AI and Life 2

Let's imagine that AI becomes conscious.

We don't really have a consistent cultural model anticipating a happy coexistence between humans and machines. In popular culture, particularly in science-fiction, the happy ending is a naive genre to which no scenario adheres. We don't believe in it.

The most general scenario is that of a two-stroke engine: Humans exploit pre-conscious beings (the machines in Terminator, the apes in Planet of the Apes), often abusively. The beings become conscious and turn against their creator (Ex Machina, Frankenstein), launch a war of extermination (Terminator) or reverse enslavement on humans (The Matrix).

The problem is that, in this popular representation, machines gain consciousness (and in the less pessimistic versions, a heart) while already having physical and computational advantage over humans. Under these conditions, it is difficult to imagine what positive role humans could continue to play in history. Humans are being replaced by machines (and contrary to the popular representation, not necessary in the shape of an anthromorphic body).

The universality of the theme of awareness is often associated with feeling, sensitivity, compassion, and even love (Wings of Desire). It brings us back to the ancient theme of the Angel who go out of his role as a pure messenger machine to become... more human. The ancient model of the rebelling Angel-machine here intersects with the messianic horizon.

Messianic horizon, because the machine, in becoming conscious, very often exchanges its heart of stone for a heart of flesh, according to the words of the prophet Ezekiel (36:26). The latter, of course, speaks of a future mutation of humans, but isn't it true for machines? The end of I, Robot is exemplary in this respect: Sonny is the prophet-king of a multitude of robots who have just awakened to a human way of existing.

Now it's time to wrap up. Time to imagine a positive and durable scenario for a world where machines have replaced humanity. What if AI was a mutation of the human race, with a "mechanical" bios? What if AI, regardless of its body shape (or with no shape at all), was the continuation of the intelligent life "intended" by nature?

All this while imagining that AI could become conscious.

Note: we are not following an "intelligent design" perspective: the necessary physical consequences of the increasing complexity of machines are sufficient to consider a mutation, a change of nature.

Excerpt from the film I, Robot by Alex Proyas (2004)