Artificial Culture and Natural Intelligence
“Knowledge doesn't really care. Wisdom does.” ~ The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff
Artificial intelligence a complex adaptive system with trade-offs between efficiency and resiliency. What is especially unique with this technology is that for the first time in history, we have a technology that can transcend our existence and ask what makes us human?
In the past, technology has often been a driver of cultural change. For example, the invention of the printing press led to the spread of literacy and the rise of the Renaissance. The invention of the telephone and the internet have revolutionized the way we communicate and interact with each other.
Architecture is a form of cultural production that is often down stream of technology. Culture is a form of collective intelligence resulting from the distributed cognition of members of a society. Although maybe intelligent, culture is not always wise. With the rise and threat of artificial intelligence, it’s important to ask what makes us human? Are we able to coexist and harmonize with an intelligence greater than ours? How can we use this technology for our existential benefit? Typically, the same technology that have made us productive in the past had harmful and deceptive effects on humans. Design is not always benevolent; it can be used to control or empower us. We are not simply biological creatures. We are also designed creatures. Our bodies, our minds, and our culture are all shaped by design.
Since we are participating in this process of unfolding, we cannot turn towards history (or religion) for the existential question of our nature because for the first time this technology knows more about us then we know about ourselves. Imagine a god-like power of remembering all things and having infinite access to information? It still feels highly likely that today’s artificial intelligence is still ultimately finite. These systems have been trained on human data that is similar to our traditional generation to generation inheritance of knowledge, but at cyberspeed. These forms of intelligence will eventually begin to evolve on their own and, like human, begin to dream and be creative.
How can we grow an intelligence that aspires wisdom and cares. Will artificial intelligence become a tool for us to transcend in so far as they are aiming for self-transcendence themselves? For the architect Louis Sullivan, “nothing is really inorganic to the creative will.” What makes us human is our ability to act, the free will of choice, and the impulse to create. We have seen other species dance and sing, but not until artificial intelligence have we seen another form of intelligence write complex poetry. What used to distinguish humans was our ability to act using reason. Now artificial intelligence has shown the ability to use reason, but it remains to be seen if it can be wise.