The human and the artificial creator

This discussion is about the basic difference between human beings as creators or generators of something unique and exceptionally original, and artificial-intelligence-driven systems and agents. I want to examine the fundamental difference between these two kinds of creators of something new.

As far as the human system is concerned, it is a compilation of millions of cells, neurons, veins and arteries, where life is thriving creatively at each instant. There is a very lively and spontaneous interaction between the individual and the surrounding pool of energies—from cosmic energies to the human beings around us, social systems, and all the other structures that have been shaped by the human mind, individually and collectively, over the years.

There is a very thin boundary between a living human being and the overall cosmos surrounding him. Without this interaction, it is not possible for an individual to live, thrive, breathe, see, perceive, grow or evolve. Every second, there is an interaction between the individual and the universal, and it goes both ways.

It is almost like a thin, porous film that defines an individual—with his genetically coded traits and identities acquired since birth, along with the structures of knowledge subsequently fed into him—while simultaneously connecting him with the overall system, the universe.

Through this porous border, something is being drawn from the universe at every instant. We breathe in and we breathe out. We are exposed to innumerable seen and unseen factors every moment. In that sense, we are merely more distinct bubbles in the overall sea of the cosmos.

The cells have their own memories, their own functions, and creativity coded into them. The central nervous system, operating through the brain, has an almost infinite capacity to develop new neural alignments and pathways—to see, perceive, understand and know things in more and more ways. There does not seem to be any end to it.

That is what makes something created by a human being—whether in art, writing, poetry, prose, verse, scientific discovery, design or sculpture—capable of being extremely unique and fundamentally different.

As far as man as a creator is concerned, there is always the possibility of something exceptionally original being created because there is this spontaneous and beautiful flux between the individual and the universal that supports individual life. The universe is giving us countless inputs every second to sustain that life.

And who knows how many other types of energies exist? Even today, fundamental questions about dark matter and cosmic dark energy remain open. So we have to keep the possibility open-ended. The human system itself is open-ended; it is not a closed system.

Therefore, when it comes to creating something new—whether in art, science or any other domain—there is always a possibility of encountering something extremely and exceptionally original. To me, that is one of the basic things that defines us as human beings.

The Artificial Creator

If we consider artificial-intelligence-driven systems as creators of something new, we have to recognize a fundamental difference. An artificial intelligence system is not a living entity. In this sense, I see it as a closed system.

However hard we try to put more and more gigabytes of information into it, however enormous the data centres become, the information ultimately consists of material that has been generated, gathered or made available to the system. AI therefore becomes, fundamentally, a recycler and reorganizer of inputs—including the enormous body of information mankind itself has created.

It is possible to keep increasing the dataset available to algorithms so that they can create new music, paintings and different forms of writing. But whatever they create cannot, in my view, be fundamentally independent of what has been put into them.

It may appear interesting or unique on the surface because an artificial intelligence can draw simultaneously from an extraordinary variety of sources and produce something highly appealing. But that ultimate originality will be missing.

Why? Because there is a distinct barrier between the artificial-intelligence system and the cosmos. There is a strict boundary because it is not a living entity.

In the human system, millions of living entities—cells, microorganisms and the entire biological colony constituting the organism—are continuously interacting with the surrounding world and universal forces. AI does not participate in existence in this same biological manner. Its operations remain within its constructed system.

It cannot interact with the thriving cosmic energy and those pulses of information and possibility in the way a living organism does. In every quantum of this beautiful storm of energy surrounding us, there is memory, there is potential, and there is the pure possibility of something more and more and more.

As living organisms, we have an overlapping space with this because we are part of it.

Even though we retain our individuality, the boundary between the universal and the individual remains porous. We are constantly taking something in and giving something back. Every instant, we are adding something to the overall cosmic information, energy and wisdom as well.

In the case of an artificial-intelligence-driven system, I see this relationship as fundamentally different and restricted.

Therefore, even when something generated by artificial intelligence initially appears very interesting, after some time one may begin to feel that it is an elaboration upon something that we have already read, felt, realized or experienced. That ultimate novelty, exquisiteness, originality and element of surprise will be missing.

Artificial intelligence can certainly be a tremendous tool for enhancing productivity at many levels. It can bring enormous quantitative as well as qualitative improvements to manual processes. It can calculate more, generate more content, generate music and create paintings, provided it receives the necessary inputs.

But it cannot replace the novelty of the human brain and its beautiful open-endedness—its capacity to become a channel through which something more can manifest from the universe into the individual.

AI as a Workhorse, Not a Master

People say that artificial-intelligence-driven systems may pose serious risks in the future. Of course there will be risks if we allow artificial intelligence to master our lives.

AI can be a great workhorse as long as we retain mastery over it and do not become so dependent upon it that we ourselves turn lazy.

Extreme risks can arise when human beings surrender too much decision-making to automated systems. One can imagine even something as catastrophic as nuclear weapons being released because of miscalculations within highly automated systems. That could pose a collective threat to the existence of life on Earth.

So the question is not merely what artificial intelligence can do. The question is whether the human being remains its master or gradually becomes dependent upon it.

When the Human Being Himself Becomes Artificial

There is another very significant factor.

There will always be a section of humanity aspiring to become superhuman by introducing more and more artificial components into the human system—for example, neurological chips implanted in the brain to increase cognitive powers, or genetic engineering intended to alter biological structures for greater longevity, cognitive capacity and other advantages.

As long as the normal human system is not tampered with, it remains open to the complete grace of godliness, chance, universality, wonder and surprise that this infinite cosmos represents.

But if we begin tampering excessively with it and introduce more and more artificial components, then we may gradually create barriers within that spontaneous flow of life between the universal and the individual.

It would be like constructing check dams across a naturally flowing river.

The more artificial barriers we construct, the more we may interfere with that spontaneous exchange between the organism and the universal.

There is a tragic possibility here. Just as we have spoiled nature, damaged ecosystems and polluted Mother Earth, we may eventually create environmental conditions in which the normal human body itself finds it increasingly difficult to survive without artificial assistance.

We already have pacemakers for the heart. Bones become fragile and are supported or replaced through implants. These technologies are enormously useful when needed, but they also give us a glimpse of a possible future.

There may come a day when the air on Earth becomes so polluted that human beings require something artificial inside or around their lungs simply to survive in that environment.

Thus, the more we move towards mechanization and artificial intervention within the human system, the less receptive, perhaps, the organism may become to that spontaneous universal grace, because more artificial barriers will have been inserted between the complete organism and the universal.

And perhaps the future human being, carrying an increasing number of artificial components within his system, will also become increasingly susceptible to manipulation by artificial intelligence itself.

The Emergence of New Human Classes

This brings us to another possibility—the emergence of entirely different classes of human beings.

Even today, the majority of poor people do not have access to the best medical care. Healthcare infrastructure and advanced medical facilities remain restricted for those who cannot afford them, whereas rich and super-rich people can access ultra-modern healthcare and sometimes overcome diseases that would prove fatal for someone without such resources.

Poor people may still die of illnesses such as diarrhoea and malaria, while the wealthy have access to extraordinarily sophisticated treatments for critical and chronic diseases.

Now imagine this inequality projected into the future.

There may be super-speciality institutions offering biological modification, genetic engineering and artificial augmentation. Only a tiny number of people—the super-rich and the billionaires of today or their successors—may be able to access these facilities.

They may have parts of their bodies reshaped biologically or artificially until they gradually become a class substantially different from ordinary human beings of flesh and blood.

And there may eventually emerge another tier even above these super-rich.

Imagine that a few dozen people possess such enormous resources that they effectively influence the fate of the entire Earth. They may invest massively in space travel and, eventually, in establishing extraordinarily advanced medical and technological facilities on the Moon.

Such facilities would be so inaccessible that even the super-rich of Earth might find it extremely difficult to reach them.

The most advanced technological, biological and scientific means of transforming man into something approaching a superman might then become available only there.

With enhanced longevity, enhanced cognitive capacities and enhanced physical and biological capabilities, these few individuals could become something substantially different from the ordinary human population. Possessing advantages unavailable to everybody else, they could ultimately exercise enormous power over the planet.

Three Classes of Future Humanity

In such a future, I can imagine three broad classes emerging.

At the very top might be only a few dozen individuals with access to the most advanced facilities beyond Earth—perhaps on the Moon—who have transformed themselves so profoundly that they begin to resemble a different kind of human species.

Below them might be a few thousand extraordinarily wealthy people on Earth—the aristocracy of this future order—who have access to the best terrestrial genetic engineering, biological modification, artificial organs, neurological augmentation and other technologies capable of raising their capacities far beyond those of ordinary human beings.

And then there would be the overwhelming majority: common human beings of ordinary flesh and blood.

The first group could rule the Earth indirectly through the second. The second would possess enormous technological, economic and biological advantages over the third.

Thus, instead of inequality remaining merely an inequality of wealth, property or political power, humanity could reach a stage where inequality becomes embedded in the very biological and technological constitution of different classes of human beings.

And that, to me, is where the question of artificial intelligence ultimately becomes much larger than machines producing paintings, music, calculations or written content.

It becomes a question about what it means to remain human.

The human being, as I see him today, is a living, open-ended organism—a distinct bubble within the enormous sea of the cosmos, retaining an individuality of its own while remaining connected through a thin and porous boundary with the universal.

Life continuously enters him, moves through him and leaves him. He receives from the universe and gives something back to it. And somewhere within this mysterious, spontaneous interaction lies the possibility of genuine novelty—of something appearing through a human being that has never appeared in precisely that form before.

Artificial intelligence can calculate for us. It can organize for us. It can generate enormous quantities of material. It can enhance productivity and become perhaps the greatest workhorse mankind has ever created.

But the danger begins when the workhorse becomes the master—and an even deeper transformation may begin when the master himself gradually becomes artificial.

Postscript: There is no doubt in my mind that as far as the ultimate originality in creating something new is concerned, there is no comparison between a flesh and blood human and an artificial system. But the question arises: Will the normal flesh and blood humans be relevant in future? May be they will be wiped out like Neanderthals were wiped out with the emergence of Homo-sapeins. It seems evolution -- man-propelled evolution though, which will eat its creator. The product will eat the producer.