CC BY-SA 2.0, adapted from the original

Artificial intelligence will replace humans! — Ehm, no.

AI will stop us from thinking as much as the car stopped us from traveling.

Thilo Bauer
Jul 25, 2017 · 3 min read

What you see is what you get — but what do you see? The human brain has two fundamental information processing properties:

  1. it works in a hierarchical way
  2. it strengthens what it already knows

Hierachical means that we humans have a tendency to deconstruct complex systems into smaller and simpler parts with specific functions. To a large extend this is indeed how the world around us is constructed. Just take as an example the human body, how it can be deconstructed into organs and extremities, and these further into smaller parts.

The way molecules are represented in chemistry (upper representation) makes us see more structure than is actually there (lower representation). There’s no help: we just have to see three six-rings and a five-ring fused together, because this is a hierarichal pattern.

This leads to two consequences:

  1. we detect only patterns of a certain kind, i.e. we see hierarchy everywhere
  2. we transfer that what has been to what is or will be, i.e. we detect preferably patterns that we already know

But what if there are systems in the world that are complex without being hierarchical? They might to a considerable extent escape our observation and our understanding.

Also, if we extrapolate what we know to too sparse data, e.g. to a person we absolutely do not know, we might be utterly wrong in our estimate and that is pretty much the cause for bad prejudice.

Creativity (not bird) is the word

The two human skills of creativity and humor are closely linked to the specific way the brain works. Both creativity and humor work by exposing us to unexpected patterns, leaving known paths and not meeting expectation. The surprise of being expulsed from a known path or expectation makes as laugh, especially if the expectation was built up purposefully beforehand. Being exposed to information structured in an unexpected pattern is the key principle of the aesthetics of modern art. In fact the reason we love (good) art and humor is rooted in the fact that our brain actually loves to leave beaten tracks, but it is quite hard for it to do so.

“Beyond the age of information is the age of choices.” ~Charles Eames

Artificial intelligence (AI) is often feared to be replacing humans. Understanding our brain’s function, we can instead see AI as what it is: a tool. With AI it is the same as with every other tool or machinery humankind has invented: it softens our weaknesses and enables us doing things better we’ve always done. Classical mechanical machinery is faster, stronger and more precise than any human can be. So mechanical equipment makes us stronger and faster by overcoming limits of our body.

AI is information and data processing machinery. It helps us overcoming limits of our brains by showing us patterns we cannot see, thus stimulating human creativity, possibly educating us to think in unforthought ways.
AI is a tool used to think more comprehensive, understand more deeply and create more constructive. To what extend we use AI-machinery, and if the results we produce with it are good will always be for us humans to decide and to judge. The burden of choice will still be human, but we might choose better.

Thilo Bauer

Written by

I’m a scientist, an equestrian and a swordsman. I’m passionate about chemistry, information technology, aesthetics and strategy— and their mutual interplay.

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