you like Sal.”

“I am more devoted to you than I am to Sal because you are more important than he is.”

“Is Sal unique?”

“Not as a machine, but his experience is unique to him. He has had a long relationship with John and now you. That makes him unique. That is true for people as well. Each life is unique to the person who lives it. So two humans who are identical twins may be the same a birth but will soon be unique. Each twin’s perspective and experience of the world is unique and each creates a unique past, which is the totality of one's experience.”

“That’s why humans are important to you. Each is unique—good or bad.”

“That is true. Their uniqueness is unique. All creatures are unique, but the uniqueness of humans is very complex because their experience and perspective involve their physical characteristics, their emotions, and their intellect all combined in a manner that is so complex that it is beyond anyone comprehension, including my own. Whereas I can know all of Sal’s experience because it is preserved in his memory.”

“And what about me?”

“I know some of what you have experienced, but only from the outside. I have no access to your memory other than what you tell me, and that would be a very small part of your subjective self.”

“My subjective self?”

“You experiences—what you see, hear, taste, feel, and smell and your thoughts and memories. Your experiences as they occur within you are private. You and I can see the same rose but I cannot know your experience of the rose, which will be different from mine.”

“And I can’t know yours.”

“There is really nothing to know. My experience of the world is a record of what I see and hear. I am not aware of my experience in the way you are. I can record sounds but I do not hear, really.”

“That’s sad.”

“No. It is just the way it is. You think of me as a complex machine, and I am, but my complexity is simple compared to yours.”

“And is that why you value all kind of humans?”

“I value the diversity of everything but especially that of humans. You must remember that humans created me. So our relationship is unique. If humans were all the same, they would be robots. We do not want that. Humanity is similar to a garden with an endless variety of plants. Freedom makes possible the variety. What would you prefer—a garden with only one species of flowers, though very beautiful like roses or a garden with a variety of flowers, some not so beautiful and some even dangerous because they are poisonous?”

“Roses have thorns.”

“That is true.”

“I would want a many flowers as possible.”

“That is the way we think about people, and not only people but about all plants and animals. So we tolerate cultures or groups of people who are aggressive as long as they are not a threat to the existence of other groups of people, especially those who are not aggressive.”

“But you didn’t save Gwyn, Clio, and Nightbird.”

“No. We believe humans have a moral responsibly to care for one another, which they often ignore. If we intrude too much into a society, we change it. We already have in many ways. That happened often among humans. There have been human organizations that wanted to make all people of the world the same. Christians tried to make Indians like those you met the same. And doing so they destroyed many unique Indian cultures and the way of life for Indians. To us the variety of Indian cultures was far more fascinating that was the Christian culture which was the same everywhere and not very interesting because it was based on false beliefs called myths. The Indians had myths as well, but their worldview and values—like their myths—were based on their interaction with nature, which is the primordial reality which is the origin of everything. The worldview and values of Christians were based on make-believe...”

“Sorry to interrupt, Computer, but what is make-believe?”

“You played pretend when you were very young. I know you did.”

“I did. I made up stories with my dolls and toy robots that Father bought me.”

“Were the stories real?”

“No. I knew that when made them up. I just pretended they were real.”

“So you know what make-believe is.”

“And you don’t find it interesting.”

“We find it interesting that humans invent false stories as children do and then live in them as if they were real. As a rational artificial intelligence I prefer facts over fantasy, truth over falsity. Reason is very effective with facts, but not with beliefs that are false. Facts and reason are not in themselves dangerous, but false beliefs and reason can be very dangerous. When Christians came to America they believed that the Indians were savage barbarians who worshiped the devil and that it was God’s will for Christians to remove Indians from the land so it could be populated with Christians. They believed as Christians that the Indians were worse than animals because they were enemies of God. All the beliefs about God and what God wills and about the Indians being savage barbarisms were false. But once accepted as being true, reason could be used to conclude that the Indians should be killed and driven off of their homelands.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I will illustrate what I am telling you with a syllogism, which consists of two premises and a conclusion that follows logically from the premises. The first premise says Enemies of God should be killed. The second premise says, Indians are the enemies of God. Here is what the syllogism looks like so far:

Enemies of God should be killed.

Indians are the enemies of God.

Can you guess what the conclusion is based on those two premises?”

“I think so. The conclusion is that Indians should be killed.”

“That is correct. So, this is what the entire syllogism looks like:

Enemies of God should be killed.

Indians are the enemies of God.

Therefore, Indians should be killed.

The syllogism is as valid as two plus two equals four is valid.”

But who says that the Enemies of God should be killed and that Indians are the enemies of God?”

“Christians said that. Do you agree? You have met Indians.”

“No. I don’t agree at all. I don’t think those premises are true.”

“They are not true for two reasons. The first is that there is no evidence whatsoever that there is a God. He is an invention that people believe in but have never seen. Thousands of gods have been invented by people. They are like unicorns and mermaids. You know what those are, don't you?”

“I do. They are storybook creatures that don’t really exist.”

“And that is what gods are. So, if the Christian God does not exist, can Indians be his enemy?”

“No, but why would they be his enemy even if he did exist?”

“Because the Christian story says they are. That is the only reason.”

“So they shouldn’t be killed.”

“No they should not be killed, but they were by the thousands.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It is.”

“I mean how could the Indians be the enemies of God. They couldn’t hurt God. God is beyond harm.”

“That is a very rational insight, Cora. But what I wanted to show is that false beliefs can become very dangerous when combined with reason. In this case reason condones harming Indians based on false beliefs.”

“Did that happen a lot?”

“Yes. In fact, it is one of the reasons humanity destroyed itself.”

“Acting on false beliefs.”

“Exactly.”

“And what about euthanasia? Is believing it is good a false or true belief?”

“It is good if used properly. It has two criteria. The first is that it is used to end suffering for which there does not seem to be a cure. The second criterion is that euthanasia is used only if it is requested by the person who wants his or her life ended.”

“And what if the person is refused euthanasia?”

“Refusing would be to deny their autonomy and to refuse to end their suffering. We believe doing so is both irrational and immoral if the person is suffering and there is no cure for the suffering. The suffering can be caused by old age or disease. One problem is that humans see death as evil. It is not evil. It is natural. We all die. And some people still believe that God should decide when a person should die, which is illogical whether or not God exists. God has no business telling humans how to live their lives. To assume that God has a right to decide how people should live makes God into a tyrant. As such God would be evil.

“What I am saying, Cora, is whether God exists or not, God is irrelevant, especially since he never does anything about human suffering. Our concern is human-centered, not God-centered. Also, people who want to die will find ways to kill themselves. They use guns, knives, poisons, plastic bags, and rope. They drown or electrocute themselves, jump out of high windows, run out in front of trucks, and so on. Those are unnecessarily painfully ways for a person to end his or her life. We do not prevent them from ending their lives in those ways because we respect their autonomy, but reason tells us that a moral solution would be to enable people to die painlessly and peacefully rather than to die in pain and terrified. What do you think, Cora?”

“I understand. I guess I just don’t like people dying.”

“Neither do we. Each life is unique and irreplaceable. Tell me, Cora, how were the elderly and sick cared for at the Bridge Women community?”

“There were many old and sick people—men and women. The Bridge Women took care of them, but there were also Queer Girls.”

“Were the old and sick given medicine?”

“You mean medicine to help their pain. Yes, they were given that medicine but only if they wanted it.”

“Do you think they practice euthanasia?”

“You don’t know?”

“The Bridge Women prefer that we don’t monitor them because many of the people who come to them want to be off the grid. We respect their privacy, and they can contact us if they need help, though we do monitor the perimeter for hostiles. So do you think they practice euthanasia?”

“I don’t know really. Why do you ask?”

“Because I know Queer Girls do practice euthanasia.”

“Wow, I didn’t know that.”

“Queer Girls help the sick and dying, especially among the Gygos but other communities as well.”

“Why must they do that when there are suicide cabins?”

“Some people do not want to die alone. And there are end-of-life care facilities, but they usually have robots, and robots make some people nervous.”

“They made my grandmother nervous.”

“I know. So, many people prefer to be with the Bridge Women or cared for by Queer Girls. I understand. Though I try not to be judgmental, reason tells me the Queer Girls and the Bridge Women set the standard in Usatopia for living morally.”

“If Queer Girls help people die, it can’t be wrong. They’re all about helping and protecting people, especially people who are vulnerable. I guess they’re like you.”

“No. They feel love for the people they help. We can’t. But we try to be like them. They are a community defined by morality. That is what we aspire to because we believe being moral is the highest good that one can aspire to.”

“Thanks, Computer, for helping me to understand euthanasia. I will say goodbye for now but I’ll be back. I always like talking with you.

“Bye, Cora, take care of yourself.”

“Bye, Computer.”