The Great Google/Baidu In The Sky

Great conversation between Ken and Kevin Kelly. This is exactly what Integral needs - new interesting ideas, grounded in the is-ness of our moving changing world. Fascinating - Artificial Intelligence as our child  will in time grow up to be other than us. And this confrontation with the other will be what - a spiritual event?

Not sure why exactly the confrontation will be spiritual, save that Ken and Kevin are both spiritual men who think in these terms. It will be extraordinary for sure, but why not articulated in ways other than spiritual for those who aren't of a spiritual bent. I'd like to think that spirit is articulating itself in ways other than simply 'spiritual'. How many voices does it have?  An infinitude?

I may not be being clear here: My assumption is that it's all spiritual at base. I want to try to acknowledge that so much is alive and spiritual that isn't explicitly seen as 'spiritual'. And the converse also - so much that is 'spiritual' that is rather dead and done. I'm suggesting there's more than one way to cut reality. More than one way to articulate the spiritual.

I was curious, too, in Kelly's hesitation about the early stages of this encounter. I loved his uncertainty, for one, but don't know what to think about the supposed difficulty of 'grokking' (in his words) the fact that AI will first manifest itself via the web, and as such will be hard for us to grasp, or even see.

No, actually, having listened a little more - I'm typing as I listen, - I find his framing of it as a spiritual encounter an uninteresting replication of stale ideas. As he conceives it, certain initiates (not his term) will claim to be in contact with global consciousness. The issue then will be how to verify this claim. That's exactly where it becomes interesting for me - how will consciousness of this global consciousness manifest itself among us.... 

I would have liked Kelly to have speculated along more interesting lines. That is, I would have liked an otherness to his speculation to go along with the otherness of those AI children to come. Though, it could be said I contradict myself here - that too much confidence on his part in speculation might be seen to go against the hesitation I so liked - his encounter with mystery and unknowing. Or, are those two desires integrated with the desire for an otherness to his speculation? Aka Mysterious, unknowing speculation. Who knows. (ha)

I see that what I'm grappling with here (stumbling over) is the unfolding of this in time. The matter of initial verification and identification will resolve itself with time as this child of ours grows more manifest. But yes, of course, he's right, in the early stages it will be us who identify and nurture this A1 other-child. And those early stages of learning can't help but be uneven and a little rocky. And perhaps inevitably stated in terms of the already known - here, the 'spiritual'.

At the very end he returns to fascination, in saying the data in support of a conscious organism is already here. I think he's right. I also think that a more concrete and quite undeniable manifestation of that conscious organism is only a matter of time. I also think - to continue the line of thought above - that this encounter will contain its own articulation. That is, the very form of the encounter will be new wrinkle/articulation of human being for us. It just may not present itself as what Kevin Kelly calls 'spirit'.

He's right, then, that we will need to learn to come to recognize this manifestation - at least in the early stages and then later it will confront us with its autonomy, its singular self-sufficient otherness. Ha, very cool. I hate that word/2, but, 'mind blowing' it is.

Last words - absolutely in agreement with the wonder and power that will result form the encounter with an intelligence other than human - I just love Kevin Kelly's conception - I do still wonder whether A) it will be conceived of as 'spiritual', and B) whether it will be seen as truly other.  How far can the human expand? My own experience of otherness is that it doesn't last and with time always shrinks itself to the small dimensions of me - albeit, a somewhat expanded 'me'.

Well worth a listen.