Certainly not a very intelligent quest

At a chance meeting the other night, this very intelligent looking being gave an impression of knowing almost everything and having the ability to perform even the most difficult and complicated of tasks.

Surprise, shock, call it what you will, but that was the feeling one got, or the feeling the intelligent being wanted to induce.

Expertise is an understatement to describe the fellow's knowledge of the disciplines that perforce entered our conversation.

What I encountered was an artificial intelligent being, resembling Number 5, a prototype US military S.A.I.N.T. (Strategically Artificial Intelligent Nuclear Transport) robot, in Short Circuit or Johnny 5, a sophisticated toy robot, in Short Circuit 2, which can "devour" books in seconds, is quick-witted enough to deal with any situation, can attend to any task and fend off enemies.

The entire world seems to be fascinated with super-efficient artificial intelligence. In spite of knowing very well that the more robots we create (or build) the more jobs real human beings will lose, countries appear to have entered a race to best each other in the development of AI.

This development is not limited to robots taking up human jobs, but also covers other fields such as chess and Go.

If IBM created Deep Blue in the 1990s that humbled the great Garry Kasparov in chess, Google has now given us AlphaGo which has demolished the world's best Go players.

The human brain, which has conquered almost all the frontiers on Earth and many beyond it, all of a sudden, appears frail before the power of AI.

Is this cause for worry?

Many, including cosmologist and physicist Stephen Hawking and magnate Elon Musk, have warned against the development of super-intelligent AI. While Hawking has said "the potential benefits are huge ... Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history, It might also be the last, unless we learn to avoid the risks", astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson remains fearless about AI's capabilities, saying he doesn't believe AI will develop its own consciousness when we as humans don't understand our own.

And that we humans don't understand our own consciousness, which seems to be becoming more fickle by the day, is precisely the problem, as, in the words of Tyson again, "humans aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on Earth".

We humans are giving more importance to the intelligence of artificial beings, and less and less to fellow humans who have naturally evolved to be intelligent and on whose intelligence AIs are based. And this is changing the rules of the game of the real world.

The course of the real world depends on whether or not we restore faith in the intelligence of our fellow human beings.

The meeting referred to at the beginning may have taken place in a real, not simulated, dream. The nightmarish encounter the developments in the real world, nevertheless, appear ominous.

Contact the writer at oprana@chinadaily.com.cn