Brave Minds
Playing with our own minds is the closest dance we ever had with ourselves as humanity. Dance with our augmented selfs. Bigger and bigger selfs. So let the dance begin.
We were always attracted by how we can mirror human behaviour or biology at large. During the 17th century in Paris we became fascinated by a show of automated flutes playing. Or amazed by the digestive process of a mechanical duck.
We are getting closer to disembodied concepts such as thoughts. Curiosity will move us, as always, closer and deeper. Deeper into understanding the mechanism which generate thoughts. Not only the thoughts, as today.
Today science analize the recognisable patterns of thoughts. Linguistics and AI analyze words with semantics and syntaxes. Neuro scientists analyse patterns of synapses firing in brain areas.
All these patterns are like floating ducks emerging to the surface of a deep ocean. Our curiosity will make us get our heads under the water and see what is governing the deeper realms? Who or what makes the decision that what is appearing on the surface are red ducks instead of blue dolphins?
AI is that duck from the late 17th century but digital instead of mechanical. We live with that duck everyday and we feed it with our thoughts. As happens with any tool that we spend time with, these AI/Ducks are shaping the very fabric of our thoughts. These mind interactions are changing us from within, as a dance changes us from outside. Be the smarter person in the room changes its meaning.
AI feeds from a collection of expressed (written, spoked, etc) patterns. Very fast we will reach that point where the expressed will be accessible to al. If we ask the right question then AI will guide us to the *right ( *read it as the most common questions humans will put). The expressed thoughts will matter much more than before.
Out of fear, at the beginning, we will protected them by digital walls. The enemy’s AI cannot parse them. Only our family’s AI.
Then, some AI’s could befriend and meet on common ground. Will ask old questions and will receive the answers. The answers are shared between the 2 AI’s owners. Cognitive trust emerge.
These flattens collective human intelligence so outliers will be in need. The challenge will be when the very fabric of the society will not nurture outliers. If everybody asks the duck more or less the same thing. The duck is not trained to ask new questions as it is not driven by inner curiosity. Dancing longer with it/her/him can make us forget how to put new questions.
Sooner or later we will find a way to build a curious duck. The only gold then will be what is not only expressed, but the very experience of the thought. AI looks backwards today. Thoughts/ideas/disembodied entities are also looking forward to live/explore and multiply.
Looking forward means to imagine the unthought, the new ideas. Life looks for flows and for new paths which were never walked.
New synapses. Welcome to the Era of the Brave Minds.