One of the greatest paradoxes in the animal kingdom is how we deal with the absence of knowledge. Every living creature is driven by survival and purpose – both of which create contradictory behaviors. On one hand, we are naturally fearful of things we don’t understand; it disrupts how our brain is wired to have a sense of safety and security when we encounter the unknown. Conversely, living creatures see a gambling opportunity in nature to explore what seems promising for the advancement of their respective species.
Humans especially developed exceptional intelligence and likewise inquisitiveness, allowing them to demand more things out of life than survival.
We developed technology and a more intimate understanding of the world, and we dominated life on earth. Conquering our fear of the unknown through our sheer drive to perpetually improve our advancements as a species, we transcended the food chain and could only look ahead instead of backwards.
But even we have our limitations – things we dare not further explore. Our unique advantage now is that we are so smart that we get to be afraid of treading certain paths. Nuclear bombs, the most powerful weaponry we’ve ever created, are for the most part banned from further advancing because we couldn’t live with the fallout of using them.
The way we handle nukes is a prime example of how at some point, despite our need to self-improve as a species, we limit ourselves from a possible future that we would rather not explore. But among all threats that I’ll be talking about on the Pinnacle Website, Artificial Intelligence seems to be the next most immediate danger to everything we know about life.
When ChatGPT was released in 2022, the way it revolutionized our daily lives has many believing that AI is a new concept, yet we’ve applied AI in electronics even as far back as the 1970s with PLATO – a computer-based learning system that was used to develop videogames, such as Oubliette!
I’ll be writing about how it’s taking over schools and Pierce College, with the help of perspectives from Dr. Paul Gerhart, Sarah Miller, and Professor Benjamin Cheng.
