Paranoid Android

Dear friends

AI makes mistakes. Then again, so do doctors, lawyers, politicians, clergy, teachers, soldiers and policemen. So do journalists, commentators, news editors, influencers and advertisers. Who can you trust these days? Wherein lies the truth? Where do you turn?

The world is changing faster than we can comprehend it. The AI revolution is set to be a “bigger thing” than the world wide web, with a variety of different “machine learners” now hoovering up the entirety of the digital knowledge base, and pushing hard at the envelope of that knowledge, helped by human greed on the one hand, and naivety on the other. The genie is out. How long before robotics and intelligence cohere? How long before “it” “becomes” “self-aware”. (I put these words in speech marks to show that, already, language is inadequate, bending, and in flux.) As I write AI is being used for good (for example in healthcare) and ill (to create ever more sophisticated telephone scams). Drones in use in Ukraine’s defence can now have their target set, and should their radio control signal be jammed they will switch to autonomous mode, piloted by AI. Sophisticated sea mines can now tell friend from foe. It will only take a few of these in the Strait of Hormuz to hold the world to ransom.

Humanity is dividing upon new lines – between those who engage happily with this technology, not wanting to miss out or be left behind,  and those who shun it out of concern for the huge price tag whether in ecological and economic terms, and also for the hidden costs of the information we are handing over. For every question you ask reveals a little more about you. We are used to the idea of our digital footprint – every email sent, every website visited, every article or image clicked on, building up over time into a comprehensive dataset of one side of our lives. The more time we spend online, the bigger this dataset, which we, to date, have been freely sharing with the giant corporations that sit behind the internet: Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google) and Meta. However the AI revolution is taking this “data mining” a large leap further. Now, our “intelligence” – in the complexity of the questions that we can ask – is also being handed over, as the machine(s) can “learn” not only from us in terms of the material facts – what sort of insurance I want or what is in my shopping basket, but also they can learn “about us” in terms of the worries and anxieties that blow us this way and that. We are guinea pigs in a global experiment, as never before in the history of humanity has there been both the potential for communication (the world wide web) and the potential for an error to be presented as the truth across all networks.

We have spent our lives watching science fiction become closer to fact. Doctor Who’s benign robotic companion “K-9” was a gentle and obedient foil to the horror of the Daleks, a fallen race if ever there was one. Later iterations of Star Trek had the humanoid android science officer, Commander Data, who was reliably knowledgable, but who nevertheless struggled with whether to turn his emotions on or off. The author Douglas Adams however captured it for me in the Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with the character of Marvin, the depressive robot, for whom every day was a bad one, and who was perpetually miserable with his lot as a menial bearer of information. The robot was on to something – there is much more to life than information. And showing the AI a series of beautiful views and sunsets will teach it what to share with someone who asks what beauty is, but will never replace the experience of the wind in your face or your toes in the water, or the sound of the waves crashing onto the rocks below you, or the taste of a cold drink, or the laugh of a friend when he says “Great to see you!”

Worship Services for Sunday 10th May

9.30am Morning Prayer at St John’s Stoke Row with Canon Kevin Davies

11am Holy Communion at St Peter and Paul, Checkendon with Canon Kevin Davies.

Midweek zoom service: Wednesday Evensong at 5.00pm  410 935 129

Nature Notes.