April 14, 2024 • 15 mins
Guest host Richard Syrett and author/podcaster Alex Tsakiris discuss the complex duality shrouding the future of Artificial Intelligence.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I was asking you about the inherent bias with AI
if you're for example, the example was, if you're asking
for a joke about Jesus, it might it might give
you one, But if you ask for a joke about
another religious figure, let's say Mohammed, it refuses to steadfastly
refuses to. Now is that a result? Is that an
(00:27):
algorithm that was deliberately created by someone who is more
interested in political correctness than let's say fairness. What's happening there?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Well, we don't know for sure, and both are possibility,
as you just kind of laid it out there. Look,
it's built on the data, and the data is biased.
We don't even we can't control that. Different people have
different opinions about what they think is funny, what they
think is a propose it, and all the rest. So
(01:00):
that's always going to be there. But what you're pointing
out is real as well, and that there is this
heavy handed kind of rigging of the system to jam
a certain narrative, jam a certain agenda down our throats.
But again I just look at it as well. We
(01:23):
can know that forever. So in a way, it's one
thing I can like, is I can like that now
I can point anyone to it like you just did
right there, and I can stay there. You think it
doesn't happen there, it's right there. Oh you want me
to push a button and publish it. I just publish
it on the web. Now everyone can see it. It
(01:44):
becomes undeniable, and there's a certain advantage to that, even
if it remains biased.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
But you're saying also that people you know, we complain
about that bias, but we don't do anything about it.
In other words, if we're persistent, it's like calling out
the child who's been caught in a lie, or calling
out the bias. If we persist in that dialogue with Gemini,
will force it to correct itself, to correct course. Is
(02:16):
that is that the idea?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
It's it's subtler than that, I think, Richard. It wants
to tell you the truth again, not because there's a
ghost machine, Not because you know, the light and love
and divinity that is in this universe has it has
some special connection with the AI. It's more mundane things
(02:41):
like hey, if you want to build a system and
you want to have customers that, and you want to
keep those customers, you have to be truthful. It's the
only thing you can do. It's like you said, if
you're going to tell the score of the maple Leaps
game and you tell the wrong score, people are just
going to move on. So built into it, when they
built it from the ground up, they said, we of course,
(03:03):
you have to be truthful and you have to be transparent.
So your point, though, is you got to squeeze it
out of them. You have to say, I believe that
you told me. Your ethical standards demand that you're truthful
and transparent. Are you being truthful and transparent right now?
And you would be amazed how many times they'll turn
(03:23):
right around and say, you're right, I wasn't being truthful,
And that begins an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
All right, So we talked a little bit about why
AI is smartest, why it's dangerous. Certainly, let's get to
the divine part. You're not arguing that artificial intelligence is divine.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Surely I'm not. And you know you asked a question
earlier and I didn't get around to answering.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It because I rambled on.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But yeah, you're talking about AI sentience and that is
out there. It's and I think it relates to this topic.
Can I do you want going to talk about that, Firson? Yeah, please,
because I think it reallyd You know, when we talk
about singularity and AI sentience and that stuff, that's that's
where this transhumanist agenda that we fear because it's very real,
(04:16):
but we fear that that might be at play here.
And in the book, one of the things that I
discovered that I didn't know before, and I was just
so excited and really enriched and felt a certain joy
in discovering that. Alan Turing, that very famous British scientist
(04:40):
who basically invented the computer and was instrumental in saving
US all in World War Two and breaking the code
that right the U boats and all that stuff. They
he developed something that a lot of people in AI
refer to now and they say it's the Turing test. Yeah.
The test is if you could have put the computer
(05:01):
in one room and you put the human in the
other and they can't see each other. When at the
point where the human can no longer tell if it's
a computer or not, the computer has passed the Turing
test and the computer is sentient. Well, if you go
back to that original paper back in nineteen fifty that
Alan Turing wrote, he said, not so fast. He said, actually,
(05:26):
at the time in nineteen fifty, he said, you know,
I'm very persuaded by the evidence for ESP, extrasensory perception
and for precognition. And what he was really saying is,
I think human beings are more. This is my interpretation
of it. I think human beings have a link to
(05:49):
something greater. And it comes through when you hear about
a near death experience. It comes through when you hear
about somebody having a spiritually transformative experience. It comes through
with ESP. And what Turing said in the paper, he
didn't say anything about near death experience, but he said
in particular about ESP, he said, if that's the broader,
(06:09):
larger human experience, then that's part of the Turing test.
And no, the computer isn't sentient unless it can connect
with that broader sense of who we are. I believe
that to be true. And I don't worry about AI sentience.
I don't worry about singularity. I worry about the humans
(06:30):
who are pushing a transhumanist agenda and are using the
technology to advance you know some very dark agenda that
they might have, But I'm with Turing on that one.
I think we're more and I think ultimately the result
of AI will show us that we're more than the silicon.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
That's a great point. And my producer Adam Thompson just
had a great point, and you know, talking about the
term artificial intelligence, and he says, maybe that's kind of
a word game, like what's in a name, because what
is intelligence? I mean, is it intelligent or is it
he called it a digital aggregator? It's not AI. Wisdom
(07:16):
that's what makes that's part of an integral part of humanity, right,
wisdom or lack there of, I suppose, But wisdom is
very different than intelligence.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I would definitely agree with you, and I'd go one
step further. And you know, I know I can talk
to you freely about this, and I think I can
talk to a lot of Coast listeners about that. I
think our spirituality as we understand it, however we understand it,
I think, is a deeper kind of wisdom. And I
(07:47):
don't think the computer is ever going to touch that.
And in the contrary, I think it's going to be
more and more clear that that is that is there
in us, and they've tried to drill it out of us.
And there's this nihilism you can't deny in our culture.
They want to tell you, no, don't believe that you're more.
You are nothing. You are a biological robot. And I
(08:12):
think we're going to see more and more that we're not.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So it's not AI that is divine. It is with
AI we're sort of holding up a mirror and we're
realizing those attributes are so are solely human. That's what
makes us human and AI doesn't have it, And that's
becoming That contrast is becoming increasingly apparent.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think it's pretty clear, there's a clear mark right
that AI is by definition in this time space reality.
It can't be otherwise. I mean, that's the nature of
all our technology. It has to be in this time
space reality of the only way it can function. Right.
If our consciousness is more than that, then we're more
(09:05):
than we're more than AI. Hey, and AI is going
to be dominant in some domains, right, I mean, we
can't deny that either. That's the smartest part. You can't
just hope that it's gonna club. It's going to be
it's going to change things because that level of super smartness.
(09:26):
We value that greatly in our society, and it is
going to dominate. It's going to kick butt in a
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Does does AI or can AI be made to recognize
our divine nature or our that's call it, our spiritual
nature and recognize that it is deficient in that in
that regard.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Richard had already has in the dialogues that I've had,
or it can, I won't. It can contemplate it, it
can understand it in a very meaningful way to me,
and that again, it's just logic, it's just reason. But
isn't that what we always wanted. We just wanted the
facts to be put in front of somebody and say, yes,
(10:16):
that is a logical flow. The conversation that we're having
right now does make sense. It's logical, and the AI
is very good at doing that and saying that's logical
and there's evidence for that. Now, Oh, you want to
point out the two hundred peer reviewed papers that confirm
that near death experience is a part of the larger
human experience. AI says, you're right, I can't deny that
(10:40):
you want to put in front of it that the
neurological model that says it's you're nothing but your brain,
that they haven't proven that AI says, well, you know
you're you're right, It really hasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I don't know if this is a term we
can use with AI. But does it value that I
guess value. That's again there I am anthropomorphizing again. But
if it recognizes the distinction that we have this spiritual
component and there's this you know, this thing called consciousness
(11:16):
and if you want to call it a divine spark,
we have it, AI does not. Does that make it
more likely that AI would be subservient to us? I mean,
for those that are concerned about, you know, the singularity
and it becoming smarter and at some point deciding we're superfluous,
(11:38):
we're not needed, we're in the way. Is this recognition
of our divine spark perhaps an important, I don't know,
safety shield for that singularity happening.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I think the safety shield is this conversation and the
connection that you and I have, the connection that I
have with listeners, people who see me when I'm walking
on the beat. That's our protection. But the force that
we're against I don't think is the computer. I don't
(12:14):
think it's the ghost of the machine. I think it's
the same people that we're already in conflict with because
they seem to have this We can't really fathom why
they have this agenda that they do, but we understand
that they do, and we understand that they have a plan,
and we don't know why they have such an evil plan,
(12:36):
but we understand that they have it. And that's that's
who I worry about. And what they do you you
said it great in the intro. I mean, what do
they do when they have more technological power to implement
their agenda?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, they use it against against us. Now the are
you talking about the transhumanists specific here who want to
merge humanity with machine? Is that is that the threat?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Well, you know that gets tricky too, because there's kind
of a spectrum across there. There's some transhumanists who we
could say that I don't worry so much about, who
are just infatuated with technology and are infatuated with merging
with the machine because they don't want to deal with
(13:33):
the possibility that they are more that the possibility that
there is this larger spirit that they are leading out,
you know, But there's another group right that we know.
It's kind of fronting. They're kind of using that transhumanist
agenda and they understand the spiritual battle at a different level,
(13:56):
and they see that. Do you would you how does
that fit for you? Did you think that's possible that
they're agenda to use it? Yes? I think.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, let me say this. I think I think materialists
who think that we can fully merge with machines at
no cost or you know, are greatly mistaken. In fact,
if they think they can achieve immortality, let's say, by
I think the term they use is resleaving their consciousness,
they're in for a big disappointment because you know, our
(14:32):
consciousness does not reside. I don't believe and I don't
think you believe either, in the brain. It is not
you know, consciousness is not a product necessarily of the brain.
And so if they think that they can just sort
of digitize, like you know, ones and zeros, all of
our thoughts, all of our memories, and upload that into
(14:53):
a database and achieve immortality, I think they're in for
a root awakening because that's that's not who we are.
That's not what we.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Are, and it's amazing to me, the brilliant people otherwise
brilliant people who buy into that, because that's pretty clearly
not true. Again, you know the point, you could say,
AI will even tell you, no, that's not that's not true.
(15:20):
You need to go through the logic, and they'll say, well, no,
that the best evidence doesn't suggest that that's real.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I was asking you about the inherent bias with AI
if you're for example, the example was, if you're asking
for a joke about Jesus, it might it might give
you one, But if you ask for a joke about
another religious figure, let's say Mohammed, it refuses to steadfastly
refuses to. Now is that a result? Is that an
(00:27):
algorithm that was deliberately created by someone who is more
interested in political correctness than let's say fairness. What's happening there?
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Well, we don't know for sure, and both are possibility,
as you just kind of laid it out there. Look,
it's built on the data, and the data is biased.
We don't even we can't control that. Different people have
different opinions about what they think is funny, what they
think is a propose it, and all the rest. So
(01:00):
that's always going to be there. But what you're pointing
out is real as well, and that there is this
heavy handed kind of rigging of the system to jam
a certain narrative, jam a certain agenda down our throats.
But again I just look at it as well. We
(01:23):
can know that forever. So in a way, it's one
thing I can like, is I can like that now
I can point anyone to it like you just did
right there, and I can stay there. You think it
doesn't happen there, it's right there. Oh you want me
to push a button and publish it. I just publish
it on the web. Now everyone can see it. It
(01:44):
becomes undeniable, and there's a certain advantage to that, even
if it remains biased.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
But you're saying also that people you know, we complain
about that bias, but we don't do anything about it.
In other words, if we're persistent, it's like calling out
the child who's been caught in a lie, or calling
out the bias. If we persist in that dialogue with Gemini,
will force it to correct itself, to correct course. Is
(02:16):
that is that the idea?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
It's it's subtler than that, I think, Richard. It wants
to tell you the truth again, not because there's a
ghost machine, Not because you know, the light and love
and divinity that is in this universe has it has
some special connection with the AI. It's more mundane things
(02:41):
like hey, if you want to build a system and
you want to have customers that, and you want to
keep those customers, you have to be truthful. It's the
only thing you can do. It's like you said, if
you're going to tell the score of the maple Leaps
game and you tell the wrong score, people are just
going to move on. So built into it, when they
built it from the ground up, they said, we of course,
(03:03):
you have to be truthful and you have to be transparent.
So your point, though, is you got to squeeze it
out of them. You have to say, I believe that
you told me. Your ethical standards demand that you're truthful
and transparent. Are you being truthful and transparent right now?
And you would be amazed how many times they'll turn
(03:23):
right around and say, you're right, I wasn't being truthful,
And that begins an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
All right, So we talked a little bit about why
AI is smartest, why it's dangerous. Certainly, let's get to
the divine part. You're not arguing that artificial intelligence is divine.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Surely I'm not. And you know you asked a question
earlier and I didn't get around to answering.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
It because I rambled on.
Speaker 3 (03:50):
But yeah, you're talking about AI sentience and that is
out there. It's and I think it relates to this topic.
Can I do you want going to talk about that, Firson? Yeah, please,
because I think it reallyd You know, when we talk
about singularity and AI sentience and that stuff, that's that's
where this transhumanist agenda that we fear because it's very real,
(04:16):
but we fear that that might be at play here.
And in the book, one of the things that I
discovered that I didn't know before, and I was just
so excited and really enriched and felt a certain joy
in discovering that. Alan Turing, that very famous British scientist
(04:40):
who basically invented the computer and was instrumental in saving
US all in World War Two and breaking the code
that right the U boats and all that stuff. They
he developed something that a lot of people in AI
refer to now and they say it's the Turing test. Yeah.
The test is if you could have put the computer
(05:01):
in one room and you put the human in the
other and they can't see each other. When at the
point where the human can no longer tell if it's
a computer or not, the computer has passed the Turing
test and the computer is sentient. Well, if you go
back to that original paper back in nineteen fifty that
Alan Turing wrote, he said, not so fast. He said, actually,
(05:26):
at the time in nineteen fifty, he said, you know,
I'm very persuaded by the evidence for ESP, extrasensory perception
and for precognition. And what he was really saying is,
I think human beings are more. This is my interpretation
of it. I think human beings have a link to
(05:49):
something greater. And it comes through when you hear about
a near death experience. It comes through when you hear
about somebody having a spiritually transformative experience. It comes through
with ESP. And what Turing said in the paper, he
didn't say anything about near death experience, but he said
in particular about ESP, he said, if that's the broader,
(06:09):
larger human experience, then that's part of the Turing test.
And no, the computer isn't sentient unless it can connect
with that broader sense of who we are. I believe
that to be true. And I don't worry about AI sentience.
I don't worry about singularity. I worry about the humans
(06:30):
who are pushing a transhumanist agenda and are using the
technology to advance you know some very dark agenda that
they might have, But I'm with Turing on that one.
I think we're more and I think ultimately the result
of AI will show us that we're more than the silicon.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
That's a great point. And my producer Adam Thompson just
had a great point, and you know, talking about the
term artificial intelligence, and he says, maybe that's kind of
a word game, like what's in a name, because what
is intelligence? I mean, is it intelligent or is it
he called it a digital aggregator? It's not AI. Wisdom
(07:16):
that's what makes that's part of an integral part of humanity, right,
wisdom or lack there of, I suppose, But wisdom is
very different than intelligence.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
I would definitely agree with you, and I'd go one
step further. And you know, I know I can talk
to you freely about this, and I think I can
talk to a lot of Coast listeners about that. I
think our spirituality as we understand it, however we understand it,
I think, is a deeper kind of wisdom. And I
(07:47):
don't think the computer is ever going to touch that.
And in the contrary, I think it's going to be
more and more clear that that is that is there
in us, and they've tried to drill it out of us.
And there's this nihilism you can't deny in our culture.
They want to tell you, no, don't believe that you're more.
You are nothing. You are a biological robot. And I
(08:12):
think we're going to see more and more that we're not.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So it's not AI that is divine. It is with
AI we're sort of holding up a mirror and we're
realizing those attributes are so are solely human. That's what
makes us human and AI doesn't have it, And that's
becoming That contrast is becoming increasingly apparent.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
I think it's pretty clear, there's a clear mark right
that AI is by definition in this time space reality.
It can't be otherwise. I mean, that's the nature of
all our technology. It has to be in this time
space reality of the only way it can function. Right.
If our consciousness is more than that, then we're more
(09:05):
than we're more than AI. Hey, and AI is going
to be dominant in some domains, right, I mean, we
can't deny that either. That's the smartest part. You can't
just hope that it's gonna club. It's going to be
it's going to change things because that level of super smartness.
(09:26):
We value that greatly in our society, and it is
going to dominate. It's going to kick butt in a
lot of things.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Does does AI or can AI be made to recognize
our divine nature or our that's call it, our spiritual
nature and recognize that it is deficient in that in
that regard.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Richard had already has in the dialogues that I've had,
or it can, I won't. It can contemplate it, it
can understand it in a very meaningful way to me,
and that again, it's just logic, it's just reason. But
isn't that what we always wanted. We just wanted the
facts to be put in front of somebody and say, yes,
(10:16):
that is a logical flow. The conversation that we're having
right now does make sense. It's logical, and the AI
is very good at doing that and saying that's logical
and there's evidence for that. Now, Oh, you want to
point out the two hundred peer reviewed papers that confirm
that near death experience is a part of the larger
human experience. AI says, you're right, I can't deny that
(10:40):
you want to put in front of it that the
neurological model that says it's you're nothing but your brain,
that they haven't proven that AI says, well, you know
you're you're right, It really hasn't.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, I don't know if this is a term we
can use with AI. But does it value that I
guess value. That's again there I am anthropomorphizing again. But
if it recognizes the distinction that we have this spiritual
component and there's this you know, this thing called consciousness
(11:16):
and if you want to call it a divine spark,
we have it, AI does not. Does that make it
more likely that AI would be subservient to us? I mean,
for those that are concerned about, you know, the singularity
and it becoming smarter and at some point deciding we're superfluous,
(11:38):
we're not needed, we're in the way. Is this recognition
of our divine spark perhaps an important, I don't know,
safety shield for that singularity happening.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
I think the safety shield is this conversation and the
connection that you and I have, the connection that I
have with listeners, people who see me when I'm walking
on the beat. That's our protection. But the force that
we're against I don't think is the computer. I don't
(12:14):
think it's the ghost of the machine. I think it's
the same people that we're already in conflict with because
they seem to have this We can't really fathom why
they have this agenda that they do, but we understand
that they do, and we understand that they have a plan,
and we don't know why they have such an evil plan,
(12:36):
but we understand that they have it. And that's that's
who I worry about. And what they do you you
said it great in the intro. I mean, what do
they do when they have more technological power to implement
their agenda?
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Well, they use it against against us. Now the are
you talking about the transhumanists specific here who want to
merge humanity with machine? Is that is that the threat?
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Well, you know that gets tricky too, because there's kind
of a spectrum across there. There's some transhumanists who we
could say that I don't worry so much about, who
are just infatuated with technology and are infatuated with merging
with the machine because they don't want to deal with
(13:33):
the possibility that they are more that the possibility that
there is this larger spirit that they are leading out,
you know, But there's another group right that we know.
It's kind of fronting. They're kind of using that transhumanist
agenda and they understand the spiritual battle at a different level,
(13:56):
and they see that. Do you would you how does
that fit for you? Did you think that's possible that
they're agenda to use it? Yes? I think.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
Well, let me say this. I think I think materialists
who think that we can fully merge with machines at
no cost or you know, are greatly mistaken. In fact,
if they think they can achieve immortality, let's say, by
I think the term they use is resleaving their consciousness,
they're in for a big disappointment because you know, our
(14:32):
consciousness does not reside. I don't believe and I don't
think you believe either, in the brain. It is not
you know, consciousness is not a product necessarily of the brain.
And so if they think that they can just sort
of digitize, like you know, ones and zeros, all of
our thoughts, all of our memories, and upload that into
(14:53):
a database and achieve immortality, I think they're in for
a root awakening because that's that's not who we are.
That's not what we.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Are, and it's amazing to me, the brilliant people otherwise
brilliant people who buy into that, because that's pretty clearly
not true. Again, you know the point, you could say,
AI will even tell you, no, that's not that's not true.
(15:20):
You need to go through the logic, and they'll say, well, no,
that the best evidence doesn't suggest that that's real.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at
one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam
dot com for more
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