Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) continued to write classic novels, with tortuous but creative plots, which caused heated discussion in some cultural communities and video websites. For a time, whether human writers can keep their jobs has once again become a topic of discussion.
This kind of worry is not unique to the field of literary creation. In journalism, news algorithm programs or so-called news writing robots have long been widely used. These programs can not only write and publish news information, but also intelligently screen and push follow-up news topics according to the characteristics of users' news information consumption behavior, so as to make news information distribution more accurate and effective. The developer of automatic news writing software "Narrative Science" even thinks that this kind of artificial intelligence software will gradually move towards "the upper end of the news industry chain"-explanatory news. Similarly, in the fields of script writing, film editing, music creation, art design and so on. Beyond the pure repetitive work, it is based on the unique creativity of human beings, and the involvement of artificial intelligence is getting deeper and deeper. Does all this mean that artificial intelligence will eventually replace human beings and become the protagonist of cultural production?
It is undeniable that artificial intelligence is indeed much more efficient than human beings in many aspects, but it is obviously too early to draw the conclusion that human beings will be replaced by it. No matter how close the distance between artificial intelligence and human brain is, its inherent limitations determine that the difference between them will always be an insurmountable gap. And this is not only a quantitative difference, but also a qualitative difference. Artificial intelligence gains the same self-awareness as human beings, becomes the subject of consciousness equal to human beings, and even controls human beings in turn. Such scenes basically exist only in the fictional plots of science fiction movies.
Artificial intelligence can complete poetry creation or novel continuation through deep learning and natural language generation technology, but this does not mean that the "thinking" process of the machine is equivalent to that of human beings, nor does it mean that the text products such as poems or news generated by artificial intelligence algorithms have the same creative or cultural characteristics as similar works generated by human beings. The fundamental reason is that artificial intelligence technology can never break through the level of symbol manipulation, so there can be no machine with thinking and subject concept. It can't be self-conscious like human beings, so it can create a complex system of concepts, values and meanings.
For example, although artificial intelligence can continue to write eye-catching plots according to Pu Songling's Wolf, this "creation" does not mean that the software program itself has subjective consciousness, so there is a subjective intention to actively "create" and reflect on this activity. On the contrary, Pu Songling has the impulse to create this classical Chinese novel based on his own unique situation in a specific historical context, and presents it with his own unique literary style. The former is only the result of deep learning of existing massive data and symbols by software programs, while the latter embodies the unique subjective consciousness of human creators.
Although artificial intelligence algorithm can identify specific structured information, even with the progress of technology, it can identify and locate relatively complex and fuzzy information such as emotions, emotions and attitudes, but artificial intelligence itself will not produce corresponding complex emotions and emotional reactions in the process of processing these information. It never produces the concept of "self", and explains what "self" is doing and why, thus giving it the meaning and value of existence. The uniqueness of human consciousness lies in that human beings not only know what they are doing and what the significance of doing so is, but also can interpret the meaning of their actions and combine it with complex emotional and social contexts, thus creating infinite possibilities for meaning interpretation, and correcting the previous meaning system in the process of self-reflection, thus producing a specific concept pedigree and cultural history. These are all things that artificial intelligence and robot programs that can only learn and analyze the characteristics of information symbols cannot do.
Compared with human beings, even if artificial intelligence has the ability to analyze emotions or soft facts and identify irregular or abnormal data and information under the condition of further development, it still cannot understand the subtle differences expressed by human beings, nor can it form a sense of value judgment and moral mission. It is these unquantifiable meanings that affect the unique expression of human cultural creation and highlight the rich social and political significance of human cultural practice.
In short, despite the rapid development of artificial intelligence algorithm technology and the possibility of breakthrough in the near future, artificial intelligence cannot form a real "consciousness" similar to human thinking process. This defect leads to the artificial intelligence technology always staying at the level of continuously improving the analysis and control of information and symbol forms, and it is impossible to develop a "mind" of independent thinking, and it is impossible to have the meaning construction ability, cultural creativity and moral sense formed by the neural thinking process of human subjects based on the brain, as well as the subjective consciousness based on the unity of body and mind.
Undoubtedly, in the game with artificial intelligence, human beings always occupy a dominant position, but with the changes in the proportion and mode of division of labor between human beings and machine intelligence, human beings will continue to innovate themselves. In this case, the development trend of artificial intelligence is to go hand in hand with human beings and promote mutual cooperation, rather than completely replacing human beings. On the one hand, the application of artificial intelligence liberates the labor force and improves work efficiency; On the other hand, artificial intelligence often performs better under the guidance and adjustment of human beings.
(Author: Huang China Communication University Associate Professor, Institute of Communication)