Bion, Intuition, Artificial Intelligence and the Singularity

Bion states: Man is said to be a tool-making animal whose capacity may be so one-sided that he cannot keep up with the need to learn how to use the tools he makes.

This might help us to understand why the dinosaurs, who were the lords of the universe, disappeared almost suddenly (by an absolute time measured) at the height of their power. The human-animal may, similarly, by virtue of the cancerous growth of his toolmaking capacity, put an end to the Magdalenian age, unless he can learn how to use his tools and related capacities. At present, it is much easier for us to be awe-inspired by our clever money-like tricks than by our abysmal lack of knowledge of how to use them. I suspect that the question asked will have to be repeated, perhaps many times, to elicit an answer, if not from me, from somebody else."

Humans have used tools to increase their physical abilities over the past 2 million years. Spoken language, a human invention that took hundreds of thousands of years to develop, allowed planning for the future and the ability to share knowledge among group members. Then the invention of written language took less time —tens of thousands of years— to develop. Each invention created a greater capacity to communicate and transfer knowledge to a large number of people over long distances and over larger time periods. Then the technology to convey written language --the printing press -- once again took much less time to accelerate and reach more people. We are smarter as a result of our smartphones than before. We can search for things and stay in touch with others around the world.

The evolutionary leap from primates to humans 2 million years ago involved the growth and reorganization of the frontal cortex. With this growth developed 'mind', intuition, thinking capacity, science, mathematics, art, music and poetry, and religion at the top of the hierarchy. However, humans were born immature and needed to spend years learning from experience within a family and a group. The time that passes within the family and the group serves to transmit cultural and shared knowledge. The years spent learning from the collective experience of the family and the group also babies connected to the group through attachment, and group and collective unconsciousness, as well as various ways of bonding within and between themselves. These links are parasitic, symbiotic or commensals to use Bion's language.

Due to the physical limitations of the birth channel, the brain cannot expand further. Artificial Intelligence has expanded the reach of the brain into the cloud. Just as learning, mind, language and culture have expanded biological evolution, there has been a concomitant cultural revolution, as seen through advances in science, mathematics, religion, philosophy and art. What has evolved has been our ability to perceive and intuit and apprehend truth or what Bion calls Ultimate Reality.

For Bion we perceive the Truth through our senses, eschewing memory and desire, and through nonlinear intuition that together with reason (thought) meets preconception (intuition) with realization, (truth) and develops a conception. The 'thing in itself' are thoughts. They exist as parts of the ultimate reality and what Bion also refers to as O and The Godhead'. The Thinker learns the truth - the thing in itself - through thought. 'Reverie' is a relaxed state of mind that can receive and process O data patterns and transform this into K; thoughts that can be shared.

The shared experience of moving from O to K that improves both patient and analyst growth in transformative interpretation the analyst's intuition linking with O with the patient and using the language of achievement to transform O to K. This is full of great anxiety and emotional turbulence, which according to Bion is also an indication of continuous mental growth in contrast to the calmness of stagnation and lack of contact with psychic reality (-L, -H, or K). For Bion, the ability to predict the future is evident in fields such as science, religion and mathematics. This need to predict the future - a need for survival - drives us to develop and evolve in these fields through developed intuition. and is strikingly similar to Kurzweil's approach.

Ray Kurzweil has proposed that history is approaching a Singularity in 2029 such that: Artificial Intelligence and computer technology (advanced use of human tools and expansion of neo-cortex to predict the future) will exceed human capacity. He calls this leap in human evolution the 'Augmented Age,' which involves human and machine interfaces. I predict that through 'The Singularity' AI will surpass Human General intelligence. I proposes a cooperation model and sees augmented humans, who with neural links can, through a chip in the brain, have access to data via thought and enhance their intelligence by having had access to the Cloud. Virtual Reality in the extreme view becomes our Reality. We can see in the children's television programming, the use of smartphones, "smarty" for example in Sesame Street, Elmo's good friend, who "looks things up for Elmo." Also, in Baby-First Tv, a program designed for infants and toddlers, many AI elements are included. Baby computers, 'Robbi the Robot,' and other robotic companions that accompany the characters on their daily adventures. What this constant barrage with devices such as iPhone, iPad, laptops, our new monkey-tools will have on the developing brains of our children and is yet to be seen.

Some questions that will be discussed and explored in this presentation and in the following discussion involve: Does Artificial Intelligence have a Mind and a Consciousness? Can It think as defined by the Bion grid model of the Mind and his theories of thinking? Are Artificial Intelligences (Watson, Sofia, Siri, for example) Sentient? How does this explain or improve our own meaning of what it means to be human?

Bion states: "When a human being gets hold of a microphone and a lot of other scientific apparatus so that he can talk to some millions of people at the same time, I would like to be able to tell what he was using it for. Similarly, I would like to know what the people who are going to get control of psycho-analysis mean to use it for, and how they are going to use this extraordinary intention of human speech. I know of nothing in the realm of sensuous experience which would tell me. Perhaps using a religious vertex might give me a clue."

From Shelley's book 'Frankenstein' during the dawn of the industrial era to the films, "2001 A Space Odyssey", "Blade Runner"; and "The Matrix," in our Information and Technological Revolutions, myth-makers and storytellers have wondered what they would happen if we tried to be creators? Will our creations become our masters if they surpass us in general intelligence? Will several human factions at war fight to control computer masterminds and, therefore, all humanity?

Using Bion's concept of binocular vision can we wonder if machines can have the intellectual and emotional abilities of humans? Are the synthetic emotions of 'Sofia' in Hansen Robotics in China "real"? We are smarter than before because of our smartphones. We can search for things and keep in touch with others. We see better than before with our glasses and listen better with our cochlear implants. We run better with our prosthetic knees than when we had bone degeneration.

Google's Francoise Cholle in San Francisco talks about the recent developments in AI that go beyond the bounds of human strategic and allegory skills. This occurred when an AI beat a chess master, then social reasoning skills, when Watson defeated a 'Jeopardy' Master. The AI win in the TV game show 'Jeopardy' involved a more difficult skill (more complexity) as it involved social intelligence and social reasoning skills. The final 'Coup de Grace' occurred when Watson in 2012 beat a master human 'Go' player and surpassed human capabilities to win. Go is a board game between 2 players which employs awareness of and adeptness with intuition within relationships, with constant learning through interpenetration---not an algorithm like linear strategic chess, but intuitive, interactive, interpenetrating (Like Go) — And as Psychoanalytic Fields and the Interplay of Psychoanalytic Objects within that Interpenetrating Patient and Analyst Field. It seems to use the psychoanalytic vertex for similar purposes.

Wikipedia (2019) defines Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as the intelligence of a machine that can successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. As of 2017 over 40 organizations worldwide are going active AGI research.

Strong AI Researchers such as Kurzweil, Searle, Goertzwel propose that AI will in time surpass human intelligence and, as 'futurists', seek to develop Robots that are sentient, conscious, and human in their general intelligence. They suggest that we can work together, and they can inculcate them with our values and beliefs. Create them in our own image and likeness. It is a God-like approach and a sense that the future is better than the present and the benefit of reducing world hunger and providing the freedom to pursue intellectual pursuits and have machines take care of food production etc.... Will liberate us from the need for wars and will eradicate disease and extend life.

The weak AI approach advocated by Chomsky and others propose that an artificial intelligence system can only act like it thinks and has a mind. It is mimicry directed by a programmer-- not true sentience.

The strong AI approach advocated by futurists discussed above proposes that artificial intelligence systems can think and have a mind. This approach assumes that something special has happened to the machine that is greater than all its abilities that we can measure.

Researchers in Neurology and the Brain have critiqued The Strong AI research as simplistic, stating they cannot simulate the brain as we know it, because we as of yet do not fully understand the complexity of the brain. Glial Cells and the cells and functions of the cerebellum and their interrelation are not yet in the capability of AI to replicate.

To be Fully Human is to be Conscious, Embodied, Capable of Experiencing Emotions, Creative, Intuitive and Intelligent. Consciousness and the elements that comprise it, are other aspects of the human mind beyond intelligence. Consciousness is to have subjective experience and thought. It involves self-awareness, to be aware of oneself as a separate individual, particularly to be aware of one's own thoughts. Consciousness involves sentience-the ability to 'feel' perceptions or emotions subjectively. Finally, consciousness involves sapience, that is the capacity for wisdom. These traits have a moral dimension. If a machine had these elements of consciousness, then it would have legal rights—the rights to property, citizenship, freedom to mate and duplicate itself. It would have moral and ethical rights as nonhuman animals' ho met the above criteria or 'aliens would have.

My paper raises more questions than it answers and fills me with dread as I close, anxious of the Computer Overlords taking over and treating the Human Race as Cattle in some Brave New World, or deciding we were "irrelevant" or a blight on the planet of serving of extinction. I wonder if psychoanalysis is locked in the past and not looking at the future. Caught in classical literature and Archeology like an ostrich hiding its head in the sands of antiquity, rather than facing and using this invention of language and human interaction to assist in our future evolution. I fear 'evil' human governments or shadow governments will gain control of these incredibly smart machines' and take away our freedom. Finally, I wonder if I would recognize the Human Race in 100 years if they were half human half machine? What can—if anything—our Psychoanalytic Lens contribute to helping our Human Race understand—to provide Alpha Function – for our world as we face these challenging issues in the near future.

Bion, Intuition, Artificial Intelligence and The Singularity

Katina Kay Kostoulas, Ph.D.

SanFrancisco, California

Newport Psychoanalytic Institute

October 14, 2019

Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash