Artificial intelligence (AI) is surging into the culture of the United States of America and probably most, if not all, of the industrial nations of the globe. AI is considered a boon for humans and to some AI may appear as the next great jump forward in transforming human society for the better. I have reservations. I do not consider it a mistake to focus intently upon the artificial in Artificial Intelligence. It is paramount to seek a complete understanding of the critical difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence, especially with regards to decision-making activities.
I have seen a news article or an advertisement (I do not remember which) that touted how AI technology can inspect the blades of huge wind turbines more accurately and with greater speed than humans. This is a huge improvement but it is not the type of decision with which I am concerned. The question to be resolved in the case of a wind turbine blade is whether the blade has a flaw anywhere after manufacturing. This is not an ethical judgement. It is an assessment on whether the blade matches the specifications of the design or not. AI is performing a one-to-one comparison of each specification of the design to the actual occurrence of each specification in the blade manufactured. The AI assessment is not, “This is a good blade,” or “This is a perfect blade.” The AI assessment is more accurately, “This blade has met each specification exactly,” or “All specifications have been met exactly except for . . . ” (a list of deficiencies would follow). Using AI in such situations is certainly a boon for humans. Another article touted AI as diagnosing (finding) cancer tumors in a specific body part. Again this is a one-to-one comparison between a set of predetermined specifications and the actual occurrences of each of those specifications.
A microscope extends the vision of humans, as does the telescope. By extending human vision these tools help humans see what they could not see previously. These tools help humans collect facts. The ability to collect more facts, the ability to collect more accurate facts, is definitely a huge benefit for human endeavors. Improvement in accuracy is always a big plus especially in decision-making. The red dot laser mounted on firearms is a huge benefit to the aim of the police who may need to discharge their weapon to protect a citizen who is in mortal danger by a criminal intent on doing great harm. However, the red dot lazar does not enhance the judgment of the police officer as to whether lethal force is required.
At some point in my teaching career, there was a discussion among educators about whether or not students should be allowed to use calculators in Mathematics class. The early discussion tilted toward the belief that students learning mathematics needed to practice the calculations required to solve mathematical problems. Later these discussions were reworked with the topic being changed to consider the question, “When would it be appropriate for teachers to allow students to use calculators?” Certainly, graduate students working out higher, more sophisticated mathematical problems would be allowed to use calculators, and highly advanced calculators at that, but students first learning mathematics in elementary school should refrain from the use of calculators. Practice is necessary for true learning to occur.
Much learning occurs through trial and error. Even when teachers show or model how to solve a mathematical problem, the student must try to duplicate the process to see if he or she has at least memorized the steps to follow. Memorizing steps does not mean that the steps were understood nor does memorization mean that the reason those particular steps actually work was internalized. For these reasons, teachers look for different situations which would require those steps to be applied to resolve a question. In the final analysis learning is more involved than merely memorizing steps to follow. Deep learning is fully understanding the reasoning behind why and how the executed steps work to solve the problem.
At this point we can begin to see the distinction between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. It is my understanding that ultimately computers code information according to bits of information. A bit of information is a series of zeros (0) and ones (1) arranged such as 10011010. Every piece of information is a series of 1s and 0s. The reason AI is artificial intelligence is that computers merely simulate human intelligence. The computer must first be programmed with the finely detailed specifics which guides the computerized assessment of whether the solution matches the programmed specifications. It appears to me that computers are hard-wired to their programming. Computers cannot go against their programming. This is a critical distinction from human intelligence. Human beings can go against their intellectual assessments in any given situation. Many humans might say that going against one’s intelligence is not a prudent course of action. I have heard others advise, “Think before you act.” When I taught, I had a plaque hanging from my podium that read, “Engage brain before your mouth.” Each of these assertions imply that humans might make decisions without the use of their intelligence. We are left with the question: If decisions are made without intelligence, then what moves the human to act one way or the other when a choice is involved?
The simple answer is that human emotions are also decision-making forces. Again, I have met individual humans who would propose that some, many, or most decisions should be the domain of human intelligence and not human emotions. This is an expression of preference. One individual prefers intelligence over emotions for decision-making while another individual may prefer the emotions to rule the head when a decision is to be made. Classical Greek thinking preferred that reason should rule over the emotions. When emotions ruled over the individual’s decision-making practices, disaster was always the outcome. We should return to this reflection a little later. At the present we first need to be clear on what makes AI artificial whereas human intelligence is genuine intelligence.
Creativity is the other element present in humans but not in computers. If creativity is touted to be within the computer, then it too must be artificial or simulated creativity. The nature of creativity is that it is not bound by status quo rules or specifications. Human creativity involves both the intellect and the emotions. Creativity also has a sense of spontaneity to it — a sudden shift in direction if you will. Human thought and emotion can alter human behavior in an instant. The human can change his or her routine or past practices at will. Writers of fiction have and continue to explore what ramifications could arise if computers could do likewise and spontaneously alter their programming.
I must now alter this probe from comparing human intelligence and Artificial Intelligence to considering the difference between human thinking and Artificial Intelligence. Human thinking encompasses much more than human intelligence. Human thinking encompasses both human intelligence and human emotions. It should go without saying that computers do not have emotions. Should computers ever have emotions they would be Artificial Emotions (AE). They would be simulations of human characteristics.
Correctly or incorrectly, I now understand my thinking behavior to be a full body experience. An interesting event occurred during one of my sessions with my therapist when I was engaged with EMDR therapy. At the end of the session that was pretty intense, I complained of a severe headache. My therapist asked me to concentrate on that area and we went into the eye movement phase. During this eye movement phase, I recalled and experienced the afternoon that a young boy and his mother came to visit my mother. I was very young and was instructed to play with this young boy. During our play the boy called to me from an adjacent room. As soon as I crossed the threshold into the next room all went black. I woke up lying on the floor looking up at my mother. This young boy had hit me on the top of my head with my sack of marbles and knocked me out. After my routine explanation to my therapist about what I experienced during the eye movement phase, he put me through another eye movement in which he moved his hand in a new pattern. My headache was gone at the end of that eye movement phase. This anecdote and the fact that many athletes have talked about muscle memory as a proven reality, together with the fact that the human neurological network is connected to the limbic system through the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, gives credence to my understanding that human thinking is a full body experience. The individual’s Intelligence and emotions should interact to serve as a feedback loop to check and balance one to the other.
So, human thinking is flexible, creative, self-stimulating, evolving, and self-adjusting; at times, it is also spontaneous and remarkably pliable. Computers are hard-wired to their programming which cannot be disregarded and from which it cannot deviate. Where a computer excels is in data collection and retrieval. Computers can make assessments based on a one-to-one correspondence to test if the given outcome matches the preprogrammed specifications. Computers ‘think’ literally. Literal thought to a teacher is the most basic form of thinking. If an individual can only read literally, then a great deal of meaning, understanding, and wisdom will be lost in reading the literature collected in the Great Books of the Western World.
Benjamin Bloom edited the first volume of The Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: The Classification of Educational Goals in 1956. This taxonomy delineated the hierarchical levels within three areas of concern: the cognitive, the affective, and the psychomotor domains. Focusing on the cognitive domain, Bloom delineated six levels of cognitive functions or activities. I list them here from the highest to the lowest level of cognitive function:
Evaluation [The student appraises, assesses, or critiques on a basis of
specific standards and criteria.]
Synthesis [The student originates, integrates, and combines ideas.]
Analysis [The student distinguishes, classifies, and relates the assumptions,
hypotheses or evidence.]
Application [The student selects, transfers, and uses data and
principles to complete a problem or task.]
Comprehension [The student translates, comprehends, or interprets information.]
Knowledge [The student recalls or recognizes information, ideas, and
principles.]
Accordingly, it could be argued that a computer can cognitively outperform humans because a computer can store a knowledge base far superior to that stored by any one individual and can access that knowledge base with greater overall speed, especially if a great deal of information must be crunched. Moving our attention from the lowest level of Bloom’s taxonomy to his highest level, evaluation, it could likewise be argued that the computer can outperform humans at this level as well because the computer has been preprogrammed with the specific standards and criteria upon which the evaluation is to be made. As the depth and breadth of the specific standards and criteria increases, the computer continues to outdistance the human in making an accurate assessment in the least time required. Would not AI then be the true salvation to which humans should relinquish their decision-making activities?
The linchpin to this assessment of human thinking verses artificial intelligence is that the individual human can assemble his or her own “specific standards and criteria” upon which said evaluation is made. Any individual can choose his or her own standards that are often times different from those expounded (and enforced) by authority figures and/or institutions. Hence the existence of public demonstrations against imposed authoritative decrees. Is this not the reality behind the diverse array of religions practiced around the world? Martin Luther, a German monk, exemplifies this reality when he voiced his dissent by composing ninety-five opinions (known as theses), which laid out his objections against the Catholic Church in the 16th century.
Decision-making requires more than pure cognitive processes and much more than an assessment based on a one-to-one correspondence analysis. There are decisions that need to be made that do not lend themselves to the processing of an exact one-to-one correspondence of reality to predetermined specific standards and criteria. Consider one very important area requiring extensive decision-making practices — parenting your child. To keep this consideration manageable, consider only the limit-setting decisions that must be made from time to time. Due to being innocent and naive, the child’s behavior must be monitored and corrected. An outside force, the parent or guardian, must limit the child’s behavior for the child’s protection and safety and the good of society in general. The decision must be made about how to correct the child and/or alter the child’s incorrect behavior.
Beat the child. Talk to the child. Ignore the child. Hire someone else to rear the child. Isolate the child. Deny the child’s access to what the child truly enjoys. This list can go on and on depending on the imagination of the individual delineating such a list. The point is that there are many, many choices from which to choose. Does the parent use his or her intelligence to resolve this choice? Does the parent use his or her emotions to render the decision? Does the parent use both?
Intelligence enhances decision-making. Intelligence and experience enhances it more. To my understanding, it is the individual’s consciousness that resolves or should resolve the making of any decision. Consciousness involves the individual’s intelligence and the emotions. Consciousness involves what is perceived and which of those perceptions are attended. Consciousness involves the total worldview of the individual’s gestalt and the individual’s reflections upon that gestalt as new learning and experience is integrated. In short, the totality of what I have learned correctly or incorrectly about the reality into which I was born, and the reflections and conclusions about that cumulative learning, constitutes my consciousness.