We are all well aware of the impact Artificial Intelligence (AI) has had on our lives in this decade. Traditional technology has been swept away by the tsunami of new, more cutting edge technology; the corporate is still struggling to catch up with the explosive development of AI and where it can potentially take the business world. But AI did not fall upon us from the heavens one fine day. Research on AI, its algorithms and theories have existed for decades. It is only that its foray into the world of business and industries happened in recent times, and yes, it did happen pretty quickly.
I did my project in artificial neural networks as part of my engineering programme some 20 years ago. At that time, I had felt uneasy about something but I did not know why. All the much talked about mysteries in the world exist because of certain questions that had hitherto gone unanswered. If we find the answer to those questions, everything else will fall in place. I know now what made me uneasy was the word ‘artificial’. Why do we call the intelligence we create ‘artificial’? The antonym of artificial is original, so are we claiming that human intelligence is the original intelligence? Are we basically saying that we created our intelligence through evolution? The problem with this is, we are implicitly assuming that the creation of the universe was by accident and intelligence evolved within it with time.
When we create artificial intelligence now, it is because we have become intelligent enough to create intelligent beings on our own. So it is also possible that other intelligent beings may have created us as intelligent beings. There is a gap in human evolution wherein there is a quantum leap from Homo Erectus, the early hominids to the intelligent Homo Sapiens, which mainstream science has not been able to explain. More than intelligence, it is the intelligent capacity to communicate that have baffled scientists.
In the evolutionary time span, such a big leap is simply not possible. Our genetic structure is 99% similar to that of apes so how can a mere 1% make us so different from them in terms of intelligence and communication skills? Ancient Sumerian tablets have helped to unlock this mystery with the information that an extraterrestrial race of beings called the Anunnaki manipulated the genetic structure of early hominids to create us. Again, the why comes into play. They created us as their slaves to mine gold for which they had come to earth.
People might scoff at this as a mere fantasy, but again, the why rears its head. Why do we look up when we pray to God? Why is gold precious to us when metals like iron, copper and aluminium are the ones useful to us in our daily lives? Why did the ancient Kings of Travancore in Kerala store gold worth billions of dollars in a temple in the name of Gods, and why is it forbidden for us to use?
What we need to realize and accept is that just like we create robots nowadays to do our work, it is possible that we may have been created by beings with far superior intelligence to do their work. In ancient Indian texts, Brahma the creator of the Universe creates Manu who is given the task of seeding life across the universe. In the ancient Sumerian tablets, it is Anu who is the master of creation of life. Scientists and researchers now believe that seeding of life across the universe has been happening through a process known as panspermia so then Manu (Anu) must be the one providing intelligence to different life forms. So the question here is, is creation of intelligent life forms a continuous process?
If we consider that the universe is a creation of an infinitely higher order of intelligence, then lower orders of that intelligence will have to exist within its realm for it to grow and expand. Spreading intelligence within the universe must be helping in its own evolution. So the most important purpose of existence of every being in the universe could be the spreading of intelligence.
But where it gets interesting is the way we have started fearing the intelligence we are in the process of creating, which has spawned movies like the Matrix Trilogy, The Terminator series, I, Robot and countless others, to say nothing of the classic Frankenstein. Why are we in fear that the intelligence we create could grow out of our control? This is where I concur with the scientists and researchers who believe in the Ancient Aliens theory. They believe that the Anunnaki could have easily created intelligent mechanical beings for mining gold, but they must have chosen not to for the same reason that steeps us in fear now.
It is not possible to create emotions in mechanical beings and the intelligence of mechanical beings can evolve to a point where they start believing and acting on mere logic, although devoid of emotions. This is exactly what we are fearing now and what has already started happening. So the Anunnaki smartly chose to create biological robots by genetic manipulation of existing beings and they created us in such a way that we could be manipulated emotionally. The best example of this is, they must have created us as their slaves by controlling us through fear which would not have been possible with machines and this could be why we still live with the fear of God.
So as AI takes center stage in all aspects of our lives, we need to look at the past and learn from our own creation and evolution. The Anunnaki did not make us as intelligent as they were and they left the earth a long time ago, leaving us to evolve with the intelligence they gave us. They must have also known that two different beings with similarly evolving intelligence cannot coexist, just like no two adult male lions can live in the same cave. If we endow AI with thinking and acting capabilities, it should only be when we are ready to leave the planet to them and go away. A self sustaining AI will be disastrous for us for the simple reason that it would deal with us based solely on logic and our existence has always been more emotional and less of hard logic.