People vs. Machine
When we look back to human history, we’ve always been interested in inventing gadgets according to our changing needs.
A core value of a human being is curiosity. When we watch the TED talks and other new age inspiring speech formats, we always hear the word ‘curiosity’. It was a big cliché for me for a long time, I was always hearing it from successful and creative people and the meaning of the world itself was getting meaningless every time. Before going deep down with that word we may look at the real meaning of it, according to the Cambridge Dictionary curiosity means: an eager wish to know or learn about something. [1] According to these successful people, if we have an intention to learn and know about the things we’ll surely be successful in life. I still have doubts about this phase but I don’t want to stick with the word, I want to take a look at it in terms of our evaluation.
In Ancient Times people were inventing or simply creating gadgets out of stones to survive. The intention behind was to survive, not to create new things for a better life but for simply being able to be alive. The gadgets and the creating processes changed by time. When we take a look to our history I may say that at the beginning we were trying to adapt ourselves into this world in order to survive and create an environment in which we can live. We were not totally aware of the potential of our bodies and minds. We were trying to discover the world and also our abilities.
[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/curiosity
With some challenging time on earth we became aware of some of our abilities and begin to invent according to create a better life for ourselves. We begin to use the earth as a source, not just in terms of nutrition (which was always been a part of our life) but also in terms of sources for our new inventions. We build houses, vehicles and other stuff to have better conditions on this land. With all those inventions, other than being our home, earth becomes a limitless (we weren’t aware of its limits back then) source for us. At this stage, we may say that we started to have a controller role on the earth, on the other side at the beginning we were just like habitants.
When we go on in the history, we come to the stage of the invention of the simple machines which we were using for calculation, weight, astrology and other stuff. At this stage the intention behind those machines is the need to know more about the earth and the system behind it. We want to know how the stars hang in there, why do we feel more pain on our arms when we try to hold some objects, etc. We want to know about the environment in which we live. There comes the curiosity, the curiosity which lead us to invent the first machines of our times. We’ve always had that curiosity in our DNA, but at that time of the history, we started to have an opportunity to use it for our pioneer invention. Before that, we were trying to survive and have basic condition to live. At this stage we want to learn more about the earth, we want to examine it with our gadgets.
At this stage, we have a role as a controller on the earth for sure, because we’re using it as a source for a long time and we have a general experience on it. In according to that the role of the observer still exists. We’re trying to learn the system of the universe in order to understand the basic rules on earth. Some philosopher, physicists, mathematicians devote their life for this. As their ancestors we owe them because their inventions or discoveries provided us all that we have. These are the core knowledge of our lives, which made us survive till here.
Finally, let’s make a big jump and come to our time, 2021. We talk about crypto currencies, AI’s that generate artworks, little robots in our houses sweep the floors by their own. We weren’t aware of our abilities but now we have little friends of our which helps us to cope with our daily challenges. Still I may not say that we have all the knowledge of our minds, but I may say that we have a really good knowledge on earth and how to take advantage of it. Human’s role in history on earth has changed according to all these inventions.
At the beginning we were small pure inhabitants here, trying to deal with it’s nature and challenges. Then we had a bit control on it, discovered it’s sources and begin to use it. After that we started to have more questions on the big picture. We asked, worked on it, came out with some concrete answers. With all those answers, time by time (by this I mean in centuries) we came out with some machines. At the beginning those machines were just gadgets serving us to understand and examine on the rules of earth. When we come to our times, these machines become a part of our life. Many of us doesn’t even know the working system behind these. With all the knowledge we created some gadgets which are working perfectly in some areas. Today we don’t need human force for some works. This can sound as a good thing but when we look at our relationship with these machines, sometimes it scares me.
I think, the curiosity for learning new things, the curiosity which was going to bring success made us dictators of earth. With all those technological abilities we forgot our inhabitant role on earth. For many years we took advantage of it without questioning it’s own sake. Other than that, with all those machines we’re living with, many of us doesn’t have a control on it. How many of us knows the system in a computer, or in a smaller scale a speaker? We lost our interest in learning about our environment, by saying environment I also mention the machines in it. If we use them, we may want to the working principles of it, but I think we already lost the track.
With all those AI technologies, I think know we’re trying to create the most human like machine / invention. We saw that those machines can work perfectly, so if we put them some human qualities what would happen? From my side this is a dark nightmare where we become a part of futuristic movie. As a human with some strong emotions I love to look at the world as a little part of it. With all our abilities we may see the earth as our kingdom but the truth is that it’s so much bigger than ourselves with all it’s components. For me, to have a better life as humans, we have to come to the role of the observer some time and remind ourselves that this is our home, and we’re just a small inhabitant of it.
