But Intelligent?
By Steven J. Grisafi, PhD.
Hugh Owen makes a compelling argument for his characterization of Noah’s Flood as a global flood and not a local one. Mr. Owen asserts that God’s promise to Noah, that never again would He destroy mankind in the same manner, proves the flood to have been global. There have been numerous local floods since the time of Noah. Since, God cannot be a liar, the original flood of Noah had to be global. However, this argument would only prevail in a debate upon which argumentation is limited to Holy Scripture. Mankind has much more than Holy Scripture upon which to base its decisions. This episode brings into mind a questioning of the validity of artificial intelligence promulgated by ChatGPT.
The artificial intelligence ChatGPT utilizes an algorithm which draws upon a database of previously rendered human thought to create further thought expected to be consistent with the prior human thought. There can be several obstacles in place before any such expectation to occur. First, there is the assumption that, while we may accept the validity of the algorithm processing the data procured from the database, we must accept that there exist no flaws within the electronic circuitry of the computer. One can recall the previous example of the flaw of Intel’s Pentium computer central processing unit which caused errors in mathematical division.
If we now assume that human intervention can avoid a repeat occurrence of any such error, mankind is still left with doubts as to the possibility of the success of artificial intelligence. Indeed, one can imagine that, if an artificial intelligence based upon prior human thought is ever to become successful, it will eventually reach a point where the database upon which the algorithm must draw upon for prior human thought would have been replaced by thought rendered by artificial intelligence. All such prior human thought would become hopelessly outdated and rendered obsolete.
Consider now the question as to what prior human thought is acceptable for use in a database accessed by an algorithm of artificial intelligence. If not all prior human thought is acceptable for use within a database of artificial intelligence, an undeniable bias will be inherent within the data found to be acceptable. Unknown to most people, even the development of scientific knowledge does not occur through the process of logical deduction. All that an algorithm of artificial intelligence can do is logical deduction. It can do nothing more. Only mathematics itself progresses its development through logical deduction. All else, all other scientific development occurs through the process known as inference to the best explanation. That inference is an opinion formed by consensus. Any such consensus must incorporate all human thought, even such thought that would be considered unacceptable for use within an artificial intelligence database. The mechanism for scientific progress occurs through the democratic process of majority rule. There is no majority in artificial intelligence. It is a dictatorship.