Artificial Intelligence, the focus of Social CommunicationsArtificial intelligence: Robots better than humans?The image of Raphael's famous painting "The School of Athens," with Plato pointing to the world of ideas and Aristotle extending the palm of his hand over the world, struck me on my computer screen. tablet when I log on. I will put you in context. Like almost every Friday, yesterday, after noon, I connected to a virtual meeting organized by the "Entrepreneurial Attitude Movement". In this live meeting we met a group of 50-100 professionals from all over the world (from Toronto to the Emirates) and, guided by Jesús Hijas, we tackled issues of creativity, entrepreneurship, humanism and technology.
Last Friday's meeting was, if possible, more relevant than usual. The topic that brought us inquiring minds together was related to the Artificial Intelligence (AI, artificial intelligence) and learning. We are probably all familiar with teachers or educators who have faced the challenge of AI integration in recent months. Students not writing essays, but copying them from "ChatGPT", and teachers worrying about the decline of the learning process have been the topic of conversation in educational settings in the last year.
The fear of many of us in education is that the laziness of some students will lead them to avoid "thinking" in favor of asking the IA. And there is some justification for that fear. But there is also the possibility of making humane use of IA tools. And there is no shortage of initiatives and proposals for this. Surely we also know some AI enthusiast who is constantly commenting on the latest advances that "are going to change our lives".
Raphael's painting can serve us as a compass to find our way in this sea of alternatives. With Plato we remember "the Myth of the Cave": of the need to escape from an underworld that does not allow us to be free, and to go out into the world of ideas, which are the most valuable thing (not far from the plot is "The Matrix"). Platonic idealism reminds us that to learn is to ascend to the world of ideas and that there lies our own identity. That is why Plato points upward with his index finger. For his part, Aristotle is convinced of the need for learning in another sense. He does not say that learning is something we should strive to do, but that we naturally (literally, by our very nature) tend to seek knowledge and to learn. Not for nothing does he begin the "Metaphysics" with these lines:
All men naturally have the desire to know. The pleasure we derive from the perceptions of our senses is a proof of this truth. They please us for their own sake, independently of their usefulness.
In this sense, we can think of educators overwhelmed by the arrival of IA, and tell them: your students want to learn. The question is, are you helping to develop those desires? How do you activate the natural desire to learn and to know? It is key for educators to be the first learners. In the words of Neus Portas: Learning is the tool to grow as professionals but, above all, as individuals.. The challenging title of Emma Stoks' "TedTalk" sets a profound horizon for us: "Why doesn't being smart help you find God?".
But let's face it. The attitude of students is not so easy to manage, and the arrival of IA is clearly disruptive. A few days after "ChatGPT" went live, Jordan Peterson said in a public interview that this machine represents an epochal change of the caliber of the Guttenberg printing press (Conference "...").The History of Canadian Civil Rights", December 13, 2022). And the writer Yuval Noha Harari has spared no epithets talking about the apocalyptic cataclysm that AI could bring to our society. In his article in "The Economist" (April 28, 2023), entitled ""AI has hacked the operating system of human civilisation", he said:
If we are not careful, we could become trapped behind a curtain of illusions that we will not be able to tear away, or even realize that it is there.
Our learning capacity is limited, but the IA does not need to sleep, nor does it take time to remember things it read days ago, nor does it worry that a subject is boring. It is capable of a "deep learning"that we humans can't even dream of. We are still far (or maybe not so far) from a General, autonomous and self-programmable AI. As Jordan Peterson jokingly said a few months ago, when talking about "ChatGPT":
He's smarter than you. And he'll be a hell of a lot smarter than you in two years, so you can prepare for that too. But he's not that smart yet, because at the moment he's just a humanities teacher. He doesn't compare his linguistic knowledge with the real world. That's what a scientist does.
Should we then prepare for the battle between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence (HI, human intelligence)Should we locate John Connor before Skynet does (if you'll pardon the reference)? millennial)? I do not know the future, near or distant, of technology, or where we are heading in this field. What is clear to me is that it is an exceptional time to ask a question: What makes us human? What is the essence of human intelligence?
From the point of view of the Christian faith, and not only, the answer is quite simple: the soul. If God has created us, and made us in his image and likeness, then the origin of our human dignity is there, and the immortal soul, as a principle of operations, is a clear differential with machines. Humans are essentially different from machines.
But, to affirm this without further ado, would be to declare that only through faith can one understand the difference between human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Such a statement would not only be unfair to all those who do not participate in the Christian faith, but, above all, it would be a false statement. The question affects us all, believers or not: what differentiates AI from HI? What is essential to HI? Even for those who believe in the existence of a higher power and an immortal soul (and here we meet Plato and Aristotle again), it is relevant to find out what material manifestations our HI has.
In conversations with specialists of the stature of Carlos Ayxelà, Miguel Moya and "ChatGPT", and in the "Learning Rebellion" think-tank, three elements emerged that can help us to visualize in some way the essence of the Human IntelligenceOrigin, Example and Intuition.
- The origin of each of us is human, we have a personal history and a history as a society, roots. Our origin is an essential element of the HI of each person.
- The example that we give to one another is HI in action. Because in the other I see someone with defects and virtues, someone like me, someone I can imitate. How many things we have learned from our teachers and educators without them having programmed it! Only by the way of doing, with defects and imperfections, by the attitude. We improve when we empathize with the other and learn beyond the data.
- And the intuition (from the Latin in-tueri: "to look inside") is a human ability that reaches the deepest part of our being. Sometimes it happens to us that we look at a reality and we see it from the inside, we capture its essence. The spark of intuition, or the smile of the Eureka!
Human intelligence manifests itself, among other ways, through these three aspects. How to activate it? There are thousands of ways, but let's look at some examples. To activate our HI we can:
- Learn more about our origin. Deepening our knowledge of our personal or cultural origins roots us as humans. Read the classics, and ask your family. That helps you to consciously belong to a human tradition. For me, a starting point is the school of Athens.
- Identify and assess the apprenticeships human beings: what I have learned from someone else that was not programmable: watch and imitate the friend who is always cheerful, who remains calm and transmits peace. Joy and peace ("gaudium cum pace" as the classic says) are aspirations of people, rather than machines.
- Reflect in our inner self on what intuition we have had in the last week. Write it down and consciously decide what you are going to do about it.
The potential of using IA, when we are clear about HI, is gigantic. And so professors and not professorsBy being learners, we organize a new human and technical renaissance. As John Connor used to say "If you are listening, you are the resistance".
