Many People Fear A.I. They Shouldn’t.

By David Brooks 

 

　　【1】A lot of my humanistic and liberal arts-oriented friends are deeply worried about artificial intelligence, while acknowledging the possible benefits. I’m a humanistic and liberal arts type myself, but I’m optimistic, while acknowledging the dangers.

 

　　【2】I’m optimistic, paradoxically, because I don’t think A.I. is going to be as powerful as many of its evangelists think it will be. I think instead of replacing us, A.I. will complement us. In fact, it may make us free to be more human.

 

　　【3】Many fears about A.I. are based on an underestimation of the human mind. Some people seem to believe that the mind is like a computer. It’s all just information processing, algorithms all the way down, so of course machines are going to eventually overtake us.

 

　　【4】This is an impoverished view of who we humans are. The Canadian scholar Michael Ignatieff expressed a much more accurate view of the human mind last year in the journal Liberties: “What we do is not processing. It is not computation. It is not data analysis. It is a distinctively, incorrigibly human activity that is a complex combination of conscious and unconscious, rational and intuitive, logical and emotional reflection.”

 

　　【5】The brain is its own universe. Sometimes I hear tech people saying they are building machines that think like people. Then I report this ambition to neuroscientists and their response is: That would be a neat trick, because we don’t know how people think.

 

　　【6】The human mind isn’t just predicting the next word in a sentence; it evolved to love and bond with others; to seek the kind of wisdom that is held in the body; to physically navigate within nature and avoid the dangers therein; to pursue goodness; to marvel at and create beauty; to seek and create meaning.

 

　　【7】A.I. can impersonate human thought because it can take all the ideas that human beings have produced and synthesize them into strings of words or collages of images that make sense to us. But that doesn’t mean the A.I. “mind” is like the human mind. The A.I. “mind” lacks consciousness, understanding, biology, self-awareness, emotions, moral sentiments, agency, a unique worldview based on a lifetime of distinct and never to be repeated experiences.

 

　　【8】A lot of human knowledge is the kind of knowledge that, say, babies develop. It’s unconscious and instinctual. But A.I. has access only to conscious language. About a year ago, the Ohio State University scholar Angus Fletcher did a podcast during which he reeled off some differences between human thinking and A.I. “thinking.” He argued that A.I. can do correlations, but that it struggles with cause and effect; it thinks in truth or falsehood, but is not a master at narrative; it’s not good at comprehending time.

 

　　【9】Like everybody else, I don’t know where this is heading. When air-conditioning was invented, I would not have predicted: “Oh wow. This is going to create modern Phoenix.” But I do believe lots of people are getting overly sloppy in attributing all sorts of human characteristics to the bots. And I do agree with the view that A.I. is an ally and not a rival—a different kind of intelligence, more powerful than us in some ways, but narrower.

 

　　【10】It’s already helping people handle odious tasks, like writing bureaucratic fund-raising requests and marketing pamphlets or utilitarian emails to people they don’t really care about. It’s probably going to be a fantastic tutor, that will transform education and help humans all around the world learn more. It might make expertise nearly free, so people in underserved communities will have access to medical, legal and other sorts of advice. It will help us all make more informed decisions.

 

　　【11】It may be good for us liberal arts grads. Peter Thiel recently told the podcast host Tyler Cowen that he believed A.I. would be worse for math people than it would be for word people, because the technology was getting a lot better at solving math problems than verbal exercises.

 

　　【12】It may also make the world more equal. In coding and other realms, studies so far show that A.I. improves the performance of less accomplished people more than it does the more accomplished people. If you are an immigrant trying to write in a new language, A.I. takes your abilities up to average. It will probably make us vastly more productive and wealthier.

 

　　【13】But A.I.’s ultimate accomplishment will be to remind us who we are by revealing what it can’t do. It will compel us to double down on all the activities that make us distinctly human: taking care of each other, being a good teammate, reading deeply, exploring daringly, growing spiritually, finding kindred spirits and having a good time.

 

　　【14】“I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart’s affections and the truth of Imagination,” Keats observed. Amid the flux of A.I., we can still be certain of that.

 

 

 

  汉译英原文 

 

秦腔（节选）

文/贾平凹

 

　　【1】山川不同，便风俗区别，风俗区别，便戏剧存异；普天之下人不同貌，剧不同腔；京，豫，晋，越，黄梅，二簧，四川高腔，几十种品类；或问：历史最悠久者，文武最正经者，是非最汹汹者？曰：秦腔也。正如长处和短处一样突出便见其风格，对待秦腔，爱者便爱得要死，恶者便恶得要命。外地人——尤其是自夸于长江流域的纤秀之士——最害怕秦腔的震撼；评论说得婉转的是：唱得有劲；说得直率的是：大喊大叫。于是，便有柔弱女子，常在戏台下以绒堵耳，又或在平日教训某人：你要不怎么怎么样，今晚让你去看秦腔！秦腔成了惩罚的代名词。所以，别的剧种可以各省走动，唯秦腔则如秦人一样，死不离窝；严重的乡土观念，也使其离不了窝：可能还在西北几个地方变腔走调的有些市场，却绝对冲不出往东南而去的潼关呢。

 

　　【2】但是，几百年来，秦腔却没有被淘汰，被沉沦，这使多少人在大惑而不得其解。其解是有的，就在陕西这块土地上。如果是一个南方人，坐车轰轰隆隆往北走，渡过黄河，进入西岸，八百里秦川大地，原来竟是：一扶黄褐的平原；辽阔的地平线上，一处一处用木椽夹打成一尺多宽墙的土屋，粗笨而庄重；冲天而起的白杨，苦楝，紫槐，枝干粗壮如桶，叶却小似铜钱，迎风正反翻覆……你立即就会明白了：这里的地理构造竟与秦腔的旋律惟妙惟肖的一统！再去接触一下秦人吧，活脱脱的一群秦始皇兵马俑的复出：高个，浓眉，眼和眼间隔略远，手和脚一样粗大，上身又稍稍见长于下身。当他们背着沉重的三角形状的犁铧，赶着山包一样团块组合式的秦川公牛，端着脑袋般大小的耀州瓷碗，蹲在立的卧的石磙子碌碡上吃着牛肉泡馍，你不禁又要改变起世界观了：啊，这是块多么空旷而实在的土地，在这块土地挖爬滚打的人群是多么“二愣”的民众！那晚霞烧起的黄昏里，落日在地平线上欲去不去的痛苦的妊娠，五里一村，十里一镇，高音喇叭里传播的秦腔互相交织，冲撞，这秦腔原来是秦川的天籁，地籁，人籁的共鸣啊！于此，你不渐渐感觉到了南方戏剧的秀而无骨吗？不深深地懂得秦腔为什么形成和存在而占却时间，空间的位置吗？

点击

↓↓大赛海报↓↓

即可进入报名页面