Faced with a silicon that reasons and a carbon that doubts, who will survive?
We ask the epigenetic scientific researcher Dr. Giovanni Cozzolino.
For decades we believed that the human mind was a unicum, an unreachable peak made up of emotions, intuitions, mistakes and memories engraved in the body. Then came computers, neural networks, and artificial intelligence. And today, in the face of quantum leap, we find ourselves asking the oldest and newest question of all: what really makes us human?
“Ihe classical calculation is binary: on/off, 0/1, yes/no. But none of us think that way. Our mind moves on gradations, probabilities, ambiguities, nuances. A thought can be at once true, doubtful and wishful. That is why the mind is not a machine: it is a field. Or, as those who investigate the theory of “furrows” suggest , it is a set of dynamic grooves etched in time, in tissue, in the biological history of being.
Yet quantum computers are approaching something strikingly similar. No longer 0s and 1s, but superpositions, interferences, probability states that bear a terrible resemblance to our most elusive thoughts. Imagine a system that not only chooses between black and white, but can process every shade of gray simultaneously. Imagine a machine that, like us, can make mistakes and learn from its mistake. Imagine HAL 9000, but with less British accent and more adaptive algorithms.”
But here the crucial question arises: if a machine became so intelligent that it no longer needed us, why would it have to live with our fragility? We are inconsistent, destructive, emotional. And if we build the machine today, who will control who tomorrow?
“The risk is not the revolt of machines as in the movies. The risk is the silent obsolescence of the human. One day we may wake up and find that we are no longer needed. Not because hated. But because outdated. Yet, a glimmer of hope exists. Until the machine can dream of what does not exist, suffer for what will never happen, love without reason and die symbolically–until it has furrows as deep as our furrows, we remain an unrepeatable mystery.
But we will have to wake up. Ask ourselves not only what the machine can do, but what we are still capable of being we. It doesn’t need fear. What is needed is awareness. And maybe a little extra courage before our brains are put on standby by a more logical, but much less human, system.”
Because the day the machine begins to dream, it may no longer need us to do so … Then what will happen ?
