that humans must merge with machines, or else become defunct<\/a> from the threat of advanced artificial intelligence. I guess he no longer thinks we live in a computer simulation. Why worry about humans becoming defunct if we are all brains in a vat?<\/p>\nHaving millions of dollars does not mean that one can construct logically coherent chains of thought.<\/p>\n
All that aside, I have several major issues with Musk\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n
On an argumentative level Musk\u2019s claims seem to paint artificial intelligence as some sort monster we have no control over. He talks about the \u201cthreat of A.I.\u201d while ignoring that humans are the ones who create and control it, thus ignoring that we could easily stop working on it as it currently stands (as this Skynet-esque threat) if we are really so concerned about it displacing people.<\/p>\n
Further, claims like Musk\u2019s ignore the reality that no matter how advanced A.I. becomes, it is still \u201cartificial\u201d and reliant on programming put into it by human minds<\/em> that are ontologically distinct<\/em> from mere neurological matter and functions.<\/p>\nBut really, the underlying presupposition of Musk\u2019s confused plea for the merger of humans and machines is the biggest problem here. It implicitly assumes that humans are mere technology to be exploited for profit and material success. In this view humans are not persons<\/em>, with an ultimate goal of flourishing, but mere biological machinery<\/em> that need to be upgraded to a biomechanical level. When one\u2019s ultimate meaning has no transcendent anchor or reference point (e.g. God as the transcendent Source and Ground of reality), humans will inevitably be reduced down to mere technology. The bloodbath that is secularized 20th<\/sup> century bears stark witness to this.<\/p>\nOf course, Musk and those like him fundamentally misunderstand that mind<\/em> is quite distinct from brain. <\/em>True, the mental and the neurological are inextricably related. But to think that consciousness is derived or secreted from neurological matter is a fundamental confusion of categories, the product of an age that has forgotten to think deeply about the nature of reality and what persons <\/em>\u2014 not just human beings, but human persons<\/em> \u2014 really and truly are.<\/p>\nArtificial intelligence, no matter how complex, is not the same as human consciousness:<\/p>\n
Computational models of the mind would make sense if what a computer actually does could be characterized as an elementary version of what the mind does, or at least as something remotely like thinking. In fact, though, there is not even a useful analogy to be drawn here. A computer does not even really compute. We compute, using it as a tool. We can set a program in motion to calculate the square root of pi, but the stream of digits that will appear on the screen will have mathematical content only because of our intentions, and because we\u2014not the computer\u2014are running algorithms. The computer, in itself, as an object or a series of physical events, does not contain or produce any symbols at all; its operations are not determined by any semantic content but only by binary sequences that mean nothing in themselves. The visible figures that appear on the computer\u2019s screen are only the electronic traces of sets of binary correlates, and they serve as symbols only when we represent them as such, and assign them intelligible significances. The computer could just as well be programmed so that it would respond to the request for the square root of pi with the result \u2018Rupert Bear\u2019; nor would it be wrong to do so, because an ensemble of merely material components and purely physical events can be neither wrong nor right about anything\u2014in fact, it cannot be about anything at all. Software no more \u2018thinks\u2019 than a minute hand knows the time or the printed word \u2018pelican\u2019 knows what a pelican is.<\/p>\n
\u2013 David Bentley Hart
\nThe Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss<\/em> p. 219<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/749\/2017\/02\/The-Experience-of-God-Book-Cover.jpg\")
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk is saying outlandish things again. Several months ago, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said that \u201cchances are we are all living in a simulation.\u201d Thankfully, other writers have contested this in a kinder manner than I would have (the words I have for Musk\u2019s theory are\u00a0something along the lines of \u201cutter nonsense\u201d and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2894,"featured_media":411,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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