We seem to forget what human intelligence is and what it has created, we do not live it with full awareness. We are compared to emotional intelligence and we are still losing out to it.
What has human intelligence created?
The sciences, sports, culture, law, engineering, medicine, institutions, art, music, and I only cite a tiny proportion of their achievements. And, likewise, wars, cynicism, lies, theft, murder, dictatorships, the seven thousand physical attacks on doctors last year, counterfeiters or the pollution of seas and rivers.
Nor to think that any intelligence other than human could do, create, improve or destroy all this. Such complexity, for better and for worse, is possible due to the characteristics and mechanisms of our brain's functioning that will never be possible with other intelligences. And that I propose to explain by means of this super simplification (only the Principles of Neuroscience by Nobel laureate Erik R Kandel is 1,400 pages long).
We cannot forget that the "AI brain". thinks in zeros and ones, obeys orders and its memory, although almost infinite, lacks real reasoning. They know how to do things, but in reality they have had to have millions of parameters introduced into them and their programmes require very specific instructions. By calling them neural networks, fundamental properties of what biological neurons are have been left out.
In addition, they need an enormous amount of data for their training. To achieve less than 5% of error in object recognition, the CO2 emission would be the same as that generated by the Community of Madrid in a month, given the enormous amount of data that would have to be added to their memories to achieve this. In contrast, neurons and their connections are configured, change and reconfigure themselves by adapting to the input of millions of signals from the body, the outside world and their mental contents, with a consumption of about twenty watts.
Artificial intelligence is still far from us
Neurons all have different anatomical, molecular and genomic characteristics. There are twice as many smaller cells, such as astrocytes or glia. In their case, the networks they communicate connect the multiple systems that make up a brain. A portion of brain tissue the size of a grain of sand contains 100,000 neurons and more than a billion synapses (connections).
The brain is isolated and enclosed in the skull, functioning night and day, so it is responsible for the overall functioning of the body and is at the service of our survival. Its functions include the interpretation of sound waves from the ear, photons from the eyes, what comes to it from millions of sensors in the skin and the rest of the body, the hormonal system, and so on. We have neurons, which emit, receive and manufacture chemical messages. The messages in chemical form are based on neurotransmitters and neuromodulators, hormones, ions, gases, etc. Each of these components can modify their effects, depending on the characteristics of their transporters necessary to take them to the place where they will act and also by the structure of their receptors. All this ends up in a brain that is, shall we say, electric. Here we see what separates us from the so-called IA neurons.
Some of the neuromodulators that are intended to produce an effect can give rise to opposite functions because of the properties of the target receptors. For example, the amounts of more or less dopamine and serotonin can activate or slow down. This is one of the bases of their plasticity and why we don't really understand how the brain works. All of which explains its immense functionality in creating the vastness of civilisation from the caves to here.
But all this complexity is made possible by the transport of ions: calcium, chlorine, potassium, magnesium, from inside to outside the neurons and vice versa, which will produce electrical energy that will be discharged, in some cases within a tenth of a millisecond. All this has been conditioned, induced and moderated by the set of neuromodulators and neurotransmitters. We see that there is no resemblance to IA in all this complexity.
We are also distinguished by the fact that all the necessary energy is produced by each cell by its own energy production system, and its subsequent powerful recycling of transmitters and modulators once used, through a parallel system of cells and astrocytes that also participate in communications, not only neurons. As well as other enzymatic procedures for recycling the chemistry used. Another feature different from the much-vaunted neural networks of IA is the flexibility of the connections, always changing or modifiable or overridden by activation of genes and manufacture of their proteins. It is a simplification to confuse the wonders of the brain and its neural networks with IA.
We have not gone into the description of the brain structures, which we could say do communicate with each other by means of something similar to networks. Such as the hypophysis thalamus, the cerebral cortex or the mygdala, structures in which all processes originate, with a total functional interdependence with the rest of the bodily organs, in constant dependence on environmental stimuli. The human being is an inseparable unit that cannot be understood by seeing it as some organs being more important than others.
In mental or emotional processes and in our decisions, night and day, all its organs and apparatus are involved. Such as the digestive, cardiovascular, immune, endocrine or muscular systems, sending chemical signals and receiving orders, all intervening in cognition. All that has been said about the brain can be summed up as survival strategies and compliance with the laws of nature common to all living things. Laws that we do not want to see in their transcendence. And given our nature, AI will bring us many benefits as a tool, but as always it will also be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes.The danger is too great for us not to be forewarned. Especially when it comes to perceptions: it will imitate, deceive or supplant.
*José Antonio Rodríguez Piedrabuena is a specialist in Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis, and in management training, group and couple therapies..