THE DISADVANTAGES OF METAPHOR

JULIA CLARKE

Associate professor, John A. Wilson Centennial Fellow in Vertebrate Paleontology, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas, Austin

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The way we use language is flexible, generous, and creative, the product of our own peculiar intelligence. But human thought and machine thought aren’t the same, and the differences are important.

We might argue that machine “thinking” is in a model-phenomena relationship to human thought—a necessarily simple description of a complex process that nonetheless might be adequate and certainly may be useful. Such words, and machines themselves, could be viewed as a kind of shorthand for the things we want to get at. Describing a machine as “thinking” could be a simple heuristic convenience; machine design might be explicitly biomimetic. Indeed, often we co-opt the language of biology to talk about objects we create. We see machines evolving, their thinking becoming more and more like our own, perhaps surpassing it in key, possibly threatening ways. But we should remember that machine “evolution” is not a biological process but a human, creator-driven process. It’s natural or biological only in that it results from the action of natural, biology-bound humans.

This definition of natural leads to several core problems. Biological evolution is not a creator-driven process. Structures cannot be dreamed up or driven by an entrepreneurial spirit or curiosity-driven mind. Biologists, philosophers, and social scientists studying how we teach evolution have repeatedly shown the damage caused by imbuing biological evolution with intentionality or teleology. Talking about machines “evolving” greater cognitive capacity perpetuates a profound misunderstanding about the nature of the evolutionary process. A second, linked outcome of a description of machine “thinking” as natural is that all human-caused modification of the earth system, via neglect or war, is similarly naturalized.

Certainly there’s some truth we communicate with analogies—like “the brain is a machine” or “machine thinking”—but this says more about how we make sense of the world. We’d do well to remember that any cognitive attributes unique to humans are the result of the vagaries and contingencies of our 6-or-so-million years’ separation from any other lineage alive today. Indeed, abstract thought is often estimated to be a mere 50,000 years old, or, if we’re optimistic, 200,000 years old—appearing very late in Earth history. Yet it leads us to homologize machine thought and human thought.

The processes behind technological innovation and biological innovation are fundamentally different, and so are the interactors in these processes. In technological innovation there’s some product or functionality—“thought” or “thinking”—we want to see happen and move toward. Human cognition evolved in populations of individuals completely unlike machines, which, like Lamarck’s giraffes, can acquire functional characteristics within their “lifetimes.” Innovation in biological evolution proceeds like a prolonged improvisation. There’s only genetic and trait variability in populations, and the environment and chance influence the longevity of these traits of a population.

So what’s lost by thinking about machines “thinking”? I’d argue that we lose sight of key aspects of the phenomena we’re relating through analogy. Biological evolution occurs in populations and isn’t goal-directed. It’s not trying to solve a problem. The vagaries of the history of both Earth and life are what have led to current human cognitive facilities. Not just are the processes distinct but so are their results. Take language: Can a machine use terms imprecisely?

If we allow machines to “think,” do we begin to see ourselves only as thinking machines? Will our human cognitive facilities be shaped by interacting with technology? It’s important to remember how diverse and downright enormous the human population is. Computer use hasn’t been linked to passing more offspring into the next generation. Most of the human population has, as yet, limited access to technology. The evolution of our species will be slow, and it will be importantly influenced by our environment and collective access to clean water, nutritive food, and health care. If we can be as inclusive in our discussions of humanity as we are in what we want to call “thinking,” we might end up in a better place.