In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores artificial intelligence and the challenges it presents for human intelligence and creativity.

Artificial intelligence is a concept that is being strongly promoted by people who sincerely believe that technology will somehow save us from ourselves. Personally, I think this is a delusion. I do not believe that something we ourselves create should be expected to remove our responsibility for being in charge of what we do.

I think it is also connected with the broader idea that we have completely damaged Mother Earth and therefore must leave, build colonies on Mars, and transform other planets so that we can continue moving forward. I do not believe this is truly feasible, for the same reason that I do not believe actual artificial intelligence is possible.

I do not believe this simply because human beings exist and say that it cannot happen. The reason is that we are always interacting with our environment through all five senses. Even when we are asleep, we continue to receive information through touch, hearing, smell, and other forms of awareness. These experiences inform us that we are individuals within a much larger ecosystem.

For artificial intelligence to truly become intelligent, it would have to reproduce not only what an individual human being can do, but also the entire relationship between that individual and everything else in the environment. I do not see that happening.

What I do see happening is something like what is already happening with ChatGPT, which I have personally experimented with and used while working on the prologue of a book I am currently writing. It is fascinating because it can search through information and combine things together in a way that gives the appearance of something created by a human being.

But it is only an appearance. It is a reflection. It is a simulation of intelligence performing activities that actual human intelligence can perform.

As someone once said about a dog standing on two legs and walking, the remarkable thing is not that the dog does it well, but that the dog can do it at all.

I do expect that what we currently call AI will become increasingly refined and better able to imitate the kinds of creativity that human beings produce. I also think this will bring its own challenges.

As works of art and pieces of writing are created entirely by software, possibly using the works of original artists and writers as inspiration and altering them into something new, we will inevitably face questions about intellectual property and the rights of the original creators whose work contributed to these new productions.

This particular challenge is already here, and the consequences are unfolding. But that is all the more reason for us to remain very alert as this new challenge to human intelligence and originality continues to develop in the world around us.