Collaborating with AI

 

Is anyone else concerned about the increasingly pervasive notion of humans “collaborating” with AI? 

Relationship of mutuality

Collaboration - whatever its diverse motivations and means of expression - is a relationship of mutuality between living and breathing human beings. Properly perceived and applied, so-called “artificial intelligence” undoubtedly has a lot to offer us in support of the living of our lives. But it needs to be seen as a technological aid to our human being, doing and becoming; not as in any way equivalent to it.

I’m sure that, at some stage, there will be people around who can produce a machine that has all of the outward appearances of thinking and acting in human-like ways. The enthusiasm of many for ChatGBT, following its recent introduction should make us all stop and think. However, even if the mechanistic analysis of large swathes of data can identify, and draw upon, characteristic patterns of behaviour to ‘inform’ a machine’s response, this still lacks the nuance of thought, intimacy of feeling, knack of practice and other social complexities of life that are the essence of our humanity.  Crucially, as emergent properties of our in-the-moment interactions with each other, these can’t somehow be programmed-in in advance - lacking in context, history and all of the other idiosyncrasies of life that make each one of us (we humans, that is!) human.

Language is powerful

Our use of language is powerful. It not only provides a means of describing the world in which we live, it brings that world into being; tending, imperceptibly, to channel the ways in which we think and act down particular pathways of understanding and behaviour. As such, we should be careful in attributing human characteristics like collaboration - not to mention intelligence itself - to artificial (i.e. human-made and inanimate) objects. Otherwise, we’re talking abdication, rather than collaboration. I guess that the challenge is to make sure that we don’t find ourselves sleepwalking into a world in which the inherent wiggliness of human being becomes subordinated to, and degraded by, ‘machine-think’. As a one-time engineer, I recognize that technology has a lot to offer us in support of the living of our lives, provided that it is properly perceived and applied.  

The human mind is not a computer

At the same time, I’m sure that there are many enthusiasts who do, indeed, see things progressing towards some form of ‘peer relationship’ between human beings and ‘AI’.  For me, the delusion arises from the assumption that the human mind works like a computer; and that, as a result, super-fast machines can one day be programmed to mimic the thinking and behaviour of people.  But, as I understand it, the human mind doesn’t import and retain data, and then manipulate it according to pre-set programs. Instead, the brain provides a medium  for ‘information’ that is emerging in the midst of people’s interactions with others (i.e. thoughts, observations, sensory stimulation, emotions, conversational exchanges, etc.) to form itself into patterns of understanding and action. Life is similarly a self-organizing, pattern-forming and pattern-using process of in-the-moment (unprogrammed) interaction between people. A social process that is predictably unpredictable in the ways that this plays out in practice. Whilst this can’t be replicated by computer algorithms, the belief by many that it can is worrying enough.

The requirement, for me at least, is twofold:

• First, to ensure that the way in which the existence and use of ‘AI’ is framed, positions it as a tool for people to use in support of their own, ethical and human-based decision-making.
• Secondly, in the context of organization, that it is rooted in an understanding of the complex social dynamics of human interaction, and not simply seen as a sophisticated means of strengthening the already suffocating grip of mainstream managerialist thinking.

On that score, I shudder to think what a machine might make of the notion of muddling through!