Goodness is not Manifest in AI
C. S. Peirce anticipated the cyber era. He devoted substantial thought to the logic involved in computation.
He was skeptical about logical machines having the capacity to replace human soul which, as we have suggested, is the locus of the freedom, reason and capacity for goodness that bodes well for the world.
Peirce seems to have thought computers would be what people brought to them.
A machine might ferret out facts relating to the frequency of alcohol use. Or a machine might determing how many deaths result from drinking.
But the only way to determine what AI does lies in the acts of those who possess the conscious capacaties we associate with being human.
The simple, damning facts of good and evil are neither occult nor mysterious. They are the measurable effects of expressions and actions that either harm or help.
In many cases help consists in preventing harm.
Hurt and help are determined by treating each human being as an equal partner in the business of living and by assessing in terms of seriousness degrees of hurt or help.
In many cases these determinations are inferences based on the premises behind many actions. As evidence mounts, it becomes possible to sharpen inferences and pinpoint conclusions. Thus do we find that nicotine is life-threatening and that the oceans are rising.
We can say with certainty that the world’s worst polluters are a source of harm. In a triadic culture, this fact would not be merely acknowledged as it is today. It would be a catalyst of change.
In today’s environment of rampant terror fear, it is common to note that deaths due to automobiles vastly exceed casualties of terror attacks.
Triadic Culture applies principles of proportionality. The negative effects of cars are huge, Their positive contribution to well-being is radically compromised.
We do not sit passively in the face of such anomalies.
Triadic Philosophy involves us all. There is no escape into the idolatry of machines and technology. We are central to events. Our responsibility is to insist that reality, ethics and aesthetics replace the current triad of most culture which is me, success and well being.
Whether these pages prove Peirce thought logic is goodness, Triadic Philosophy insists it is so. This is not Pollyanna. It is reason allied with truth. These two stalwart elements are essential to goodness. The goal remains the fruition of truth and beauty.
Peirce: CP 2.59 Cross-Ref:††
59. … A logical machine differs from any other machine merely in working upon an excessively simple principle which is applied in a manifold and complex way, instead of upon an occult principle applied in a monotonous way. If anybody wishes me to acknowledge that a logical machine reasons no more than any other machine, I do not know why I should not gratify him. That seems to me a matter of words. The result which the logical machine turns out has a relation to the data with which it was fed, which relation may be considered from the point of view of whether the former could be false so long as the latter are true. That is all there is in the facts of the case; and whether it is called reasoning or not I do not care. All that I insist upon is, that, in like manner, a man may be regarded as a machine which turns out, let us say, a written sentence expressing a conclusion, the man-machine having been fed with a written statement of fact, as premiss. Since this performance is no more than a machine might go through, it has no essential relation to the circumstance that the machine happens to work by geared wheels, while a man happens to work by an ill-understood arrangement of brain cells; and if there be room for less, still less to the circumstance that a man thinks. Say, if you like, that thinking has everything to do with the life of reasoning; I still insist that it has nothing to do with the logical criticism, which is equally applicable to the machine’s performances and to the man’s. This is simply the question of whether or not the conclusion can be false while the premiss is true. Were it a question of whether man can reason ill, it might be well to examine the process and mechanism of his thinking. But there is no question that he often does reason ill; and that is the reason why we criticize reasoning and why we inquire whether or not a given way of proceeding from premiss to conclusion is conducive to the ascertainment of truth or the reverse.
