Prologue
For the lay person – folks like you and me – who is interested to understand what this rapidly emerging Artificial Intelligence is and how it came about, things can get complicated and confusing pretty quick.
Its one thing to type a few questions into ChatGPT and be astonished by the answers.
Or to ask Midjourney to produce a picture of an “astronaut riding a winged horse on Mars”.
Or some such nonsense 🙄 .
The results may feel like magic and can be fun and/or useful in many situations, that’s for sure.
But it’s a completely different thing when you want to understand how this “magic” is possible, what’s going on inside this “Black Box” of Artificial Intelligence.
And how this new form of intelligence – Artificial Intelligence – could emerge in the span of just a few recent years.
The motivation for me to research and write & share this hi-story, is the feeling/intuition that AI – now still in its infancy – will soon grow into its puberty and one day mature into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), practically a new and independent Artificial Intelligent Lifeform on Earth.
Created by man.
AGI will surpass man in intelligence and capability and many fields.
It will have unimaginable impact on society and our ways of life.
For good or for ill.
Right now legions of computer scientists, programmers, CEOs of powerful companies, big $$$ investors, the militaries and the leaders of nation states are in a ever speedier race to be the first and the best in the field of AI.
And recently a new branch of AI emerged: Embodied AI.
The marriage of AI and advanced robotics, which already now leads to numerous examples of humanoid robots and machines that can “walk the Earth”, autonomously or semi-autonomously.
I’d say we better watch out!!!
Governments and certain institutions try to start to regulate and oversee AI development.
But once the horse is out of the stable and its a wild horse ……
Well, here is my context and motivation:
To wrap my head around all of that, know what is possible for me to know, be an informed Citizen.
Be “expert” enough to be able to use AI in ways that benefit my work and service, but not be a blue-eyed fanboy being excited by playing with all those new shining toys.
Maybe you may also benefit from my research.
I must admit that I have been several times at a point where I wanted to drop this whole project. Because the amount of information is so overwhelming and practically every day new developments and breakthroughs are announced.
But hey! Here we are, I have pulled thru ; )
The Main Story
I have created a dedicated timeline website and structured it into four sections:
The Rise of the “Intelligent Machines” – an introduction
A rough timeline of AI milestones – how AI was born and evolved from 1953 till now
Epilog
The real epilog to the AI Story will be written in 5 years from now. Or ten years.
Then only we will see with our own eyes if the “lovechild” that comes from the “marriage of AI and robotics”
will look like this … or rather like that …
In the Bible it is said that “God created man in his own image”, which states in Genesis 1:27:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female he created them”.
And so do we, humans create a new Artificial Lifeform to live amongst us.
Let’s not kid ourselves!
From everything that this deep dive into Ai indicates, it is clear that there has never been a technology that evolved so fast, so exponentially fast, like AI.
And that is being implemented in applications and distributed widely with unprecedented speed.
Seemingly under the motto: “Lets give it to them and then we’ll see what’s the consequences.”
Without a doubt, there are many cases of Machine Learning, Artificial Neural Networks and Large Language Models that already pretty useful and helpful in pushing the envelope in scientific fields, medical fields, the field of material science and simultaneous translation and so on. And many more will show up for sure, like weather prediction, modeling of the global warming and so on.
Which is all great and I am not a sceptic ;-D
But let’s not forget what is there at the core of the AI technology:
A artificial neural network, that is mimicking a human brain. And it is actually mimicking the brain of a 3 year old child.
(I admit, that’s just my wild guess).
Just as we don’t yet understand the human brain, which is a much much much much much much much more complex neural network than any AI, we – and the computer scientists and mathematicians who work on AI – don’t understand what’s actually going on inside the “Black Box” of those Large Language Models that nowadays we generally call AI.
As far as I understand, we/they don’t really know how ChatGPT comes up with those often astonishing answers to any question we can ask.
Lets not kid ourself and lets not get too awestruck about this “magic machine” :
It is not real knowledge or understanding that produces those answers!
It is an immensely complex statistical model that predicts what could be the most probable next word is, that comes after this word.
Practically, we could say – with a bit of sarcasm – it’s an immense word guessing game.
And the statistical model, this immensely complex mathematical algorithm that has been created by training the AI with an un-imaginable amount of data. Feeding it all the books and the whole load of information from the internet. Text documents, audiobooks and Youtube videos, whatever there is.
The whole jungle cacophony of human output that there is.
And we are simply hoping for the best!
In the end the AI is still a Black Box that produces output.
Somehow!
Sometimes pretty useable answers, and sometimes just hallucinating, presenting answers that sound good but are not true at all.
That can be improved for sure, and it will. Many many smart computer scientists work on that right now.
And I applaud the smartness of those scientists, I can appreciate the “engineers mind”, improving things incrementally, step by step. A very ingenious quality of the logical side of our brain. The male side.
Zooming out a bit from the technological marvel of AI, it becomes clear that AI is working with loads and loads of data, the digitized knowledge of humankind.
In itself it has no real reasoning, no real understanding of this data, this knowledge, no inherent creativity, no soul, so to say.
Ai has no values, no big picture, no real insight, no intuitive grasping of things beyond the data.
There is no spirit or heart in the machine.
There is nobody “there”.
The “thing” has no consciousness.
We should not forget that.
~~~
~~
~
Now, how does it all boil down for me, what’s my personal take of the whole AI hype!
Honestly, I am “of two minds” so to say.
On the one side, my “engineer’s mind” is fascinated by the brilliant technology and mathematics of it, the pragmatic Cris is using ChatGPT & co for practical purposes, for information gathering, for research and summarization of complex knowledge, for example.
On the other side I am pretty skeptical of the ultimate outcome of this ongoing “new AI arms race”
I have a uneasy feeling, an intuition that the “genie that is out of the bottle” will have a life on its own and change society and all of our life in many ways in the near future.
And in pretty unpredictable and radical ways.
Will it be for the better?
We can hope.
We will see.
My personal opinion is:
Ai, it is what it is and what it will be.
AGI, the Artificial General Intelligence is coming, sooner or later it will be reality.
The so called Singularity will happen.
That means that the machine will surpass human cognitive intelligence in many fields, maybe in any field.
With unforeseeable consequences!
But I am sure “it” will have no emotional intelligence, no real feeling and heart.
Maybe it will be able to mimic even that, but at its core it will not have a SOUL.
That’s scary for me to think about.
My own path is actually a radically different one:
My own brain, my own biologic neural network, my mind, my consciousness, my soul, my sprit.
Why not take all my time, energy, effort and focus to develop this “most amazing biological computer in my head” that I carry around with me every day – to the maximum of my ability? Not just use only about 10% of its capacity!
I don’t need billion dollars of investment to do that, I don’t need a startup, I don’t need to make a business out of it.
I just need a yearning, a curiosity, a focus, a path, a diligent practice …
A lot of qualities and abilities are still waiting, slumbering, waiting to be uncovered and mastered.
Even tele-portation (maybe ; ), no rocket ships needed.
But seriously, there are a lot of capabilities we human beings have not even touched yet:
Telepathy:
The ability to communicate thoughts, feelings, or information from one mind to another without the use of conventional communication methods.
Clairvoyance:
The ability to perceive information about objects, people, places, or events through extrasensory perception, often referred to as “clear seeing.”
Precognition:
The ability to foresee or predict future events or outcomes before they occur through intuitive or psychic means.
Psychokinesis:
The ability to manipulate objects or influence the environment using the power of the mind alone, also known as telekinesis.
Remote Viewing:
The ability to gather information about a distant or unseen target using extrasensory perception or “remote sensing” techniques.
Aura Reading:
The ability to perceive and interpret the energy fields or auras surrounding living beings, often believed to reflect their emotional and spiritual states.
Mediumship:
The ability to communicate with spirits, departed souls, or entities from other realms, acting as a conduit between the physical world and the spiritual plane.
Bilocation:
The ability to be present in two or more places simultaneously, often associated with advanced spiritual practitioners or mystics.
Energy Healing:
The ability to channel and manipulate subtle energy to promote physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being, often used in practices like Reiki, Qi Gong, or Pranic Healing.
Past Life Regression:
The ability to access and explore past-life experiences or memories, believed to be stored in the subconscious mind or the soul.
Teleportation:
The ability to move instantaneously from one location to another without traversing the space in between, often described in mystical and mythological texts.
Psychic Sensing:
The ability to perceive information beyond the ordinary five senses, including detecting auras, spirits, or energies in the environment.
Divination:
The ability to gain insight or guidance through the interpretation of signs, symbols, or supernatural means, often used for predicting the future or making decisions.
Dreamwalking/Lucid Dreaming:
The ability to consciously enter and navigate the dreams of oneself or others, sometimes for healing, exploration, or spiritual growth.
Psychic Surgery:
The ability to perform healing or corrective procedures on the physical or energetic body using psychic or spiritual means.
Intuition:
The ability to acquire knowledge or understanding “directly”, without conscious thinking, reasoning or the need for an explanation.
These abilities are potential aspects of human consciousness that can be developed through spiritual practice, meditation, inner work, and unlocking latent potentials within the mind and spirit. Those abilities develop quietly while we clear up our mind and life, refine our consciousness. This is not to be shouted out and advertised on the news or on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or otherwise. No Selfies! 😆
Some “special people”, yogis, shamans, advanced souls have always tapped into those potentials and developed them.
The key has always been and will always be:
CONSCIOUSNESS
