The first time I read about 3-D printers, I was fascinated by how fast they went from sci-fi stories to reality. But, of course, you could say the same about recent tech devices. A 3-D printer needs the ingredient material, a blueprint of specs, a bunch of algorithms programmed into the hardware, and a power source, to make an object; a similar concept, but incredibly more advanced, governs the creation of organs in a fetus according to the instructions dictated by the genes on the DNA.
The more advanced and efficient the machinery of the printer, the more sophisticated the product will be. The printer’s processes are still confined to the confinement of time, meaning from the procurement of the material to the construction of a desired product, the whole process would require time to complete. In other words, transforming an idea into a reality takes time. The element of time, which is often underappreciated, is the limiting factor in many natural and human-induced processes. We can’t speed up the growth of a fetus without causing adverse consequences, but we may be able to speed up a simulation and still reach the same output prediction. My point is that depending on the complexity of a process, the element of time should be carefully accounted for. Let’s use the 3-D printer as an analogy for the inception of reality.
The brain receives information from its environment through structured and unstructured data, processes it, interprets it utilizing pre-existing conclusions and perceptions, updates its existing network of reasoning and interpretations, and makes present decisions or future predictions. All data are stored in the brain, but not all are extracted from real-world observations. For instance, input sensory data from the memory of a kiss is based on a physical experience, and it is stored in some memory center in the brain; however, the perceptions, interpretations, and subsequent perspectives related or unrelated to the kiss, are all virtual contents constructed by the brain stored in the space we call the mind. Likewise, love is what was interpreted by the individual and now is content in the space of mind, an entity that didn’t exist in the outside world and didn’t enter the brain as any form of data; on the contrary, the notion of being loved or manipulated, etc. was constructed by the brain.
Every object or process ever created is the product of an individual or collective mind, the mind which was constructed by an individual or collective brain. The brain constructs an idea, places it in the mind’s construct, and prepares it to proceed from inception to realization in the real world. Our brain-mind combo works as highly sophisticated machinery to create reality, similar to the work of a 3-D printer. Furthermore, this individual machinery can work in concert in a group format and create a collective form.
We create reality from ideas using the brain-mind machinery. Every problem we face now, locally or globally, we have created, individually or collectively. Therefore, we are equally capable of architecting, constructing, and implementing some form of a solution, hopefully, an exact form.
Recent events in 2022 have triggered a cascade of upcoming events and mechanisms that, individually and collectively, will impact every aspect of socio-political-economic infrastructures locally and globally. A few examples include:
- The growth of unethical and ethical hacking organizations, the distinction which is unclear in most cases.
- The evolution of surveillance algorithms; an example of which is the Pegasus developed by the NSO; algorithms that can infiltrate any digital device and gain full access to the content of one’s private life without detection, a practice that would lead to the demise of any democratic and free society; a perfect tool for subjugation and oppression.
- The rise of a never-encountered-before financial crisis due to its extent of complexity, a crisis that is still impossible to predict its impact and temporal extent.
- Accelerated changes in climate patterns- an issue that is well out-cried.
- Food and water crisis.
- The inception of a series of political unrests in Europe, East, Middle, and West Asia that would lead to proxy and shadow warfares (shadow referring to observable events or processes with unrecognizable underlying mechanisms or involved forces), a complex web of conflicts that the world hasn’t seen since the second world war.
- I bet you can identify a few more.
Unless you live in isolation, the cascading effect of the above elements will impact your life. The scale and complexity of each of the challenges we will be facing as ordinary citizens will be exacerbated due to the evolving complexity of the interaction of these elements. In other words, they are so weaved into each other that their behaviours, individually and collectively, are becoming less and less predictable and more challenging to manage, control, or stop.
The scope and level of sophistication of the intricate interplay between the above threats will justify and necessitate the release of one or a series of Artificial Intelligence entities to take control and implement appropriate actions. I would leave the discussion of AI for another article as it will require far more profound analysis and research, which I still need to prepare. What can be predicted at a glance is that AI will help us decelerate, stop, or even eliminate some of the challenges mentioned. However, in the end, it will become an Authoritarian Governing Intelligence.
What created all these challenges? Human intelligence gave birth to ideas, examined possibilities, made working frameworks, constructed prototypes, and enhanced the existing processes utilizing newer methodologies. Now, we have landed on the current situation- what we are facing now.
The same intelligence that created the problem(s) is able to develop the countering solution(s). But, of course, not every natural or manufactured problem is solvable and not every process is reversible. For instance, you walk down a flight of stairs, change your mind and go back up again, a simplified reversible process, but not the case when you drop an egg and break it. Another example would be climate change. Our greenhouse gases’ contributions to the environment are a factor that the global ecosystem never had the time to adapt and evolve into at this rate; we are disturbing a balance that is reversible up to a certain point, then some or all processes become irreversible, crossing the critical turning points, after which practical solutions become impractical.
To survive individually and collectively, we must reform the existing frameworks of thought. We must reconstruct the contents of the mind from impossible to probable, from probable to achievable, and from achievable to in-progress status, individually and collectively. We are obligated to change our minds’ construct, and work toward building new realities. Therefore, I encourage all of us to inspire one another, transform the existing frameworks, and work toward transcending the upcoming existential crisis. Our brain-mind machinery can create new realities, restore and amend broken processes, and correct our current global trajectory.
Payman Janbakhsh, Ph.D.