The false technoprofetes
10
Apr
The idea that the machine is evil, besides being an obvious anti-progress conception,
seeks without knowing them to disprove Kranzberg’s first law: technology is not good, neither bad nor neutral, but in general, its other 5 laws: 2nd – invention is the mother of need, 3 th technology is developed in “packages”, 4th technological policies are decided, based on non-technical criteria, 5 th. – all history is important, but the History of Technology is the most relevant area, and, 6th. – Technology is a human activity, the History of Technology as well.
Jean-Gabriel Ganascia, in his book “The Myth of Singularity: Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence?” (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 2018) unmasks the idea that in the foreseeable future, some mark the year 2045 as machines can come forever completely autonomous and replace the human intelligence that ultimately is what programs and governs.
He quotes among several others who believe in this prophecy, whose point of overcoming is called the point of singularity, Raymond Kurzweil, that part of his precocious genius, at the age of 15 wrote a program that scores piano music, prepares his body and his mind to be “Loaded” (a cybernetic download) on a future machine.
Another technoprofetes quoted by Ganascia is Hans Moravec, who wrote “Men and Robots: The Future of Human Intelligence and Robotics” (1988) and “Robot: More Machines to Transcendent Mind” (1998) that would lead to a radical transformation of humanity.
One last, quoting quote, Kevin Warwick wrote I, Cyborg in a clear allusion to Eu, Robot, and who became known to the public for introducing a chip encapsulated in a skin into the skin to command a series of actuators remote, but it seems that his project was a failure, says Ganasci (page 13).
Philosophers do not stand still, I leave aside here the critics of the current digital technologies, to go to futurist technoprofetas, worthy of mention and quoted by Ganascia, Nick Bostrom, training physicist, makes prophecies in his writings, and particularly a sales success :
Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, predicting among other things the trans-humanity.
Among the catastrophic technoprofetes, Ganascia quotes Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who wrote an article: “Why the future does not need us,” the author goes from Leibniz to Lyotard to show why these theses seem real in our time , but not in the studies and results of Artificial Intelligence.
They are indeed technoprocesses, but out of time, the time of oracles and prophets is of orality.
