JOHANNESBURG, A TECHNOLOGY expert has waded into the contentious debate around artificial intelligence (AI) being a threat to some jobs presently held by humans.
Presenting at a summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Alix Rubsaam, argued AI would complement, not replace, human capabilities.
Essentially computers are doing what we do, but doing it better. They are who we are but not what we are, Rubsaam said.
She is a researcher in philosophy of technology, cultural analysis and post-humanism.
Rubsaam opined as she presented on, AI or Death? Redefining what it Means to be Human in the Software Age.
She said AI could not be taken at face value without understanding the cultural context.
AI is shaped by a specific time and place, the expert said.
It’s contextual, based on the most important technology of the time.
Thought-provoking rhetorical questions dominated her presentation.
This (above analysis) is only true as long as we define this reality as computational. Are we computers? she quipped.
The Greeks thought we were all hydraulic machinery. Maybe it’s silly but AI is a threat, not a threat to an organism or a species but to our contemporary definition of what it means to be human.
Source: CAJ News Agency