When humans worry about machines posing a threat to the integrity of human life, we ignore the fact that humans are also at risk of living longer
Published Date – Wed, 4/26/23 at 12:30pm
Pramod K Nayyar
As cyborgs become popular—and accepted—a question commentators ask is: Are we humans responsible for the beings we create, even if those are robots?The question was first posed by the creature in Mary Shelley’s novel frankenstein, he appealed to his creator, the scientist Victor Frankenstein, to admit that his “monster” was a human creation and therefore entitled to be considered a human offspring. The debate Shelley initiated has not died down.
exist, become
The distinctions we make between humans and non-humans are based in part on the assumption that technological beings are distinct from us. But humans are also becoming something else, evolving in ways our ancestors never did. Humans co-evolved with technology as humans adopted the first tools.
Human biology has changed over a long period of evolution in order to survive better. As cognitive philosopher Andrew Clark observed: “We humans have always been good at integrating our thoughts and skills with our current tools and aids. But when these tools and aids start to mesh with each other—when When our technologies are as proactive, automatic, and constantly tailored to us as we do to them — then the line between tool and user becomes tenuous.”
In other words, we become The tools we use. Our interactions with technology, whether simple items like vision-enhancing glasses or prosthetics, shape us as we shape them to our own needs. This change in our biology, our physiology, has critics worried that we are ceding control to machines. But does this modification turn the organism into a machine or a number, or do organisms not always evolve with non-human others? Human finiteness has always sought to improve life through the use of tools – to grasp, write and run faster and better. AI-operated prosthetics or robots are another instance of this process.
But it’s not just enhancements that require technology.When humans worry about machines posing a threat to the integrity of human life, we ignore the fact that humans are at risk Live Also longer. A decade ago, a report by the UK House of Lords, entitled “Ready for Aging?” began with a bland statement: “The UK population is aging rapidly, but we have concluded that the government and our society are badly prepared Insufficient. Longer lifespan may be a great benefit, but the collective failure to address its impact could turn this great benefit into a series of tragic crises without urgent action.”
The “tragic crisis” includes a lack of medical care, assisted living issues, what a growing number of gerontologists call “extreme forgetfulness,” and more.
Consequently, more technical assistance is being used to ensure that older persons can live lives of nominal dignity.Therefore, humans are become While more and more prosthetics and implants are being used to make life more livable for the elderly, there are other things going on. Some of these appendages will eventually become robots, and they will make human life worthwhile.
Care about artificial intelligence?
Should we then assert that man-made creatures are as much concerned as human beings? Scholars working in critical botanical studies and critical animal studies have noted that care relationships are rooted in the social context, which shapes the nature of the relationship.
Patricia Ciobanu and Oskar Juhlin, both computer scientists, established the role of social context in determining care relationships after an experiment commissioning a group of people to care for plants over a period of time. Three ways: Think of plants as human utilities, as human agents and as human beings. Experimental participants “generally focused on energy production” when the plant was considered a utility. “When participants viewed plants as representations of humans, caring intentions [was] pointing at others’. When the researchers see the plants as having human traits, “it could also be seen as a form of empathy, an attempt to understand these plants, or a projection of beliefs and values”.
Experiments show: the nature and quality of care depends on the perception and acceptance of plants yes. We can extend this argument to post-human life forms, namely that the projection of artificial presence, the perception of existence, and the public discourse of presenting existence in a particular way will determine whether we see existence as a utility, as an agent or as a Humanity. Here, a strong endorsement of AI as human or purely machine will shape attitudes and policies.
imaginary artificial man
Literary works, such as Ian McEwan’s machines like us with Kazuo Ishiguro never let Me Go and Clara and the sun Influential in how the public imagination of these creatures is shaped.These words, like popular movies that instill fear of machines (whether go beyond or artificial intelligence or lucy), determine our perceptions so that we learn to care about them or Keep your fear of them. In such texts, cyborgs are created to resemble humans, with sentience and argumentative logic.
The scripture says: If androids are created by humans to imitate human feelings, to cater to human needs, and to serve as mirrors of ourselves, as Kazuo Ishiguro’s Clara apparently did, then instead of thinking of them as cyborgs , maybe we need to think of them as “alien humans”. Cultural studies scholar Aleksandra Łukaszewicz Alcaraz defines these as: “Man…in continuity with man, (with some accuracy) as man…heterogeneous…embracing the different hybrid creatures created in natural cultural processes, who Communication, morality, ethics, and society are being built that are like — but not quite — human.”
In McEwan’s novel, when Miranda calls the android Adam a “machine,” Charlie responds: “‘Listen,’ I say. It seems that he is this person. “
adam expect To be cared for by Charlie like a human being. The problem is, as the fictional scientist Alan Turing said to Charlie: us created these creatures.
“I think a[dams]-and-E[ves] We are not well equipped to understand human decision-making, the way our principles are distorted in the force fields of our emotions, our idiosyncratic biases, our self-deception, and all the other definite flaws in our cognition. Soon, these Adams and Eves were in despair. They cannot understand us because we cannot understand ourselves. Their study plans cannot accommodate us. If we don’t know our own minds, how can we design theirs and expect them to be happy with us? “
turing pointing Humanity The limitations and prejudices of the artificial human are created, and the artificial human will then be affected by the prejudices of its creator.
Justice and care for nonhuman needs is not a technological solution, but a change in our perceptions. As the critic Maz Rosendal Thomson puts it: “It is worth questioning how perfect our morals are and how our aesthetic sensibility can be enhanced. Posthumanist fiction shows that this is not necessarily through technology.” means, but by changing attitudes and behavior toward others”
It is in these texts of the rehumanization of cyborgs that we find it necessary to rethink how we treat others, whether religious minorities, plants, animals, or sentient robots.
