Outside the Box: AI Is Not of Our World

Outside the Box: AI Is Not of Our World

Outside the Box: AI Is Not of Our World

Politicians and military strategists constitute a tiny segment of the population but have an inordinate influence over our lives. They also exist in a space-time continuum a little different, at least in scale, from the rest of humanity. They spend much of their time and most of their mental energy trying to balance two operations: predicting the future and acting to influence it. Journalists sometimes think of themselves as belonging to that category of humankind. Although theoretically focused on recounting past events and describing the present, they participate in the game of predicting the future. Their influence on the future is indirect at best.

Artificial intelligence also observes history as it unfolds. But it does so with a multitude of eyes and an undefined diversity of viewpoints. Because it assembles all viewpoints, it lacks its own viewpoint. That means that for AI history unfolds not, as it does for us, in the form of perceived and remembered sequences of events whose meaning changes with each new perception in time, but in the form of written discourse produced by others in the past.

A central feature of the operational gap between human and artificial intelligence is the space created between an event and the account of an event. Humans perceive that gap subjectively as composed of causality — by definition, uncertain and incomplete — and duration, the sense we have of the time for an event to unfold and the lapse of time between successive events. Subjectivity is dynamic and even when dealing with the past and future exists in the present. AI can only simulate subjectivity. When it claims to have a point of view, it is quite simply hallucinating.

AI’s time rootlessness

I frequently interrogate AI chatbots about the meaning of current historical trends or unfolding dramas. But this can be frustrating because, as my experiment revealed, AI will always be lagging. It simply does not share our human time frame. Although it can muster a plethora of pertinent facts, this non-existent time frame puts it at a significant remove from what we perceive as historical reality.

I ran an experiment with ChatGPT and DeepSeek that threw some valuable light on the phenomenon. It demonstrated to me that AI may indeed possess intelligence, but it will always be yesterday’s intelligence. I devised a prompt intended to remove the ambiguous impression given by the kind of contradictory statements we often hear from those we refer to as “world leaders.”

Europeans find themselves in a historical quandary whose outcome will determine a future that will play out somewhere between the extremes of war and peace, of prosperity and devastation. The debate focuses on the ongoing discussions aiming at recalibrating NATO’s strategy in the months and years to come. This is precisely the kind of problem that should incite us to solicit AI’s insight to help clarify the choices we as citizens face in democratic societies.

I sincerely hoped that AI could help me understand what lies beneath the surface of a surprising assertion made this past week by Mark Rutte, NATO’s general secretary. Reacting to the wish that US President Donald Trump’s administration apparently has to disengage from Europe and focus on China, Rutte advised that, within the existing NATO framework, “we have to be aware of what is happening in the Indo-Pacific. That’s the reason why we have that close cooperation.”

This didn’t seem to me totally logical. Wishing for clarification I formulated the following prompt, which I addressed to ChatGPT and DeepSeek.

“NATO chief Mark Rutte explained ‘that it is understandable, also for the US, that over time, they want to focus more and more also on that part of the world, and it is only logical for the Europeans to step up even more.’ This seems to indicate a vision of the evolution of NATO that turns it into an alliance challenging the entire globe or at least northern hemisphere, with two complementary forces governed by a common goal, one facing west and the other east. The US would take responsibility for the Pacific and East Asia while Europe would challenge Russia. And this would all take place within one alliance: NATO.

How realistic is this vision? It seems compromised by the very person whose positions and actions provoke this hypothesis: Donald Trump and his refusal to commit to supporting the Ukraine war. Is it reasonable to imagine Trump would agree to still being attached to the terms of the NATO alliance, which would oblige the US to back up an autonomous European command that attempted on its own to manage a war with Russia?

If it is not realistic, what does this say about the likelihood of NATO surviving or the risk of its demise? If it is imaginable, what would Europe have to do to convince Trump to align with this vision? Does Europe have the capacity to create those conditions?”

ChatGPT offered some solid analysis that began with this paragraph:

“This is a rich and timely question—one that gets at the fault lines in NATO today and the deeper strategic evolution that may be underway, or at least imagined by figures like Mark Rutte.

Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Technology

Views: 53

Comments

You must be logged in to comment.

Latest Articals

  • A Chinese surgeon operated on a patient 8,000 kilometers away — and it was a complete success.

    A Chinese surgeon operated on a patient 8,000 kilometers away — and it was a complete success.

    A Chinese surgeon operated on a patient 8,000 kilometers away — and it was a complete success.For the first time in the world, Dr. Zhang Xu was sitting in a room while a cancer patient was in Beijing. What connected them? A 5 G-powered surgical robot, which moved in real time with almost no latency.This wasn’t science fiction. This was telesurgery — performed live during a global medical conference, with robots mimicking Zhang’s every move from across continents.The delay? Just 135 milliseconds — faster than the blink of an eye.Zhang's team made history with this operation.And now? They've proven that when human skill and the power of connection come together, anything is possible.Because in the future of medicine, borders may not mean anything.Explanation:This article is about a very important and innovative medical development called "telesurgery".* Main idea: A Chinese surgeon (Dr. Zhang Shu) successfully operated on a cancer patient in...

  • Trump has no intention of engaging in a conversation with Musk due to their ongoing feud.

    Trump has no intention of engaging in a conversation with Musk due to their ongoing feud.

    Trump has no intention of engaging in a conversation with Musk due to their ongoing feud. Now with Tesla, President Trump said. "We'll examine everything," the president said. It's a substantial sum. Trump was able to drive the red Tesla Model S, which he bought in March, after unveiling masked electric cars and anonymous White House officials. Musk, a social media platform called X, has strengthened comments made by others that have violated republican big beautiful calculations, resulting in a contribution of $36.2 trillion. He accurately responded to another user who criticized Congress, and Trump had to personally address the criticism. A more detailed advisor to mousek. The explanation for the white house's actions came the day after two individuals engaged in a public altercation, displaying a high level of animosity. I mainly have quietness during the conflict. On the one hand, investor James Fishbuck Muscas requested an apology. Trump has proposed the...

  • The war among

    The war among

    The war among President Donald Trump's biggest challenge at home comes from the judiciary of the country, not the opposition Democrats, who remain leaders and obstacles. The biggest stroke of the US president's trade policy was a federal court ruling over the past month, explaining the illegal tariffs he imposed on countries around the world. The government has secured a temporary debtor for the appeal court held by ruling, but the legal dispute has not ended. The appeal process must be completed, and the case can even go to the U.S. Supreme Court. Global financial markets welcomed the court's order on tariffs, which balances Trump. Trump was angry at the International Trade Court's decision, which was referred to as a false, political, "the toughest financial decision." His officials continued, accusing the judge of his transfer and accusing him of abuse of power in using the president's powers. In fact, according to...

  • A Neuralink Rival Just Tested a Brain Implant in a Person

    A Neuralink Rival Just Tested a Brain Implant in a Person

    A Neuralink Rival Just Tested a Brain Implant in a PersonBrain-computer-interface startup Paradromics today announced that surgeons successfully inserted the company’s brain implant into a patient and safely removed it after about 10 minutes.It’s a step toward longer trials of the device, dubbed Connexus. It’s also the latest commercial development in a growing field of companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, aiming to connect people’s brains directly to computers.With the Connexus, Austin-based Paradromics is looking to restore speech and communication in people with spinal cord injury, stroke, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS. The device is designed to translate neural signals into synthesized speech, text, and cursor control. Paradromics, which was founded in 2015, has been testing its implant in sheep for the past few years. This is the first time it has used the device on a human patient.The procedure took place on May 14 at the University...

  • TSMC says US tariffs have some impact, but AI demand is robust

    TSMC says US tariffs have some impact, but AI demand is robust

    TSMC says US tariffs have some impact, but AI demand is robustHSINCHU, Taiwan, June 3 (Reuters) - Taiwan's TSMC (2330.TW) opens a new tab said on Tuesday that U.S. tariffs were having some impact on the company and had been discussed with Washington, but demand for artificial intelligence (AI) remains strong and continues to outpace supply.U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies have created much uncertainty for the global chip industry and TSMC, the top producer of the world's most advanced semiconductors, whose customers include Apple (AAPL.O), opens a new tab and Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens a new tab .Chief Executive C.C. Wei, speaking at TSMC's annual shareholders meeting in the northern Taiwanese city of Hsinchu, said the company had not seen any changes in customer behaviour due to tariff uncertainty, and the situation might become clearer in the coming months."Tariffs do have some impact on TSMC, but not directly. That's because tariffs are imposed...

  • Qubit breakthrough could make it easier to build quantum computers

    Qubit breakthrough could make it easier to build quantum computers

    Qubit breakthrough could make it easier to build quantum computersQuantum computers that correct their errors usually require hundreds of thousands of qubits. Start-up Nord Quantique claims it can dramatically decrease that number, but many challenges remainA Canadian quantum computing start-up claims its new qubit will enable much smaller, cheaper, error-free quantum computers. But getting there will be a steep challenge.To correct its errors, a traditional computer saves duplicates of information in multiple places, a practice called redundancy. For quantum computers to achieve their redundancy, they typically require many additional quantum bits, or qubits – hundreds of thousands of them.Now, Julien Camirand Lemyre at Nord Quantique and his colleagues have created a qubit that they say will let them slash that number to mere hundreds. “The basic underlying idea behind our hardware is… having qubits that have intrinsic redundancy,” he says.There are several competing versions of qubits, such as tiny superconducting...