The invention in general and advancements in machines were never welcomed by masses. Each step was taken in direction of automation (mechanical advancement) declines the noble idea of production by masses. But all mechanizations were adopted and various arguments were put forth for their adoption, e.g. – political and economic unrest because of mechanization are transitory and machines will bring prosperity in long run. But it is for the first time that world is witnessing an unprecedented thing. All the proponents of mechanization have lost their bearings, as this time we are not surrounded by some modest advancement in mechanization or for that matter artificial intelligence. We are on the verge of that stage of intelligent machines that will make machines, observe it and will improve it into many efficient machines. A machine that is aware of itself and its surrounding and that could take in and process the massive amount of data in real time. A machine that will replace humans at all jobs. The event at the work of creation and innovation! We all have seen growth models that assume rate of generating ideas to be a function of population. In that way, a machine that will be aware of its surrounding will assimilate a huge amount of data on daily basis, will process that data in the most efficient way and will be able to find out meaningful conclusions in the form of innovations. Even if we put aside the apocalyptical view, artificial intelligence at this level is dangerous for all (even innovators). But will this awareness in the machine be enough for the invention? There is a valid point that even if machines could be aware of its surrounding it could not be conscious. Well, computer scientists don’t differentiate between awareness and consciousness. But we do see a something very similar in two completely different disciplines of consciousness. One is Quantum theory, the deepest theory of physics. According to orthodox Copenhagen Interpretation, consciousness and physical world are complementary aspects of the same reality. When a person observes, or experiments on some aspect of the physical world, that person’s conscious interaction causes discernible change. Here we take consciousness as given and do not derive it from the physical world. This view was very popular with pioneers of quantum theory such as Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Erwin Schrodinger. This complex formed from the intermingling of consciousness and matter gave birth to many paradoxes that remain unresolved after years of the debate. The most famous of them is Schrodinger’s cat. In this, a cat is placed in a radioactive system where it has equal chances to survive and die but the result is known only upon observation. In short, this simple experiment was putting forth the in-deterministic nature of the universe. “Samkhya-darshan” (one of the schools of Indian philosophy) which was given by sage Kapil, asserts that existence is composed of twenty-four components. Twenty-three of them constitute natural or physical world but the last one is consciousness which is equally real and completes the existence. This last component goes beyond the realm of space-time-causation and this is something which makes the flow of space-time in-deterministic. If we take out the last component then every single effect will be the cause for the next process in which there will be the cause for the upcoming result. That is, we will be able to explain everything in space-time because nothing will go out of causation. This idea was further supported by “Vedanta” (again one of the schools of Indian philosophy). “Vedanta” has got some support from quantum physics. In short, all these disciplines are making a point in favor of in-deterministic nature. But all this in-determinism is coming from consciousness, and nature itself is devoid of this consciousness. Any machine that we are going to make will be made from the material available in nature and so they are bound to be devoid of consciousness. So, these machines are no way going to substitute humans from their original jobs- creative and invention.

Just to make this point little more clear that how do we differentiate between the definitions made by computer scientists and those made by Quantum-physics, Samkhya, and Vedanta. According to computer-scientists, consciousness is computation with data assimilated from surrounding by awareness. But this process should be called intuition. For instance, if my brain knows Roman number symbols till ten counts and I also knows addition and subtraction and I am in a dire need to write thirteen then my necessity and my knowledge will give me something like x+i+i+i that is xiii. This we call the best use of the available knowledge for our need. But this is not consciousness. Because consciousness comes from nothingness. For example, an artificially intelligent machine could have found out the way to write thirteen but it could not have found out zero. Indian mathematician, Ramanujan is a good example for this. He never has much data for all those mathematical formulae that he arrived at. He himself said that he never had a formal method to explain those. This shows that inventions are not merely data and information assimilation but there is something more in this. It is a different question that how we explain the invention in the light of interaction between nature and consciousness. Although Samkhya and Vedanta explain this process also and quantum physics is still not in the position to put a theory behind the interaction between nature and consciousness. But there are experiments like a double-split experiment (classical one) or the act of observation can freeze and influence atoms movement (proved in 2015 by Cornell physicists) which establishes this that there is some kind of interaction between nature and consciousness. There is a great relief in these theories. Invention and creation still lie with mankind. There is a threat that machines will replace masses in production, which gives rise to a lot of problems like inequality, unemployment (universal basic income cannot be a substitute for this) and many more. It seems that this is going to be a more rapid process. But we can tackle this by some government policies. Government policies are not going to stop the process of mechanization but it will change the equilibrium. In fact, the tasks before social-scientists are going to be huge. But the major problem will be with an approach. There is a possibility that social-scientists will make the mistake of copying natural-scientists. For instance, energy in one form is measured in some unit but when the same unit is converted in some other form then it is measured in some other unit. Can we do similar things with utility? Do not we need to consider the structure of utility first? Well, the idea is- so far we have a good benevolent government and right understanding of social-science we can make groundbreaking inventions in artificial intelligence to the best of our use.  

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton