Great...and I thought I didn't trust AI before...
Even ignoring the inevitable corruption of AI by money-making concerns...and of course, we can't ignore it... there's the simple problem of not using it and therefore losing it. I'm referring to human intelligence, instinct, perception. Today's thinking postulates that Neanderthals were extremely intelligent, with brains equal or superior to our own. A successful Neanderthal needed to know a lot of things about how to go about surviving. A modern human in our "enlightened" society can often get by with being expert in one small area of thought, and exploiting that knowledge to earn money that then buys or hires all the other things needed to function normally. Today's human doesn't need to be an expert hunter, fisherman, farmer, builder, warrior, healer, etc...he can master one area of expertise and then rely upon others to supply all he needs from their specialties. A typical human of today may be a whiz at computer programming, or electronics, or agricultural or whatever...but if circumstances suddenly forced him to survive entirely on his own abilities, skills and knowledge, he'd be dead in a month.
Robert Heinlein said that "specialization is for insects". He suggested that a well-rounded human should be capable of doing pretty much anything that dircumstances required of him to at least an acceptable degree.
If AI gets as good as some hope it will, or even as good as some think it already is...who needs brains anymore? We will have (d)evolved from being ultra-capable Jacks-of-all-trades...to specialized drones who can only do one thing really well...and then finally to useless dummies who can't do a dang thing for themselves, including thinking.
Even ignoring the inevitable corruption of AI by money-making concerns...and of course, we can't ignore it... there's the simple problem of not using it and therefore losing it. I'm referring to human intelligence, instinct, perception. Today's thinking postulates that Neanderthals were extremely intelligent, with brains equal or superior to our own. A successful Neanderthal needed to know a lot of things about how to go about surviving. A modern human in our "enlightened" society can often get by with being expert in one small area of thought, and exploiting that knowledge to earn money that then buys or hires all the other things needed to function normally. Today's human doesn't need to be an expert hunter, fisherman, farmer, builder, warrior, healer, etc...he can master one area of expertise and then rely upon others to supply all he needs from their specialties. A typical human of today may be a whiz at computer programming, or electronics, or agricultural or whatever...but if circumstances suddenly forced him to survive entirely on his own abilities, skills and knowledge, he'd be dead in a month.
Robert Heinlein said that "specialization is for insects". He suggested that a well-rounded human should be capable of doing pretty much anything that dircumstances required of him to at least an acceptable degree.
If AI gets as good as some hope it will, or even as good as some think it already is...who needs brains anymore? We will have (d)evolved from being ultra-capable Jacks-of-all-trades...to specialized drones who can only do one thing really well...and then finally to useless dummies who can't do a dang thing for themselves, including thinking.
