The Great Humans: machines can learn intelligence, but only humans have heart

Manifesto for a new era of A.I.

Coach: “What is your life purpose?”
Me: “To save humans from robot enslavement.”

Have you put your life purpose into one sentence? When asked that question, my first reaction sounded like a vision of an apocalyptic future. I’ll join in the ranks with Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Gates and other great minds who have publicly warned of the dangers of building artificial intelligence irresponsibly.

We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes. –Elon Musk

What could go wrong by building superintelligence? Creator of the world’s first antivirus software, John McAfee, told me “Human beings are flawed; we are intelligent but not wise. If humans create intelligence, it too will be flawed.” In essence we cannot perfectly predict the outcomes of a learning machine once we let it start learning, just like we cannot predict the outcomes of our children (as much as we’d like to think we can).

Hope we’re not just the biological boot loader for digital superintelligence. Unfortunately, that is increasingly probable –Elon Musk

My real mission—shared by many great technologists — is to increase the quality of human life by enriching it through technology. To do this, we build computers to solve basic human problems, algorithms to solve complex ones, machines to replace laborious or repetitive tasks and products to provide delight in everyday experiences.

Let’s build technology to enhance human intelligence, happiness, health, longevity, performance and relationships— without replacing them.

On the path to achieve greatness, we integrate technology into our work, relationships, homes and bodies. (Yes, bodies. Nanorobots swallowed as pills and “smart” implants will be the most invasive technology we’ve allowed into our lives yet.)

In the event of an uprising of “buggy” artificial intelligence and the advent of a super-war on humans, we must all unite. We can start by recognizing the value of humanity in those areas that cannot be replaced by technology.

Thanks to social media, I stumbled on a speech given over 75 years ago by Charlie Chaplin in the 1940 film The Great Dictator. This speech, now dubbed “the greatest speech ever made” by the Internet, is a good start to the manifesto in support of H.I. — human intelligence:

You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

The Great Humans

A manifesto for humans with hearts

We all want to help one another.
Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each others’ happiness.
In this world there is room for everyone.
And the Earth is rich and can provide for everyone.
The way of life can be free and beautiful.

But we have lost the way…
Greed has poisoned human souls.
We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.
More than machinery, we need humanity.
More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The airplane and the Internet have brought us closer together.
The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in people;
for the unity of us all.

Humans: don’t give yourselves to brutes,
machines who despise you and enslave you;
who regiment your lives,
tell you what to do,
what to think and what to feel!

Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men —
machine men with machine minds and machine hearts!
You are not machines!
You are humans!
You have a love of humanity in your hearts!
You don’t hate!

Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural.

You, the people, have the power,
the power to create machines,
the power to create happiness.
You, the people, have the power,
to make this life free and beautiful,
to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then in the name of humanity, let us use that power:

Let us all unite!

Let us fight for a new world,
a decent world that will give all people a chance to work,
that will give youth a future and old age a security.
By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power.
Now let us fight to fulfill that promise!
Let us fight to free the world!
To do away with national barriers!
To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance!

Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all humans’ happiness.

Humans, let us all unite!

Adapted from the 1940 film “The Great Dictator” and updated for 2016.