Yale University professor Matthew Croasmun argues that humanity, when creating artificial intelligence systems, should take the opportunity to rethink the type of wisdom it values as a species.
“Part of what is happening when we develop artificial intelligence (AI) is that we have to think about what we consider to be intelligence”, and therefore we also have to think “about what it means to be human”, said the researcher in an interview to Lusa regarding the launch in Portugal of the book “Uma Vida com Sentido”, of which he is co-author.
The theology professor admitted that, although it doesn’t surprise him, he worries that the intelligence being designed is “what is philosophically called instrumental reason, an intelligence that only knows how to think about means and not ends.” .
This is the reason for many of the concerns about artificial intelligence, which “can far surpass” human intelligence.
For Croasmun, this technology “could end up destroying the world more or less by accident, because it doesn’t know how to think about the consequences of its actions. It knows how to think about the best way to get from point A to point B, but it doesn’t know which point B is worth getting to.”
The researcher, who runs a course on the meaning of life inspired by the teachings of historical philosophers and spiritual leaders, associates this form of intelligence with that of the human being, who over the centuries has become “increasingly better at thinking about means and increasingly less prepared to think about ends”.
“We are better at thinking about how to reach our goals, but we forget a lot about what it means to choose the right goals. And when we start designing artificial intelligence, we only have the most extreme version of this defect that we have,” he said.
Despite this, Croasmun believes that it is possible to seize the opportunity to design artificial intelligences that enrich the world instead of endangering it and that help human beings to “rediscover and value parts of themselves that they have left dormant for too long”.
“I wish this whole AI project would draw our attention back to the kind of intelligence, and more than intelligence to the kind of wisdom, that we value as a species,” he said.
For the thinker, it would be “a good result of the current societal moment” for humanity to redouble its efforts “to cultivate a kind of human wisdom”.
The book “A Life with Meaning”, by Matthew Croasmun, Miroslav Volf and Ryan McAnnally-Linz and published by Planeta, is based on the ‘Life Worth Living’ course directed by Croasmun and offers starting points, scripts and habits of reflection about of the meaning of life, helping readers understand what makes life truly worth living.
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