Project Critique

I enjoyed following Jacob's research and our many existential conversations surrounding both our projects. In true Philosophical style, though not an armchair in sight, we sat in class in our ergonomic lab seats and mulled over the many problems of the world concerning reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind and language. Jacob researched The Technological Singularity, a concept which I think is highly relevant in terms of Western thought and global effect in today's world. The focus of Jacob's exploration centred around cybernetics and artificial intelligence (AI) in relation to the Law of Accelerating Change and the notion of singularity as describing a point at which human beings become delimited both as a force and as a being.

His main impetus was to investigate the idea of a fundamental paradigm shift, vaster than we have ever known, as having occurred as a result of recent technological advances. But as Jacob and I discussed in class, viewing change as accelerating or decreasing, and ascertaining even the direction of change itself is bound by fractals, that is, where we place our boundary and by what we have delimited to be included within our process of investigation. When we look in minute detail we can interpret data or phenomena in a particularly way, yet focussing on the very same thing at a greater distance we can make an entirely different reading because our boundary has expanded and the amount of data we have included has seemingly increased in some way. It is precisely the notion of the paradigm which can also be read and interpreted in this way as we delimit particular time frames throughout history and perceive them as having occurred in a particular sequence or order. As such, certain events at the expense of others can become marked and prioritised as having mapped reality. Jacob's beta presentation raised a similar concept in relation to false narrative and the variance of measurement procedures but rather with regards to prediction. Jacob and I had previously discussed how delimitation in this way always distorts reality, yet without delimitation we can unlikely formulate any type of reality. Jacob's beta presentation referred to this idea in terms of intelligence, hierarchies and patterns associated with the neocortex of the human brain. Patterns do constrain us in a particular way, but I'm not sure that we can think for very long without them. As such, it would depend upon one's frame of reference and perception of reality as to how and when they interpreted the occurrence of technological singularity, or even whether it will ever occur at all.

Jacob and I further discussed the idea of accelerating change. We discussed how technology and tools have been an integral part of everyday human life since Neanderthal people. Additionally, Mary Shelly wrote about the dangers of technology having gone too far in her incantation of Frankenstein in the early 1800's. But Jacob wanted to investigate in what way technological change has accelerated much more recently in Western science, and if in fact some tipping point has been reached in terms of the cardinal reality of how human beings are placed within the world. Jacob's pitch in week 5 discussed the ideas surrounding this notion of a tipping point in terms of AI and debated whether or not it has likely already occurred. In Jacob's research the debate really seems to be about the effect of AI on existing human intelligence and surmising within this scenario, whether humans are becoming like machines or whether machines are becoming like humans. One wonders at the degree to which such a decision for science to pursue these ideals suits the common good or is made with an awareness of the likely consequences. Yet quite rightly, Jacob questioned the degree to which it is even possible to control this type of technological change, and this inevitability is precisely the point. Regimes of scientific research, power and economics could be said to have become so embedded within Western thought, and global structures for that matter, that this seems to be a process of which we now have little control in halting or reversing. Jacob's beta presentation addressed this very interrelation between technology and economic growth, showing how each feeds into and perpetuates the other.

This discussion about AI in this way also led into a conversation with Jacob about the supposed origin of human intelligence both in terms of its state of being and its definition. We discussed the idea of Hunter Gatherers as probably having thought more in terms of day to day survival and the cycles of nature, but we wondered at the evolution of the vast time and space within which we think of today in terms of the past, present and future. In his beta, Jacob stated that he particularly wanted to focus on the issue of time keeping and I understood this as the construction of global space, for example navigation and mapping in terms of latitude and longitude. As such, human intelligence obviously has the capacity to evolve and adapt into more complex thought over time, but I wonder of the limits to this complexity. I also wonder at this process of evolution in reverse, for example extinction. Jacob discussed the difficulty of artificially replicating human consciousness which led me to wonder where such attributes as emotional intelligence, human desire and even Will would fit within the AI scenario. Do we perceive that these features add to human intelligence or thwart it? As such, would there be an attempt to computise emotions and Will or would such features become redundant, extinct? In this way, does AI add to human intelligence or in fact thwart it? Is AI a lurch forward into the future in terms of progress generally, technological or otherwise, or does AI and singularity in fact mark the beginning of a regression in evolution from a human perspective? Where do we stand in terms of defining progress? I found Jacob's beta slide on evolutionary bottles-necks particularly relevant here.

In widening the debate to include critical analysis of technological singularity, Jacob's beta really created a much larger space for discussion. His critique provided a good counterbalance and seemed to create a discursive space, or distancing of sorts, enabling Jacob to 'observe' his project. As such, his field of vision seemed to expand, which will be invaluable for the essay. Jacob worked on his project really consistently, nearly every week in class he told me about new ideas he had had during the previous week and about the theorists he'd been reading. The project topic was of particular interest to him and he was really invested in the project's outcomes. In many respects both our projects were tackling the same complex issue and asking similar questions but through two different themes.