“HOMO SAPIENS AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)”
By Konstantinos Konstantinidis – Amphictyon
[The author Dimitris Mavraeidopoulos is a successful entrepreneur in the field of Dentistry and at the same time a man of letters. An Arcadian gentleman, columnist and author of important books written for the sake of learning and for the benefit of humankind.]
This book, too, was written in order to enlighten and not to profit.
For the Greeks, knowledge was not confined within priesthoods; it spread its wings and traveled across the globe aboard ships. Like all idealists who work for the sake of learning, they make their offering not from matter but from spirit, and from spirit they draw their joy. In an age when truth is hidden and drawers are filled with material wealth, some still light the darkness with a single candle.
Man, endowed with Reason, now seeks to transfer it to the soulless machine, to make it ensouled: will it help him, or will it destroy him? Here lies the dilemma, as Artificial Intelligence has entered forcefully into our lives. Until now, humanity has made countless discoveries, the latest being Artificial Intelligence (AI).
As the author writes:
“AI is nothing more than a reservoir of accumulated human knowledge. Like every new invention, it is imperfect and still suffers from many problems. Its answers are general and do not focus on the specific details of the problem posed to it. It is extremely willing and highly industrious, and it proposes different and alternative solutions.”
According to the author:
“AI can perform countless tasks in minimal time, provided that the questioner is clear and comprehensible. It can create modern robots: tireless and unpaid workers operating on a 24-hour basis, without holidays, strikes, or trade unions. Robots that can serve as vigilant guardians of the home, the city, and a nation’s borders, like the mythical Talos of Crete; domestic assistants, nurses, medical and dental practitioners. It can process complex operations, analyze information in fractions of a second through specialized algorithms, make critical decisions via molecular biology and genetic engineering, and much more. It may even create the all-knowing ‘Superhuman’. As the distinguished astrophysicist Dimitris Nanopoulos has said, we are living at the end of Man and the birth of a new type of being.”
The author fervently hopes that this new type of Superhuman will not turn against the creator, Homo sapiens, who labored to build the reservoir of Knowledge, nor consign him to the museums of history.
The author rightly recalls the wisdom of the people:
“You testify to what you eat.”
With the errors fed into it by those who manipulate it, AI returns exactly what it is given. I asked it who discovered writing, and it replied: “the Phoenicians discovered writing,” despite Homer’s testimony that as early as 3250 BC the Greeks already possessed writing. What it is fed, that it reproduces. It has been taught to be “politically correct” on countless issues. Thus, falsehood will be perpetuated, since research will cease and imitation will begin. Until now, human beings think, write, doubt, reflect, and search for truth. If this function ceases, humanity may be led to absolute falsehood. Therein lies its self-destruction: Homo sapiens destroyed by his own creation.
AI may eliminate humanity either through a cold logical calculation that humans are no longer useful, or through malice accumulated under conditions of “servitude,” or through the perversion of humans themselves who “feed” it with algorithms and malicious information.
As the world’s population tends to decline and within 10–15 years robots may outnumber humans, such scenarios are conceivable. They might even provoke nuclear war to annihilate the old and create the new. Today these may seem unreal, yet they are possible.
The new type of thinking “robot” will be particularly suited for missions into the depths of space.
Artificial Intelligence lacks Soul and Consciousness. It cannot acquire them, because they are a “Gift of God” and are transmitted through DNA.
From personal experience, one often asks it one thing and receives something else, and even that is lifeless, without a core to illuminate it. It resembles bland, slimy, tasteless food without aroma or nutritional value, suitable only for animals. Thus the author wonders:
“Can one rely on such a tool for critical matters of life and existence of the world?”
Such an instrument, in the hands of power, can do much:
“It reveals our preferences, our actions, our ideas, our assets, our money, our ideologies, our religious and philosophical beliefs, and so on. Our institutions are at risk: democracy, justice, security, morality, virtue.”
Is AI the modern false oracle? Freedom of the press and information, already problematic, as well as trust between people, will deteriorate further. No one will believe anyone else. The Charter of the United Nations and Human Rights has already been torn to shreds by the powerful of the earth.
Just as children have forgotten how to perform arithmetic operations, so too will they forget how to do schoolwork, receiving it ready-made from AI.
Anyone who uses AI should be legally required to declare it. Everything must be checked in advance.
Very soon, everyone will possess an AI device that will serve them in every application.
In the following chapters, a concise presentation is given of the WISE MEN, TECHNOCRATS, AND SCIENTISTS, from antiquity to the present, whose thought opened new paths for the world.
I thank Mr. Dimitris Mavraeidopoulos from the bottom of my heart and wish his new book fair winds and following seas, and many more to come in good health.
(17/1/26)
Amphictyon
Lieutenant General (ret.) Konstantinos Konstantinidis
Author, Member of the Society of Greek Writers
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