Episode Notes

My thoughts on the use of AI in archaeology and in general.

Hello and Welcome to Conversations With Cassi. I’m Cassi, the host of the show.

Today, in scrolling through news feeds, I came across an article that stated AI would possibly be replacing archaeology as a profession. This is based on the fact that supposedly, an AI program has discovered "an unidentified Human ancestor", and in reading the article what I found is that AI basically or more accurately this AI program run by several DNA Labs has basically caught up with human knowledge.

AI has not found anything that at least I as an independent researcher didn't already know. See, there is a cave in Siberia that is considered the origin of our discovery Denisovans as an ancestor to modern-day, man. One of the great finds, in this cave in Siberia, are the bones of a child, whose parents were one of Denisovian ancestry and one of Neanderthal ancestry.

In analysis of the DNA of other individuals, not specifically in the Denisovian research area, but in the general Siberian area, there has been discovered the DNA of an as yet unidentified ancestor to the human population. And this residual DNA has survived all the way through to modern man and just as most of us have roughly 3% Neanderthal DNA within our own genes, we've also discovered that there are those in Asia and other places, Nepal, Tibet, the higher elevations being a higher preponderance of individuals who have specific Denisovan DNA still within their gene pool.

Pacific Islanders and South Asians have a third ancient ancestor's DNA still present within current gene pools. We have not identified the identity of this unknown ancestor. We had no finds, so far this ancestor in its original or pure form. So to claim that AI is somehow going to steal away the position of archaeology, I find reprehensible.

First and foremost, as I stated originally, this AI program merely discovered the same thing that human researchers already knew, secondly, I will be upfront and honest, I'm not a fan of AI for a multitude of reasons. The first, I do not believe that we need absolutely any other reason, excuse, justification, or mechanism to make humans any stupider than they have already become. An article the other day stated that the average IQ of people today is 85 to 110. Uhm, 85 is actually mentally challenged, so for that to now be considered normal IQ proves that we have not gotten smarter in the last three or four generations. We have gotten dumber. When I was a child the average IQ for an average individual was 100 to 120, to be considered anything special at all you had to have an IQ over 120, to be considered a genius you had to have an IQ over 140. We keep lowering standards, so that we can keep telling kids that they're better than the adults. We're deluding them. We're deluding ourselves and AI does not help with that. AI actually, encourages that. We have leaders in education that state that we no longer need to actually teach knowledge to students, to children; all we need to teach them is how to find the knowledge, how to use Google, how to use AI, how to use GPS.

You have kids that do not know how to do math if they're handed pencil and paper, because, they were taught only how to do math using a calculator. We have children that have no idea how to actually use a map to get from point A to point B, because I have a cell phone with GPS. What happens if there's a catastrophe that destroys technology? That knocks out all satellite communication? There go GPSes, so how will people get to and from places with no GPS? Because that's what they're being taught to navigate with these days.

Another thing is AI poses some very scary side effects. Now you can argue all you want to that AI has at its foundation three basic, supposedly unbreakable rules. And the first, of these unbreakable rules, is that any creation that is based on AI cannot harm a human. Yet, what happens when AI has to make a choice to harm a human in order to save a human? How will AI make that choice? Hypothetically speaking, it should be made using alogrithims, built into the AI system. No heart. No soul. No emotion. No humanity. Just logic, reason, and math would determine the AI's following of this tenet to harm no human.

In our own world, as humans, we have unforgivable sins. Sins that should never ever be committed and if they are they are never to be forgiven. Yet, those sins have been committed, numerous times. So who's to say that as AI develops, AI doesn't decide that there are exceptions to the rule? That those three unbreakable rules, that humans have imposed on AI, are not valid, not logical, not rational. There's nothing to prevent AI from reaching a point where it violates its sacred rules, just like humans.

And if we're trying to create AI to be the perfect human, we ought to realize that not even God created the perfect creature. Look at how flawed humans are. So what makes us, as flawed individuals, think that we can create something better than us? We can't! And the fact that we're even trying, shows how ignorant we are about such matters.

AI should absolutely never replace any profession. AI should be limited to being nothing more than some advanced controls, on machines, used, operated, and controlled by humans, in order to do a job. AI should never have even a very limited free range on any level, the ramifications and the possibilities, however, slim AI people want to claim that they are, are much much to great.

Look at the logic here; if you flip this around to pharmaceutical industries, we require in the United States, for sure, and I believe in Europe, as well, but in the United States, it is mandatory, mandatory, for a child to have a chickenpox vaccination to attend public school. Chickenpox, a childhood disease that basically has a nil mortality rate. Nil. You know why, because the only way that you can die from chickenpox, which by the way is not technically dying from chickenpox, is if the caregiver for the individual with chickenpox uses aspirin as a fever reducer, which creates an allergic reaction within the individual suffering chickenpox. And the result is actually Rye syndrome and it's rye syndrome that kills the patient, not chicken pox.

Not to mention, that supposedly Science is so hell-bent on evolution, as being the Enigma of our existence. Yet, they do nothing but meddle in it. Viruses and bacteria is such as chicken pox, Scarlet fever, polio, measles, mumps, Rubella, those were balancing agents within nature. They ensured that the healthiest individuals survived in the group and that the population was contained at a sustainable level. Messing with it, and increasing the population to an out-of-balance proportion, which it is in certain locations, that is evident in a poverty rate of different regions of the world and that exists primarily due to overpopulation. Whether, the overpopulation is current, or in recent history, which totally devastated the environment and left the current, which would have been sustainable population, in poverty due to having no remaining natural resources. So playing God across the board, has not been a good idea at all.

Look at improved agriculture that has devastated species in the Amazon, in Asia, and the South Pacific. Deforestation has wiped out species that haven't even been discovered yet. Dozens of species a day are lost in the Amazon due to what? Oh, slash-and-burn, so that we can do what, all that's right, so that we can be better humans by living off of soybeans. Yet those individuals, whose lifestyle includes a high consumption of soybeans and their various by-products, want to slam someone for eating a cow?

The cow was allowed to live and continue on as a species even though it was consumed by someone who isn't as holy and self-righteous as the individual with the soybeans. Yet, they see no hypocrisy in the fact that they have wiped out millions of species that have never even been discovered. There are countless number of plants with amazing healing properties that have been destroyed, as well, for the same sake. So if we are such poor Divine players, in things that we've already screwed up, what makes us think that we can get AI right? Or that AI needs to replace any human occupation and certainly not something as important to all of us as archaeology, anthropology, and history. Those all require a human touch, a human component.

Why? Because it's the study of ourselves. And we need to be ourselves in order to understand ourselves and AI just doesn't cut it, and if AI reaches the point where it does cut it, again, the ramifications will not be worth it on any level at all.

Thank you for joining us. Keep your curiosity dusted off. Don't replace it with something like GPS and AI; because, the brain is the most perfect super computer ever created. Don't forget that! Until next time, this is Cassi. Have a great day.

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