By Paul Van
In part 1 we covered a bit of the history of the IW (Intelligent Web). It was created in 2001 though the merger of AI (artificial Intelligence) with high speed internet access. We discussed the generational differences between the over 40 year old DIs (Digital immigrants) who formed their cognitive base prior to the birth of the IW, and the under 30 year old DNs (Digital Natives) who spent their formative years heavily influenced by the IW. For millennia humans were forced to rely on their internal store of knowledge and cognitive abilities to process information. Initially these internal assets abetted our survival by helping us to protect, feed and shelter ourselves. As families became communities and then civilizations, humans found it more efficient to specialize. It was far more efficient for an individual to specialize in a single activity and share it in the community than for an individual to try do meet all of his own needs independently. We learned trades like farming, animal husbandry, hunting, construction, transportation, teaching etc and practiced our trades within our community. Then, in the 21st century, we invented the IW and created the DNs and everything began to change.
In general the difference between the older DIs and the under 30 year old DNs is fairly straightforward.
The DIs grew up before the IW and formed their internal resources in the traditional way, through personal experience, parents, school, reading, TV etc. The DNs had all that too, but spend about half their waking hours attached to the IW. They quickly learned that nearly all human knowledge is resident on the IW and they became pretty good at accessing it. They grew up knowing that they could access the IW data base with AI and come up with answers and solutions to just about any question or problem. They could solve a problem or provide an answer without having to establish a relevant internal data base or the requirement to use internal reasoning.
IQ tests measure internal cognitive resources so DN IQs began to slip in recent years. They were simply not “using their heads” to get answers and solutions.
If we use IQ scores as the measure of intelligence it would appear the DNs are getting “dumber”. But the DNs are simply using an external source of information to arrive at decisions. They score lower on IQ tests only because their internal cognitive resources play a diminished role in their decision making process. The IW provides a reliable external alternative problem solving process that is more efficient (at a lower human energy expenditure) than the alternative method of internal cognitive processing. By this measure, the DNs use of the IW as an alternative to internal cognition is not “dumber”, it’s smarter- as long as the IW is available.
For the first time in human history we’ve developed an intelligence that competes with our own. AI is in its infancy and it already promises to eventually eclipse our collective internal cognition. Will we abandon our internal cognition and trust our future to this its evolving intelligence? Will we remain its master or become slaves of the machines that run it? Will there be a war between man and machines? If we defeat the machines and turn off the IW, will we have to start over from scratch?
You might think that this is an overly pessimistic “doomsday” scenario, and perhaps you are correct, but I’m not willing to take that chance. I’m providing each of our grand children with a map to a secluded cave, well stocked with toilet paper and spears. To quote a recently failed World political leader, the next time “we’ll build back better.”
Will AI make us Dumber? Part 1 of 2
