For as long as man was man, making the limitations of the body complete with mechanical devices has been the defining feature of evolution. Making a dagger, a hunting spear or making rudimentary utensils to cut food or transport water reserves are examples of how the human being complemented his body. The creation of clothing to protect oneself from the inclement weather, to the making of more sophisticated elements for cultural and artistic expression, allowed communication, and thus leave in the successive memory of generations the records that occurred in the past so that as little as possible remained. into oblivion. In this way we have served to extend the limitations of our physical condition. History began with these artificial elements that made life possible as we conceive it today.
Everything has been a complement to the inability that in one way or another the body has to perform tasks, protect itself or simply to divert attention to other essential issues.
Other mechanisms achieved the unimaginable, flying from one point to another on the planet, moving through the sea or submerging in it.
But it went further, technology and applied science allowed the modification and alteration of nature. As the reversal of natural phenomena and the cure to the designs that nature itself presented. The manipulation and control of chemistry to heal reduces everything to the same thing: external, technical, scientific or chemical elements that modify the body’s capacities.
For decades artificial intelligence has been a subject of scientific research, in which it sought to replicate reasoning and logic through machines.
The first attempts focused on making devices that emulated the circuits and connections of the human brain. The experiments were a failure. Over the decades, software was tried to replicate intelligence. In this field the results were better, but they only applied to very specific questions and branches of science. Mathematics, simulation games or industrial designs to name a few. They made it possible to perform highly complex arithmetic operations at unimaginable speeds, which meant the advancement of knowledge in limited areas. The paradox was that none of these software could differentiate a table from a building.
Intelligence is something much broader, complex and encompassing, which not only implies speed but also the interaction of a number of interrelated, generic, specific, sequential and even contradictory variables.
Everything changed at the end of last year. It was modified that a software, based on the interrelation of network connections and taking advantage of the volume of information and data that is available on the Internet, was able to imitate the sequences of language providing answers in a very similar way to what human intelligence would do. . Using the elements of language: predictive, deductive, inductive, comparative, experimental and expert systems, the possibility of engaging in a conversation logically and with optimal grammatical ordering was achieved. The latest version, released a few weeks ago, contains obvious improvements in its returns and proposals. Other languages have been added to it, which efficiently complements its processing based on more sources of knowledge. As an example, I asked him if he was aware of his existence, this was his answer: “As a language model, I am not aware of myself in the human sense of the word. I do not have a subjective experience or self-awareness. I am simply a computer program designed to process and generate natural language based on the training data provided.
For science fiction fans, I would like to remind you that the dialogue between an astronaut and the Hall 9000 computer in the 2001 movie Space Odyssey has become reality. Today it is possible to talk with software about its own existence, about your perception of life and, most importantly, about the awareness of your individual self.
For the first time, we have something that is very close to what was imagined by the pioneers of artificial intelligence. By the way, he knows how to distinguish a table from a building and achieves what evolution has not stopped: an excellent external complement for our body, now it’s up to the brain.
*Academic Coordinator of the UCES Political Science and Government Degree.
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