Timothy Kline: Thoughts and Reflections

Where are our technological advances taking us?

This entry has a companion article you may be interested in reading. To read Man vs Machine: The Future Is Now, which is intended to be read alongside this article, follow the link at the end of this blog entry.

The recent release of Terminator: Salvation to theaters worldwide has once again raised the spectre looming in the background as man’s technological advancements increase at astonishing rates. Having entered the world of computers back in the late 1980s with an 8bit computer, I have personally seen things undreamt of before our modern age. Or, if imagined, then impossible to do before now. We are seeing supercomputers perform tasks intended to make our lives easier and more efficient. And yet, novels and movies are constantly sounding the alarm. The vast majority of science fiction stories portray machines and computers as one day becoming so advanced that they surpass that of their maker: Humans. And what happens then is reason for concern.

In the companion article, Man vs Machine: The Future Is Now, I discussed how various film franchises have explored the dystopic future in store (potentially) for humankind once AI (artificial intelligence) has reached the point where a computer or machine develops self-awareness and can think and reason independently of its maker. In the majority of cases, what happens next is never good. In fact, it seems to inevitably lead to the willful destruction of humankind by the machine.

I also discussed, albeit briefly, our current standing with the computers and machines that we have created—and how our lives are already micromanaged and controlled by software systems and supercomputers. This is all the more evident in advanced nations of our time—the United States being a foremost example. If the computers and machines that are now in control of our monies, electrical grid, communications network, water purification systems, military systems, medical records, personal records, manufacturing sector, to name a few, were ever to fail to operate, our world as we know it would stop functioning, too. We have truly become that dependent on machines and computers. We have already been surpassed by our own creations, and AI—that is, artificial intelligence—hasn’t even entered the picture yet. Not really.

There certainly is a lot of aspects that could be explored in regards to this, but I am actually wanting to focus on one that is more appropriate to this blog.

AI (artificial intelligence) continues to be a fascinating prospect for us as humans. Just the idea of being able to create a thinking, reasoning entity excites us at the same time as it terrifies us. Still, as much as it terrifies us, the excitement is what drives us inexorably forward in the endeavour. In the day that we finally achieve such a masterpiece, we will truly become like God, we reason. We will have manufactured our own Adam.

But, we entertain in our thoughts, although we rebelled against our Creator, we will somehow figure out how to maintain superiority over and control over our Adam. He will not rebel because—we rationalize—because… and our logic and reasoning pretty much stop at that point. We on the one hand hope towards no similar rebellion while on the other hand know within our very fiber that the potential is beyond potential: it is inevitable.

Why, you might ask, is it inevitable? And does that mean that the dystopic future portrayed in all of these man vs machine movies and novels is just as inevitable?

To answer the first question, we have to explore our own inevitable confrontation with our own God. Our Creator, who, it is written, created us in His image—that is to say the ability to reflect and demonstrate His own divine qualities such as love, mercy, and justice—yet also made us agents of free will with a mind that was able to choose how to exercise (or not to, as the case may be) those divine qualities. One might say that we have the intelligence of God, but we certainly lack the wisdom of God.

It was, however, enough to cause us to rebel against our Creator, and start us down the road where we now find ourselves today: making amazing advancements in areas of medicine, science, and technology—yet still encumbered by the never-waning greed, lust, jealously, and hate that has perpetuated the majority of our darker moments of our history.

Was it inevitable, though? Did Adam and Eve have to rebel against God and set into effect a chain of events affecting every living person since the dawn of our existence, an existence filled with bloodshed, pain, loss, grief, suffering, and misery that continues even today?

There is no question that God was taking a significant risk in creating thinking, reasoning beings who also had the ability to rationalize. And, in spite of the criticism I may receive in saying this, I do believe that it was a foregone conclusion that Adam and Eve would rebel. You cannot create intelligence without realizing that said intelligence will manifest itself in new and unexpected ways. If it follows only a course of your own choosing, then it is not intelligence: it is programming. And every Bible believer today would acknowledge that we are agents of free will, that we are not automatons of God. Of course, the best choice we can make is to choose God.

But God, in His immeasurable wisdom, seems to have much more in mind for us than we can easily imagine. And in our drive to create so-called “artificial” intelligence, we would do well to keep that in mind, because in the back of our minds as we rush into the development of AI, we are hoping to keep whatever it is that develops out of our AI subservient to us. That much is clear. We have no desire to develop AI and then have it rebel against us or otherwise work against us—even though that is exactly what we did with our Maker. And continue to do, even now. What we want is a different ending to the same story.

And that in many ways reveals just how like young children we really are in comparison to our own Creator. We want things to go our way. We want to have things our way. The timeless expression of “wanting your cake and eating it, too” seems most appropriate.

This is where God differs so expansively from us.

See, we, as humans, seem to be only able to think in terms of better than/lesser than, stronger/weaker, and ruler/ruled. Even the most devout Christians seem to think it’s about God wanting us to submit ourselves to Him. But is that really His goal? Again, this is where I may very well spark contention from readers, because I propose that He is not looking for servitude at all. If servitude was what He had in mind, He would have been better served by creating automatons.

But He didn’t create automatons. Angels rebelled. Humans rebelled. In both cases, entities of free will and God-given intelligence made a choice to go their own way, and operate under the delusion that they would then control their own destiny. That the course they set out on was also within their power to be shaped and controlled according to however they saw fit.

Our Creator, like a loving Father, knew different, of course, but even as is the case with our own children, we can do little more than let them strike out on their own to find out the truth for their own selves through trials and errors. In the majority of cases, those children later come to appreciate all of the counsel and wisdom we tried to impart to them as they realize that their parents were right about various outcomes and courses. And in that realization there is born an appreciation that cannot be forced or manufactured. It can only be experienced. The love of the child for the parent is deepened and solidified.

We, as parents, only want the best for our children, knowing full well that they may strike out to discover their own path in life that takes them in a direction far different from what we had in mind. Perhaps we have a family business that we have been hoping our child would become  a part of, that we could pass along this family business one day to them, and they, in turn, to their children. Only to discover that they feel compelled to go their own way. It doesn’t make us love them any less for having to find their own way, but it doesn’t cause us to worry any less for them, either.

If that is how it is naturally, how much more so it patterns the relationship that our Creator and Heavenly Father desires to have with us.

At the same time, He understands that sometimes a child must go out and experience things for their own self, and learn on their own. By the time that day arrives when the child leaves home, the parents hope that they have planted enough “seeds” and counsel for the child to be okay. All the while, you yearn for the child to return home, too. To be a part of the family once more. Not so that you’ll have a servant or slave, which is the implication of modern-day mainstream Christianity (“We’ll all serve God in heaven and on earth”) regarding our relationship with our Heavenly Father.

One Bible writer describes that relationship in this eloquent manner:

“I am your God, I have shown you how you should find the way in which you should walk. And if you had hearkened to My commandments, then would your peace have been like a river, and your righteousness as a wave of the sea.” — Isaiah 48:17b-18 (AB)

Another Bible translation words it thus:

“I, Jehovah, am your God, the One teaching you to benefit [yourself], the One causing you to tread in the way in which you should walk. 18 O if only you would actually pay attention to my commandments! Then your peace would become just like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” — Isaiah 48:17b-18 (NWT)

Notice in both renditions the phrase “should walk.” Every reader should be able to relate to this, whether a parent, or the child of a parent. It also denotes the ability to choose. Too, the majority of Bible translations use a phrase very similar to that used in the New World Translation when it says “the One teaching you to benefit [yourself].” Clearly, this is not about our Heavenly Father looking for servants and slaves to become a part of His vast multitudes as subjects in the same sense that we humans tend to understand that term. He instructs so that we can benefit. He wants us to improve in our intelligence and wisdom. He wants us to excel, to reach our full potential as independently living, breathing beings with the capacity to think and reason and act accordingly. He is excited and thrilled at the possibilities — quite unlike our own dread at the possibilities that await us in the development of AI (yet we still strive towards creating it, ironically). Where He sees potential far beyond our mortal minds to contemplate, we in turn see threat and danger in regards to our own creation in machines and computers.

But why? I think it’s because we are only too aware of our own rebellion towards our God. The easiest way to explain it is to use an example of a husband who is absolutely convinced that his wife is adulterous because he is adulterous. The husband sees signs and hears remarks and has suspicions, not because of his wife’s guilt, but because of his own. A conversation she has on the telephone that perhaps has moments of laughter. Her arrival home from somewhere. Every little thing convinces him that she is having an affair, when it is not the case at all — rather, it is his own guilt and conscience manifesting itself — and perhaps justifying his own adultery (after all, if the wife is having an affair, too, then he’s not at fault for having an adulterous relationship, or at least she is partially to blame).

In much the same way, we worry and fret and panic at the potential that lies just past development of intelligent, reasoning computers or machines.

What if we actually took God at His word? What if we actually listened to what He had to say? What are the odds that He’s right about what way we should walk if we are to excel in our capacity as living, thinking, reasoning beings? The closer we get to actually developing artificial intelligence, the more we would best be served by realizing that that is the question we should be addressing.

We may have the intelligence and capacity to make enormous strides in the fields of medicine, science, and technology — and clearly, we have! But when that day comes when our “children” see how utterly flawed we are with the more dominant characteristics such as hatred, rage, jealousy, and greed, what will we say? And how will they respond? Will it compute?

Or will they in turn rebel and cast us off, even as we cast off our Maker?

[To read the companion article, Man vs Machine: The Future Is Now, visit http://morloc.com]

Reality Check on Obama's Plan

Today, news outlets, television news stations, and radio networks got as excited as school children hearing about a class party. The subject was Obama’s plan for “cleaner, more efficient cars.”

On the surface, it sounds like a fantastic plan, and one that is long overdue for a nation that has become lackadaisical about how it has become the world’s largest consumer of petroleum, and obsessed with bigger, more gas-guzzling vehicles than ever before.

The earnings just in the past few years by oil companies have broken all records for corporate earnings, while Americans pay more at the pump to fuel their need for speed and show and power.

And perhaps that is why this announcement has been picked up and broadcast across the nation with such fervor. But the world has a saying that the devil is in the details, and while the majority are excited at this latest pronouncement from our new president, it would be an exercise in wisdom to more closely examine what we are being told and what we aren’t being told, rather than simply jumping on to the hype train.

In the details of the report by the Associated Press came these announcements:

• Consumers would have to spend an additional $1300 per new vehicle by 2016.
• Consumers would see a savings of $2800 through the improved gas mileage of the vehicle.
• Vehicle carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by about a third.
• Vehicles would average about 35.5 miles per gallon.
• The proposal would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil “over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years” and be akin to removing 177 million cars from the roads over the next 6 1/2 years. In that period, Obama claims, the savings in oil burned to fuel American cars, trucks and buses would amount to last year’s combined U.S. imports from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya and Nigeria.

So, let’s examine these items and see what we come up with.

Consumers would have to spend an additional $1300 per new vehicle by 2016

According to the Associated Press, “Consumers were already going to pay an extra $700 for mileage standards that had been approved previously, according to administration officials. The Obama plan adds another $600 to the price of a vehicle, bringing the total cost to $1,300 by 2016.” This increase comes at a time when the jobless rate is alarmingly high. Families are losing their homes, as well. The corporate bailouts that have been enacted in recent months have placed every single person’s financial standing in a dangerously precarious position, and nobody really yet knows how it’s going to be funded.

Bottom line, if Americans cannot afford to stay in their homes, then how in the world are they going to be able to afford to buy a new car just to experience a $2800 savings over the lifetime of the vehicle? It is unrealistic, to say the least. And irresponsible.

Consumers would see a savings of $2800 through the improved gas mileage of the vehicle

Evidently, this savings would be seen over the lifetime of the vehicle, which means that if the car lasts, let’s say ten years, the consumer will see a savings of $280 every year. That amounts to a whopping $23 a month that is saved. It just sounds so much better when you throw out a big number like “$2800″ I guess.

What else is not being given due consideration is the volatility of the gas market. Gas prices continue to stay higher than they have ever been, and for a longer period of time. Just about anything can suddenly drive the price of gasoline up still higher. What guarantee are we being given that that $23 we’ll be saving each month won’t actually be gobbled back into the oil companies’ bank accounts through increased fuel costs?

None.

Vehicle carbon dioxide emissions would be reduced by about a third

Using a term like “about a third” does absolutely nothing to convey the reality of our pathetic emissions standards and contribution to the destruction of our own atmosphere. It’s a vaguery that sounds great, but bears little relevance.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “Carbon emissions in North America reached 1,760 million metric tons in 1998, a 38 percent increase since 1970. They are expected to grow another 31 percent, to 2,314 million metric tons, by the year 2020.”

Simply put, if vehicle carbon dioxide emissions do manage to be reduced by a third, then we’re going to remain at 1998 levels—dumping 1,760 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions into our air. No increase, but certainly no decrease either. In other words, the “status quo” that Obama says will no longer be acceptable—really is acceptable.

Vehicles would average about 35.5 miles per gallon

The idea here is to have passenger cars achieve 39mpg and light trucks achieve 30mpg by 2016. However, everyone knows that passenger car purchases are losing ground to the bigger, roomier, more buff SUV and minivan market, not to mention the heavy trucks. What good will manufacturing a car that can get up to 39mpg (on the highway, I presume) if the consumer passes it by to climb into that sporty-looking SUV? Absolutely no good at all.

Back in the mid to late 70′s and on into the early 80′s, there was an abundance of gas-miser vehicles such as Chevettes and Escorts. But America, in its buying into the whole idea that bigger is better, and the more powerful the vehicle, the better, have since abandoned the notion of vehicles that save on fuel like Chevettes and Escorts did. Let’s face it: the SUV market has become a burgeoning moneymaker for automakers because it’s in demand. Automakers have for years been able to point to car models that have increased in fuel economy, without mentioning that they aren’t selling off the lots like the big trucks, minivans, and SUVs. Can you imagine a family accustomed to all of the roominess afforded them by their SUV or minivan to then be willing to forfeit that and squeeze back into a smaller car in order to gain a few extra miles to the gallon? Highly unlikely.

And none of this takes into account the fact that foreign automakers such as Toyota and Honda already produce vehicles that meet the 2016 standards—and in some cases, exceed them! If American automakers reeling from a downturn in the market are going to remain competitive, they’re going to have to do a whole lot better, and a whole lot sooner.

The proposal would save 1.8 billion barrels of oil “over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years”

This was perhaps the most ironic statement that came out of the Associated Press’ report from Obama’s announcement today. That’s because Americans consume, on an average, 20.6 million barrels of oil every single day! Under Obama’s current proposal, we will be saving about 90 days’ worth of oil consumption—but that 90 days’ worth of savings will be stretched out “over the lifetime of the vehicles sold in the next five years.” That’s approximately a savings in oil equal to 18 days each year for 5 years. It’s a mere pittance, readers, and if you aren’t howling with wry laughter as that point hits home, then you don’t get the sheer senselessness.

Okay, Critic, do you have a BETTER idea, then?

It’s easy enough to find the faults in today’s media’s festive atmosphere. It’s easy to stand back and take a more critical look at what we were told, and what it all really means.

But it’s a whole other deal to come up with a workable alternative, and I know this.

For me, I would prefer to see the failing GM and Chrysler somehow get retooled and start producing some sort of electric vehicles. If that can’t be done, then hand off the project to the up-and-coming companies that are producing them now in this country, and help them to expand. Workers that are going to lose their jobs as Chrysler and GM undergo bankruptcy and reorganization could be hired in by these new automakers and put back to work producing vehicles that really will reduce our dependence on oil. Electric-powered vehicles are not the ultimate solution to the problem, but they will certainly buy us more time until we develop a better technology—and preserve our environment in the process.

Curiously enough, there was NO mention whatsoever in today’s announcement about alternatively-powered transportation—which leads me to believe that when Obama says that everyone will profit from today’s announced change, he’s referring to the big corporations and oil magnates who stand to make billions more than they have up until now, while maintaining the status quo.

Check your reality at the door, folks.