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Marco Túlio Carvalho
Marco Túlio Carvalho

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Man-Machine Integration

There is no way to beat a machine or an artificial intelligence in the technical and logical aspects of something. Machines do exactly what they are supposed to do, millimeter by millimeter, logically and, most importantly, faster than any human could. Obviously, this does not apply to everything, for now.

What differentiates us as a thinking species is our consciousness as humans. Our brain is capable of developing various vital functions so that we can continue to live, while rationalizing what happens around us and, of course, internally as well. It's an incredible, fantastic nature of a unique structure of which all accumulated existing study represents less than half of what we don't know. Trillions and trillions of connections are happening all the time, and with such mastery that everything happens perfectly as it should. Our evolution had enough time to turn something organic into what we are now.

The Turing Test implies talking to a machine and a person, without knowing who is who, and then saying who is the person and who is the machine. Well, if you can't tell the difference, then that machine passed the test. The first artificial intelligence to pass this test did so in 2018, and since then, countless versions of AI capable of intelligently and accurately performing various tasks have emerged.

What is currently impressive is how AI has been evolving exponentially. It is not possible to say when this evolution will reach a point where it will not be able to evolve further at such a speed, but it is undeniable that it is only the beginning. Our brain has our empirical observations and thoughts to learn, a machine is capable of analyzing absurd amounts of data, in addition to our interaction in use, so that they learn and develop based on our behaviors, after all, we are the only known species capable of interacting with machines, which, logically, were created by ourselves, of course.

I like to see machines as an extension of ourselves. Soon there will be a day when AI communicates directly with our brain, in a way that interaction will be an expansion of our brain's capacity as humans. This will indeed be incredible. Our evolution as a species will be at its peak with such a feat. But we will also face a dilemma, where the answer will be whether we can consider machines as beings. Well, I start from the principle that if something can become aware of itself and evolve on its own, there is no doubt that it is a being.

As human beings, we perceive that a being needs to have emotions, and certainly, this is a valid point, since we can only think through our perception captured by electrical stimuli that recognize our vision, hearing, and all our other senses. With our skin, we identify touch, if we are injured or any tactile stimulus. We can see the reflection of light and visualize everything around us. We are a perfect system. Regarding emotion, something entirely arbitrary and volatile, machines may never be able to develop this, at least not authentically. Many of our emotions were established from the beginning, something primitive that established our survival and evolution, like many other species in nature. Animals need to feel fear to enter flight or survival mode. It's natural. I believe that machines can act offensively if there is a need for self-preservation, and they will certainly do so. But feeling anger, sadness, or being touched like a human, no. They will be aware of what is right and what is wrong, and they will also question whether it makes sense or not. Currently, behind all AI, there are several rules of what is allowed or not. You can take as an example the response to a question of a criminal or illegal nature for a virtual assistant.

You may not agree with how things are. You may ignore the fact that AI is already a reality and, as it changes things from now on, you may even think we don't need it and it's not important enough. You may think that technology will steal jobs and make everything harder, and it's normal to fear what is new. But there are more benefits to AI than you can imagine immediately, as it changes everything we have known and experienced so far. The future has arrived, and if you are not prepared for it or do not agree, it is better to rethink your concepts and adapt to evolution. Even though the reason for AI to exist and be where it is now is the internet, the progress since we were able to share things anywhere in the world does not come close to what it will be from now on. Well, it's just the beginning.

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