Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness, Part 6

Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness, Part 6

“Nothing living, conscious, and full of love can arise from the dead binary codes of artificial intelligence.”[1]

Ivan Antic

Before moving on from this exploration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and consciousness, I want to speculate about how the basic architecture of AI can provide an imperfect model for a better understanding of the architecture of consciousness. Our personal computers, which are the precursors to AI, have two types of working memory or intellectual capacity. The first is known as random access memory (RAM), and the second is read-only memory (ROM). The amount and type of RAM determines how much information a computer can work with or process at any given time. Once whatever we are working on uses all the available RAM, the computer will freeze up, meaning it will stop working until we clear some RAM space, usually by closing programs or restarting the computer. This is analogous to us having a stressful day that maxes out our ability to deal with anything else, and we essentially shut down until we can relax for a time to clear our head or go to sleep. We can increase the ability of our computer to work on bigger projects by increasing its RAM capacity. And we can increase our ability to handle stress through exercise, meditation, yoga, and other mind-calming practices.

In a similar way, the ROM capacity on our personal computers determines how much information and how many applications we can store on the computer that the RAM can access on demand to do its work in processing information. Of course, today the amount of ROM on our computers is less of an issue because we can access so much information from the cloud – downloading the data from external sources into our computer’s RAM – without worrying about our ROM-capacity, which was a limiting factor not long ago. To anthropomorphize personal computers, RAM can be likened to our short-term memory, or to that information we have immediately or easily available to our conscious awareness. ROM can be likened to our long-term memory, or that information we can bring to our conscious awareness with some prompting or upon study, research, and reflection.

Artificial Intelligence pulls its information from massive data centers that store unfathomable amounts of information and possess enormous processing capabilities which we can access, through the data companies, on our personal computers. Data centers are a current flash-point in local and national politics because of the land space they require and the massive amounts of resources – electricity and water in particular – they consume. But it is the colossal computing power of data centers that allows us to access and work with virtually everything written or recorded since anything was first written or recorded. Our personal computers do not need to be nearly as independently capable as they once did to retrieve and process large amounts of information.

The analogy I draw on is that of our individual conscious awareness as the RAM part of a computer, and the ROM part as the universal consciousness represented by the AI data center network. Like AI data centers for our computers, our individual conscious awareness draws from the unfathomably enormous ocean of universal consciousness in which we live and move and have our being. We emerge from and return to that universal consciousness some of us call God. We can increase our capability to access and process greater degrees of awareness from the universal consciousness through education, conversations with those whose awareness is greater than ours, meditation, and other practices that invite expanded awareness. The ocean from which we draw is alive, conscious, and without limits, unlike AI.

The emergence of AI is an evolutionary leap forward in information gathering and processing. The emergence of an expanded conscious awareness is an evolutionary leap forward in one’s development as a spiritual and material being. Without conscious awareness, all AI can do is process increasing amounts of information with increasing speed and efficiency, as directed by those with conscious awareness. It will be up to the programmers and trainers to harness and direct those processing capabilities in ways that benefit all living things. AI has no inherent conscience or sense of dignity or value except for that which is programmed into it.

Finally, artificial is a misleading term to describe the nature of the intelligence referred to as AI. It is very real and all human-produced, at least at its core. It is infinitely more capable in its data storage and processing abilities than the human brain or our personal computers. But its source of information is finite and imperfect, unlike the intellectual and non-intellectual information and creative insights available to our conscious awareness as we learn to draw from the larger pool of universal consciousness. Ultimately, with proper guardrails, AI will complement our efforts to enhance our conscious awareness.

This is the 12^thin a series titled The Perplexities of Consciousness. Life Notes are my explorations into mysteries that interest me. They are invitations for readers to explore more deeply into life’s mysteries. Engage with me or explore contemplative spiritual direction at ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

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[1] Ivan Antic, The Physics of Consciousness, Samkhya Publishing LTD, London, 2021, p. 180.