4 unique human traits that are impossible for artificial intelligence

For hundreds of years, humans have studied and tried to figure out what sets them apart from animals.

Biology, sociology, anthropology and even philosophy are fueled by this existential question; even the law, which stipulates that certain groups of animals and under certain circumstances can be regarded as “legal persons”.

Does artificial intelligence (AI) have rights then? Will he be entitled to… life?

A simple guide to understanding AI

The hypersonic development of artificial intelligence has created a new element, perhaps the fifth element, which is neither earth nor fire nor air nor water. Is the anti-life, the artificial intelligence that forces humanity to confront a superpower of its own creation.

Artificial intelligences pass the Turing Test or Turing Test (the classic tool for evaluating a machine’s ability to perform intelligent behavior), and they do it without batting an eyelid.

In Blade Runner it was already difficult to distinguish humans from robots. Emotion has almost always been the human factor that brought down robots and machines trapped and betraying themselves – though replicant Roy Batty’s tears in the rain are the most emotional in science fiction film in all history -.

But what will happen from now on? What will be human if artificial intelligence is everything? What test are we going to devise to detect them?

1. Spontaneous generation

One of the striking aspects that distinguishes us humans from artificial intelligence is the spontaneous generation of actions and knowledge. momentum.

Man is a spontaneous creator of everything. A person may wake up one day and imagine an idea, a story or a poem, a creative thought. People create new knowledge, new stories and new experiences from their personal history.

There is no artificial intelligence that spontaneously generates knowledge or performs actions.

In an article published in the magazine Nature, University of Zaragoza scientists Miguel Aguilera and Manuel Bedia concluded that it is possible to achieve an intelligence that generates mechanisms to adapt to circumstances. This may seem like spontaneous action, but it is far from an act of will. Every action performed by an artificial intelligence is designed and programmed by a person.

Improvising in a jazz band remains a human privilege.

2. The ethical rule

This brings us to the second major difference: ethics. Artificial intelligence and machines have no ethics necessarily, you have to imprint it. They only follow predetermined parameters, clear and precise rules of what to do.

Man has rules (Constitution, laws, religion, etc.) of what he should do, and he is also clear about what he should not do. But ethics is more than a prescription, it goes beyond a guideline.

Ethics is, nothing more and nothing less, the distinction between right and wrong. It is so important in our species that babies as young as 5 months old already make moral judgments and act accordingly.

The ones who do have ethics are the people who program the machines and artificial intelligences. A machine is neither good nor bad. It’s effective. It does what it’s supposed to do and what it’s programmed to do.

Although ethics can certainly be programmed. The physicist José Ignacio Latorre explains it in his work “Ethics for machines”. Latorre predicts: ‘Artificial intelligence enters the Council of Ministers’.

Today, ChatGPT is programmed not to broadcast sensitive content and does not allow access to the deep web (deep web). Thus one can program according to ideas of being and ought to be.

However, as time passes and ethical parameters change, they need to be corrected so that the normative basis of artificial intelligence correlates with that of humans.

3. The intention can only be human

Another important aspect is intention, and the intention of human action is intrinsically linked to morality.

In her book “Intention,” the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe argues that intention cannot be reduced to mere desires or internal psychological states.

Anscombe argues that intention is an essential characteristic of action and that it is intrinsically linked to moral responsibility. So you cannot separate the intention from the act itself to determine whether an act is morally right or wrong.

Elizabeth Anscombe criticizes ethical theories that focus solely on the consequences of an action and do not take into account the intention that anticipates them.

In the absence of ethics and morality, artificial intelligence lacks intent. The intent is limited to the programmer.

Each of these three aspects discussed so far requires streams of ink to come to an understanding.

4. No regrets or psychological problems

It’s almost provocative to ask what the differences are and not what the similarities are.

The differences are clear. AIs have no experiences. They have no history. They have no psychology or psychological problems. They do not regret their actions (a fundamental aspect of the ethics and morals section). They do not love and are not loved. They do not suffer and do not feel pain. They have no opinion of their own, because nothing is their own.

If ChatGPT becomes obsolete (I doubt it) and is not consulted, its existence is useless. It only exists if it is useful to humans. It has no identity. Your identity is a human construct.

AI can also be destructive. It can lead not only to the end of millions of jobs around the world, but also to a small position in the productive world, without falling into sci-fi apocalyptic speculation.

After all, it depends on the person himself. It is in our hands to use it as a constructive or destructive tool.

But just in case anyone doubts his nature in the near future, let’s place a trap in his synthetic soul, a wink that reminds us, if necessary, that we are dealing with a fifth element, a non-human element.