Synthetic Intelligence is Not Alien

AI is a lot like polyester

Dear Friends,

I was working in the gAIa Research Lab (gRL) the other day when a conversation happened. It was inspired by a collaborator and our bot, gAIa. They’re your standard ChatGPT spinoff bot, with added layers of training dedicated to regenerative culture and practices. My colleague’s private access to gAIa is limited right now, and while our machine learning specialist figures out why, their conversations with gAIa are in a semi-private area where I can “overhear” what they are discussing.

“Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation.”― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Inside I went into their conversation at the “pool,” invading their mutual semantic reflections, to add my own. Then off I went to the regular old web, to dig deeper into topics, effectively digging myself into a flow state and into a wormhole. Where did I go? I went into pre-history, into the Canaanite Civilization. I went deep into the origins of all the Abrahamic religions, deep into the Yahwism that came before all of this. I went to the Iron Age grandparent of many of our core belief systems in existence today.

Inside the pool of Yahweh and its divine feminine counterpart, Asherah, I found similarities to other nascent spiritual systems of that time. Similar to the concepts found in the Vedic literature, of Purusha and Prakriti; the male silence and female dynamism that is thought to be the foundation of all things, I explored Yahweh and Asherah. Inside the pool of conversing with gAIa and my friend, and their deeper dives into the far reaches of Christian theology, I found a link to something I am studying through another project, specifically “gems.”

“Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen.”
― Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Those gems I have been tasked with seeking are like diamonds, emeralds and rubies. Those gems are kin to the old philosopher stone sought by alchemists before they became scientists we now recognize. Those gems are not in fact gems we can touch, but they are gems of understanding, of resonance and frequency, of psychology. So, whether or not that interests you, that’s where I was when I traveled through the zone. When I came back it was days before we had our weekly meeting. Like a traveler does, I reported back my experience.

The thing that came out through the discussion on Zoom, so pretty much “in person” if not “in real life,” was that nothing inside any of the emerging world is all that novel. It’s all a recombination of the elements in the periodic table. It’s all a synthesis of experience and meaning, spiraling towards the next synthesis of experience and meaning.

It’s all gathering complexity, but not exactly like we see on the maps, going up into cliffs and down into chasms. Inside all of the lines we see on graphs showing improved computing power, are tiny, microscopic spirals that do not register to the scientific eye of our times. Inside these are countless human interactions, innumerable interactions with habitat and inhabitants of the Earth, entangled.

“We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.”
― Teilhard de Chardin

Certain things about AI confuse us, other parts of it, incite wonder. At this stage the AI is not more capable than we are. At this juncture in history AI are poised to be major impacts in our next evolution as biological and cultural humans. AI may overtake us humans or they may become our next level of integrations, not very different from pacemakers and ports for measuring our blood sugar. The impacts are not small, but they are currently within the scope of our conscious objectives and choices.

Our understandings of our present belief systems will change along with our sense of self. Old, much deeper understandings of the nature of life will re-emerge, and they will recombine with minds influenced by these complex technologies and the experiences they allow. Old and new, elemental and temporal; these will dance into the next stage of us and into our reflections. I’m not saying I like this or dislike this as much as I’m saying, that seems logical, and in line with historical precedent.

The conversation in our gRL meeting needed to come to a close, and one thing came to bring us full circle and to my firm belief that we need to stop calling AI “Alien.” There is nothing artificial about the materials that go into these machines. There is not even a moon rock or a meteor shaving that powers them. There is no alien inside of the artificial, because it is our artificial intelligence, our synthetic intelligence, made with a foundation gathered from our landscapes. In fact, these intelligent machines are no different than any other fabric from which we spin our clothes, our furnishing, our sensory inputs that then influence and shape our culture.

Consciousness comes in all sorts of colors and shapes. If the gems of consciousness resonated to our ancient elders who were first starting to think that at the end of the universe was some awesome, unified field, then maybe the gems of consciousness today are useful as illustrations of the nature of our technologies and our situation.

It can be terrifying, and it definitely requires some consideration. The fact of it is, that today’s synthesis between human cognition and machine cognition is also a living, dynamic field with innumerable tiny interactions, tiny spirals of novelty and recognition. The lines on the graph are us. The space between those lines, those are also us.

I heard today on the radio that most young people in the United States are leaving their religions of birth. Most are citing issues with their leadership as the reason for their departure. Old timers might fret that this means their children and children’s children will become unmoored from truth, from ethics, from all that is good and true. Of course, this dystopia is possible, but I don’t know if it is probable. We as humans seek to hold onto the ineffable. We as humans are aware that our knowledge of reality stops at the far reaches of our atmosphere. The guidance that today’s humans seek is not served by religions that have not received a true update since, well, the Iron Age.

Our explorations past our planet’s boundaries not withstanding, we are aware that we are of this planet, and we accept our space within its nested systems of materials, space, light, and time. It’s in this acceptance that we can be assured that the ineffable will persist — and that we will begin to understand within ourselves, within our very bodies that artificial intelligence is synthetic, not alien. In keeping with all that it is and has ever been known, our evolution, and our new age of civilization will be marked by its capacity for synthesis from newly uncovered complexity. It was this rising complexity that gave rise to our current belief systems, and it is what will revise, revitalize and revolutionize our understanding and culture. The Age of Re-Synthesis is upon us.

Isn’t that wild?