Disarm Artificial Intelligence |
Disarm Artificial Intelligence
Prometheus was the Titan god who gave the fire of knowledge, intelligence, technology and civilization to the Greeks. Painting courtesy of Evi Sarantea. The painting is depicting the head of Prometheus, shining fire and light. Zeus sent an eagle to eat the liver of the deathless god to punish him for helping his Greek grandchildren. Right eye from statue and left representing the eye of a living man, thus showing the intimate connection of Prometheus with the Greeks. The falling drops represent the ceaseless influence of Prometheus, including perhaps the invention of Artificial Intelligence among the ancient Greeks.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an extremely interesting, if dangerous, technological, economic and political issue. The Greeks of Homer’s age, some 3,500 years ago, had imagined and probably employed some form of very advanced AI. Homer reports that Zeus informed Hermes that Odysseus would return home to Ithaca. And indeed he did. The Phaiakians of the island of Phaiakia / Kerkyra, Homer says, were like gods. They had extremely advanced technologies. Their ships, for example, sailed without pilots or necessarily the energy of the wind. Yet the ship that ferried Odysseus had crew and oars, too. Such a dream boat carried Odysseus and the bronze and gold gifts, including bread and red wine, the Phaiakians gave him and sent him to his beloved home, the island of Ithaca. Once on board, “Odysseus, who had a mind like the gods and, besides, had endured wars and the bitter sea, fell into deep sleep…. The swift ship run fast through the waves that even a falcon, lord of the skies, could have matched its speed” (Odyssey 5.37-44; 13.57-92).
Stephanos Paipetis, who was professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Patras, Greece, examined the technology in Homer and concluded that the god of metallurgy, Hephaistos, was a perfect scientist and engineer and metallurgist. He built the Shield of Achilles with advanced knowledge and technology of metals and materials. In other words, Hephaistos “possessed deep knowledge of the dynamic mechanical properties of laminated composite structures.” The ship of the Phaiakians that carried Odysseus from Phaiakia (Kerkyra) to Ithaca, Paipetis says, was powered by artificial intelligence.
As I said, the technology of AI is about 3,500 years old. Most of that time, AI has been dormant, only to resurface during the 20th century.
A Greek scientist and engineer, Ioannes Kontos, retired professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Athens, published (in English, in 2015, and in Greek, in 2017) a comprehensive guide of the scientific and logical thought that helped humans invent and create AI, especially in Greece. His book, Artificial Intelligence and its Applications in Greece, is outstanding. It reads well and narrates how trained engineers bring AI systems into being. It’s a step-by-step construction of AI systems. The book mirrors deep knowledge of advanced technology, moderation (σωφροσύνη) and practical wisdom (φρόνησης). It is a global overview of the rise of this polemical technology funded by militaries and plutocrats that privatize it for profit and protection. But the AI vision of the Greek professor Kontos is far from the hegemonic ambition and policies of the US plutocrats. He would like to see Greece start inventing, producing and employing advanced technologies, some of which materialize AI products that potentially and in fact benefit the public good. He admits, however, only modest success for AI products manufactured by Greek companies in the last 50 years. But he explains an AI system of questions and answers he and his colleagues invented. He calls it AMYNTAS (Automatic Meta gnostic Ypologistikon [calculating[ Trainable Answering System).
Kontos, with little doubt, the preeminent Greek expert on AI, taught AI for about 40 years. He is both an engineer, an inventor, and a scholar. He investigated Greek history from the beginnings of this technology. He studied the science of vision and its application on the Parthenon. Then he turned to Aristotle, the greatest philosopher of all time, who invented the sciences of zoology, meteorology, and logic. There would have been no AI without understanding the science of logic. Next, Kontos examined the toothed-geared technology of the genius of the Antikythera Mechanism. That astronomical computer or Meteoroskopeion was designed and built in the island of Rhodes in the second century BCE. It was about 2,000 years ahead of its time. The Antikythera astronomical computer led him to Hero of Alexandria, a polymath philosopher and engineer who flourished in the late first century BCE and the beginning of the first century of our era. Hero built automated machines, including a model of the first steam engine. Kontos hopes his book will inspire Greeks that a better future is possible. He wants his book to be read widely by students, executives of Greek companies, and Greek citizens. His message is that it is possible to build advanced technologies in Greece, where scientists and engineers will be paid high salaries. He does not want........