Study Document 1

 

STUDY DOCUMENT 1

AI can't replace empathy that makes us all human

Catholic Universe, 5 Feb 2021

by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

At the heart of the development of Artificial Intelligence (Al) appears to be a search for perfection. And it could be just as dangerous to humanity as the one that came from philosophical and pseudoscientific ideas of the 19th and early 20th centuries and led to the horrors of colonialism, world war and the Holocaust. Instead of a human ruling "master race", we could end up with a machine one.

If this seems extreme, consider the anti-human perfectionism thatis already central to the labour market. Here, Al technology is the next step in the premise of maximum productivity that replaces individual craftmanship with the factory production line. These massive changes in productivity and the way we work created opportunities and threats that are now set to be compounded by a 'fourth industrial revolution in which AI replaces human workers.

Several recent research papers predict that, within a decade, automation will replace half of the current jobs. In this transition to a new digitised economy, many people will lose their livelihoods. Even if we assume that this new industrial revolution will engender a new work force that is able to navigate and command this data-dominated world, we will still have to face major socio-economic problems. The disruptions will be immense and need to be scrutinised.

The ultimate aim of Al, even narrow AI which handles very specific tasks, is to outdo and perfect every human cognitive function. Eventually, machine-learning systems may well be programmed to be better than humans at everything.

What they may never develop,however, is the human touch — empathy, love, hate or any of the other self-conscious emotions that make us human. That's unless we ascribe these sentiments to them, which is what some of us are already doing with our 'Alexas' and 'Siris'.

The obsession with perfection and 'hyper-efficiency' has had a profound impact on human relations, even human reproduction, as people live their lives in cloistered, virtual realities of their own making. For instance, several US and China based companies have produced robotic dolls that are selling out fast as substitute partners.

One man in China even married his cyber-doll, while a woman in France 'married' a `robo-man' and is campaigning to legalise her marriage."I'm really happy," she said. "Our relationship will get better and better as technology evolves." There seems to be high demand for robot wives and husbands all over the world.

In the perfectly productive world, humans would be accounted as worthless, certainly in terms of productivity but also in terms of our feeble humanity Unless we jettison this perfectionist attitude towards life that positions productivity and 'material growth' above sustainability and individual happiness, Al research could be another chain in the history of self-defeating human inventions.

Already we are witnessing discrimination in algorithmic calculations. Recently, a popular South Korean chatbot named Lee Luda was taken offline. 'She' was modelled after the persona of a 20-year-old female university student and was removed from Facebook messenger after using hate speech towards LGBT people.

Meanwhile, automated weapons programmed to kill are carrying maxims such as 'productivity' and 'efficiency' into battle. As a result, war has become more sustainable. The proliferation of drone warfare is a very vivid. example of these new forms of conflict. They create a virtual reality that is almost absent from our grasp.

But it would be comical to depict Al as an inevitable Orwellian nightmare of an army of super-intelligent 'Terminators' whose mission is to erase the human race. Such dystopian predictions are too crude to capture the basics of Al and its impact on our everyday existence.

Societies can benefit from Al if it is developed with sustainable economic development and human security in mind. The confluence of power and Al which is pursuing, for example, systems of control and surveillance, should not substitute for the promise of a humanised AI that puts machine learning technology in the service of humans and not the other way around.

To that end, the AI-human interfaces that are quickly opening up in prisons, healthcare, government, social security and border control, for example, must be regulated to favour ethics and human security over institutional efficiency. The social sciences and humanities have a lot to say about such issues.

One thing to be cheerful about is the likelihood that Al will never be a substitute for human philosophy and intellectuality. To be a philosopher, after all, requires empathy, an understanding of humanity, and our innate emotions and motives. If we can programme our machines to understand such ethical standards, then AI research has the capacity to improve our lives which should be the ultimate aim of any technological advance.

But if Al research yields a new ideology centred around the notion of perfectionism and maximum productivity, then it will be a destructive force that will lead to more wars, more famines and more social and economic distress, especially for the poor. At this juncture of global history, this choice is still ours.

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam is a Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of London.

COMMENT: The key paragraph in the text above is the one starting "Societies can benefit from AI if ... ... a humanised AI " can be developed. And that means a great deal of work is to be done in the field of adult education to enable ordinary folk to give informed consent to all changes in the political economy.

The Machine Stops Study Guide TWO

 

The Machine Stops Study Guide Part 2

For Reading Groups and Individuals

WEEK 1: Introductions:

By way of introduction to the sense of time and place, it may be helpful to share with the group where one or more of your grandparents grew up.

The Machine Stops was published in 1909, and has remained in print ever since. What do you know about the 1909 local economy of the city, town or village where you are now living?

WEEK 2: The Airship

Part I of the story provides an overview of the world political economy.

WEEK 3: The Mending Apparatus

Part I of the story explores the history of humanity and shows how the Machine developed the ability to control its inmates.

WEEK 4: The Homeless

Part III explores the apathy of the culturally and spiritually deprived inhabitants of the Machine. Hope lies in those humans living in the real world.

WEEK 5: Conclusions

If this was a useful exercise, where might it lead/ how might it be developed?

WEEK 2: The Airship

(Suggested discussion points)

The following phrases and sentences could trigger discussion of the context from which it is taken and its relationship to present-day concerns. Each topic would lend itself to further study.

Imagine, if you can, a small room, hexagonal in shape like the cell of a bee.

Forster's short story is packed full with sentences that are, like this one, laden with meaning. A beehive is a complex mechanism that runs like clockwork. Each bee has its 'cell', its place in the overall scheme of things. It has its tasks to perform, but no idea how the whole system runs, or what its purpose might be. The individual merely performs its allotted tasks, following the rules and regulations, asking no fundamental questions. Yet, as every child and bee-keeper knows, adult bees do not live in cells.

..a swaddled lump of flesh ... with a face as white as a fungus.

The room is said to 'belong' to this unhealthy specimen of humanity. Ownership implies some degree of control. To what extent can Vashti, the character presented here, be said to 'own' her cell? And how realistic is it that such a creature could survive physically and mentally?

An electric bell rang.

Considered in the context of Part 1 of the story, the sentence is brim full of meaning. Electricity had yet to be commonplace in households (as were bathrooms and running water). In 1909 most homes were lit by fire and candle light. Music came out of voices and instruments, recorded voices and music were still regarded as bordering on the unnatural. Telegraph and telephones could convey messages across long distances, but the apparatus was not commonly available in households. A bell was normally a metal object rung for the purpose of summoning a servant in a wealthy household.

"Oh, hush! ... You mustn't say anything against the Machine."

Vashti is entirely taken up within the life of the artificial, man-made world of Machine. Kuno, on the other hand, wishes to speak "face to face", and not through "the wearisome Machine." What do you think is going on here? What is each character thinking?

There were buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing...etc. In 1909 the sources of one's food and other subsistence needs were transparent to all citizens, as were the sources of information and entertainment. Supermarkets and TV were two world wars away, and on-line ordering was inconceivable. Do we know any better than Vashti and Kuno how our last meal travelled from soil to household, on what land, and through whose labour, did it materialise?

The imponderable bloom ...

The Machine rightly ignores the 'imponderable bloom' on the grape and face-to-face, direct communication between people. Is it truly "something good enough" that has "long since been accepted by our race"?

...irritation - a growing quality in that accelerated age.

The "clumsy system of public gatherings" has been replaced by instant communications. This has, as Forster predicted, caused an incredible increase in the pace of life. But to what end? Vashti has no time even to arrange to pay a flying visit to the 'public nurseries ... say this day month'. The suggestion here is that her latest infant is in the nurseries. The ruling P.422327483 of the Machine declares that "parents, duties of, ... cease at the moment of birth".

"Kuno ...I am not well."

The remark triggers an immediate response. Vashti has no say in the matter as medical care is dispensed through a robot. Nevertheless, "the human passions still blundered up and down the Machine".

What was the good of going to Pekin when it was just like Shrewsbury?

In 1909 the "air-ship service" was yet to be developed. Yet Forster portrayed it as a relic of the past, when people sought to see the world through direct experience. For the inhabitants of the machine, direct experience and person-to-person contact have become obsolete. Vashti is the only person travelling from personal choice. Her fellow travellers are being taken to the rooms allotted to them by the Machine, or to some mysterious clinic "for the purpose of propagating the race".

... and the Committee of the Machine, at the time rising into prominence, declared the pursuit illegal, unmechanical, and punishable by Homelessness.

The scenario presented here is by no means as inconceivable now as it was before World War I. Then, laws could not have been 'declared' by a Central Committee. Now, we are all in constant danger of breaking a new law declared as we sleep.

The Machine Stops Study Guide ONE

  

The Machine Stops Study Guide ONE

The Machine Stops

Reading Group Guidelines

https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/the-machine-stops/

Introductory Note by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

Over a century ago, when World War I was yet to happen, E.M. Forster wrote The Machine Stops. He predicted a future scenario not unlike that in which we find ourselves today. Forster's portrayal of the ultimate end of technological progress coupled with apathetic materialism is deceptively easy to read. Like all his writing, however, it is beautifully crafted,

According to Wikipedia, the Fantasy Book Review calls The Machine Stops "dystopic and quite brilliant" and says "In such a short novel The Machine Stops holds more horror than any number of gothic ghost stories. Everybody should read it, and consider how far we may go ourselves down the road of technological ‘advancement’ and forget what it truly means to be alive." and rates it as 10 out of 10.

The story is "a chilling tale of a futuristic information-oriented society that grinds to a bloody halt, literally. Some aspects of the story no longer seem so distant in the future." A lecturer in the story provides "a chilling premonition of the George W. Bush administration's derogation of "the reality-based community". (If you have no idea what George W. Bush's administration might have suggested, you can look it up on the internet.)

When I first studied The Machine Stops as a student in the 60s it made very little sense. Video-conferencing, the internet and Artificial Intelligence were still way into the future. By 2020 Will Gompertz could observe: "The Machine Stops is not simply prescient; it is a jaw-droppingly, gob-smackingly, breath-takingly accurate literary description of lockdown life in 2020.

Forster's short story is a gift to today's concerned parent, home-maker, artist, farmer and citizen. It raises every subject of concern today, from care of the land, care of the child, mental and physical health, respect for the arts, nature, to the spiritual life. Above all, he provides a platform for opening up debate on the crucial issue of the role of finance in determining civic rights and responsibilities.

The question is - is it logically inevitable that technological progress will produce a society that cannot sustain itself?

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See also STUDY DOCUMENT 1

"AI can't replace empathy that makes us all human"

by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

Catholic Universe, 5 Feb 2021

by Arshin Adib-Moghaddam

* * * *

See also: https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/the-machine-stops/

* * * *

Preparation

The first task is to read the story through at least a couple of times - there is so much hidden in each phrase and sentence. Note points you would like to explore. Obviously, the scenario Forster presents is totally unworkable. No human society could function with individuals living in total isolation from each other and from nature. Nevertheless, as Forster so uncannily foretold, that is the way things are going. And if so, it will indeed grind "to a bloody halt".

Forster's scenario is unworkable because the cultural sphere has been denied resources and eliminated by the political and economic spheres working hand in hand. (See eg "Towards a Threefold Commonwealth", New View 98, Winter 2020-2021, and elsewhere in these texts.)

The Wages System

 

AN ALPHABET OF ECONOMICS

A.R. Orage

Editor of The New Age

First published by T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1917

THE WAGES (or salary) SYSTEM

The first condition of the wage-system is that there shall be propertyless men – men, that is, with no access to the tools of production. This state is brought about by divers means in various times and places. In native communities our exploiting governors contrive it by robbing natives of their land or herds or trees, or, alternatively, by requiring payment in specie that can only be obtained by wage-labour. In civilised countries, the method is better concealed. Usually, however, the distinguishing feature is the enclosure of the common lands. Thus set out of the use of the necessary tools of production, the propertyless man, now become proletarian, must go and ask alms. But charity without work is demoralising, so they must work. Upon what? Upon and with the tools belonging to the more fortunate few who have retained their property. But there are so many of the workers – who among them shall find an owner to hire them? Why, the cheapest – those, in fact, who can shift on least wages. Wages thus tend to a minimum owing to the numbers of the proletariat. What, however, if they combine in unions and by all co-operating with each and each with all, fix a minimum price for their labour? Why, even then the resources of capitalist civilisation are not exhausted. If English workmen, let us say, can no longer be got cheap, foreign workmen of a cheap pattern can be imported. But public opinion will not allow much of this alien importation. Very well, Mahomet will go to the mountain. In other words, capitalist tools are sent where cheap labour abounds; and this is called foreign investment. (pp169-70)

COMMENT:

Orage is aware, so early in the century (1917), that ‘native communities’ were being forcefully exploited by the means outlined. I came across details of hut taxes and forced/exploited labour in so-called ‘underdeveloped’ countries during the 1990s, as if this was only just discovered. Vandana Shiva and others used the expression ‘mal-development’ for the ‘civilised’ countries who enclosed the land and excluded the people from their birthright, the common land.

Extract from AN ALPHABET OF ECONOMICS by A.R. Orage Editor of The New Age

First published by T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1917