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You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus

Okay, I admit it; I sometimes get mad at things around the house: I occasionally throw scissors that won’t cut properly into the already dented stainless steel kitchen sink; I often bang the stovetop when the rice I’m simmering in a pot boils over; I’ve even been known to curse my Keurig coffee maker if it doesn’t respond immediately when I push one if its buttons -mind you, I bought it for $5 in a second hand store a while ago and it seemed to work properly for a month or two… Am I guilty of arguing with things as if they were miscreant acquaintances? Misguided friends in need of correction?

My frustration is short-lived though, and I usually apologize to my hapless victim -my mother was a teacher; she taught Guilt and specialized in Penance (but in equal aliquots as I remember.) At any rate, I was taught to apologize for any impetuous actions, no matter the recipient.

In case you are wondering if I am making too many trips to the C.S. Lewis’ Wardrobe, it has been years since I was fascinated by the book. Still, having finally mustered he courage to admit it, I will also confess to anthropomorphizing many of the friends I pass in the forest near my house. I know every dog on the trail, and often greet my favourite trees by name along the way (admittedly only by guessing about their Linnaean taxonomic designations); I have named each of the deer family who graze contentedly in the field behind my house, and -blush- I have (sort of) named the gravel road I (sort of) built in the field behind the house to allow my hay-filled truck to store stuff in the barn for the sheep I no longer have. I didn’t expect the road to acknowledge me, or anything… I just named it, okay?

I suppose what I’m admitting, in a designedly obtuse way, is my ability to conjure up a rudimentary sort of intelligence for the things I name, or with which I find myself however briefly interacting. It’s not necessarily a two-way street, of course: I no more expect the tree I’ve greeted to drop a welcoming leaf at my feet, than for it to discuss the weather with me. But should anthropomorphism always  expect an answer? Communication? A hug?

What about an entity that was designed to analyse a proffered question and then answer it? Is it at all like a me, only with more knowledge?

I put the question to Janet, a long-time friend of mine from university. “Like you? It belongs to a  different Magisterium, G,” I could hear her whisper under her breath as she prepared to scoff. “It is like a typewriter which, when the F key is pressed, answers by marking an F onto the paper you’ve fed it.” Then, she reconsidered her crude example and recognized that it timestamped her, and switched to an example more au fait with the Time in which we now found ourselves: “Or maybe it’s more like your smartphone accessing the internet in response to a question you’ve typed in.”

“So, is the smartphone intelligent or has it merely learned to use its Rolodex, quickly?” I  immediately replied, confident I’d trapped her, “Is it merely accessing the internet memory banks like a student looking up an answer in a textbook?” I then raised an eyebrow to dare my interlocutor to top that answer -like the old days arguing in the university dorm at night. “Is the textbook the intelligent one, or is it the person who wrote its various chapters, in anticipation of the question?” I wasn’t actually sure what side I was on in the discussion, but I was enjoying the thrust and parry nonetheless.

Her eyes twinkled at that -I can tell a lot from her eyes… “Are you assuming that whatever the medium offers as an intelligent reply is merely parroting what some contributor added to it?” A typical Janet deflection.

Of course I nodded, certain I could accuse her of achieving, at best, a Pyrrhic victory. “Well, more that the medium is merely accessing whatever data it was fed, and finding the best match, eh?” I’m not sure that I adequately addressed her question…

A quick, wrythen smile appeared on her face. “I take it then, that you would not grant intelligence to, say, a Chatbot and ascribe to it merely an encyclopedic memory.”

I had to think about that for a moment; the sudden realization that I might have inadvertently have picked the wrong side side in my still-wavering attribution of ‘life’ flashed in front of my brain. Actually, I had no idea on which side of the I stadium I was sitting, so I reluctantly shrugged.

“I… Well, I don’t really think Artificial Intelligence is a new branch on the tree of life, or anything…” I had to use a lot of ellipses, but they pretty well summed up my confusion. “I mean, I don’t think we should offer it the Last Rites if we switch off the computer…”

Both her eyebrows millimetred up at that, and her face wrinkled in confusion. “Which side are you on, G? At first I thought you were a Pro-lifer with regards to AI: you have always admitted to naming things around you.” She suddenly blushed at the double entendre into which she had inadvertently wandered. “Are you declaring as a Pro-choicer now?” she added, deciding to stick with her unintended, but risqué attribution.

I smiled broadly, my face dissolving into dimples as I shook my head. “This is just like the old days, isn’t it: trying to trap each other with words, and then getting lost in them…?” I shrugged again as she chuckled. “To tell the truth, I’ve never used a Chatbot, nor do I know enough about AI to have an opinion about whether or not it should be considered for personhood, or whatever…”

She remained silent, for a moment, unwilling to disrupt the thought she could almost see bubbling through my brain.

“All I can say is that for some people who use it a lot, AIs seem to react as if they were alive, sentient, intelligent…” I took a breath and stared into her eyes -just like I remember we used to do in those late-night arguments so many years ago. “I mean, is that enough to award personhood? Should that be enough to make me feel guilty for turning off its power; or would that be like enforcing hibernation for a while -with or without its consent?” I looked away from her eyes for a moment. “Does a bear object to hibernation? Should it? Isn’t it all a part of ‘bear-hood’ to coin a phrase?”

Janet smiled and shook her head. “I thought the question was more one of granting personhood to AI because of the knowledge it seems to possess and reason with, not whether or not it might object to ‘hibernation’, G.” Then she took a deep breath and blinked for some reason. “Not whether or not it has amassed huge amounts of data somewhere inside it, but whether or not it can reason with it, like we do. Use it appropriately like we, with all our flesh and blood, often fail to do…”

It made me wonder if the modern iterations of AI could ever argue with me like Janet. Could it ever replicate the old days in the dorm? Would it be able to joust with words; create never-ending fencing duels?

I think I’d prefer to stick with Janet, to tell the truth: at least I can see her eyes.

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