escoles has resurrected antikoan.net with a thought-provoking post about The Singularity, involving technological development of superhuman intelligence. Vernor Vinge posits what might be called intelligence amplification (IA) instead of artificial intelligence (AI). He envisions the possibility of a more cooperative, benevolent world.

I ask myself whether humankind is capable of saving itself. What kinds of human flaws would invariably be translated into this technological ideal? If some proposed superior being’s intelligence would expand creativity and insight, how would these qualities be directed? To bring about a more cooperative society or to creatively discern more effective means of destruction?

Currently, intelligence doesn’t automatically stave off anger management problems or avarice or envy or hubris or various other foibles one would like to add to the list. Would greater intelligence afford more self-knowledge or ability to control irrational parts of humanness? Then again, we might be compelled to redefine what is human. One can only speculate.

There is more in the human package to think about than increasing intelligence. This was brought home to me upon reading an op-ed in today’s New York Times, “He Who Cast the First Stone Probably Didn’t” by Daniel Gilbert ~

Every action has a cause and a consequence: something that led to it and something that followed from it. But research shows that while people think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before, they think of other people’s actions as the causes of what came later.
[...]
What seems like a grossly self-serving pattern of remembering is actually the product of two innocent facts. First, because our senses point outward, we can observe other people’s actions but not our own. Second, because mental life is a private affair, we can observe our own thoughts but not the thoughts of others. Together, these facts suggest that our reasons for punching will always be more salient to us than the punches themselves — but that the opposite will be true of other people’s reasons and other people’s punches.

Research also has demonstrated that escalation of force occurs as...

... the natural byproduct of a neurological quirk that causes the pain we receive to seem more painful than the pain we produce, so we usually give more pain than we have received.

Research teaches us that our reasons and our pains are more palpable, more obvious and real, than are the reasons and pains of others. This leads to the escalation of mutual harm, to the illusion that others are solely responsible for it and to the belief that our actions are justifiable responses to theirs.

A physically induced, lopsided “eye for an eye” provoking escalation of violence?

Here’s the kicker:

Until we learn to stop trusting everything our brains tell us about others — and to start trusting others themselves — there will continue to be tears and recriminations in the wayback.

Trust people themselves, not only what your own brain tells you about them. Some people do try to counteract insularity through a process of self-knowledge, understanding their own motivations, and by way of empathy. But once a combative spiral starts and trust gets thrown out the window, who will turn the other cheek first? That’s a tough one sometimes, isn’t it? Would “IA” or “AI” proponents take this into consideration?