Warranty for a Little Bit of Mind

Dorota CHABRAJSKA

Abstract

The essay explores the culture change which is a result of the increasing presence of artificial intelligence within the universe of human values. The analysis addresses selected problems discussed by John C. Lennox, a mathematician and a philosopher of science, and Elon Musk, who initiated research into artificial intelligence. Among the specific issues which call for debate in this respect is the change of the status of the humanities, accompanied by the vision of culture as a set of predominantly formal rather than material activities and by the ensuing primacy of algorithmic procedures over an individual and unrepeatable human experience. In this context, the problem of consciousness is described in relation to artificial intelligence and “thinking” machines. It is pointed out that the so-called thinking machines radically differ from the human mind in that the latter is not subject to algorithmization and can function efficiently even with very little data accessible. The confusion in our conceptual grasp of artificial intelligence—claims Lennox—stems from the anthropomorphic language used to describe it, which makes us lose the mental distance between our understanding of the mind and our understanding of the mathematical construct a thinking machine is. Then, the differences between human language learning and language acquisition by a machine (ChatGPT) are described in the light of Noam Chomsky’s latest research. To conclude, certain threats to culture and modern society resulting from the application of artificial intelligence for the purpose of social engineering are outlined.