Today Artificial Intelligence is a recurring theme, for obvious reasons. Its use is more and more frequent, and for this reason all discussions always end with the same question: Will AI completely replace humans in the future?

My answer to that question will always be the same: Never! Unless robots/machines become sentient, they will never become human. And not only because they don’t belong to the human species, but because they’re not endowed with their own intelligence and articulate language. These devices will always rely on humans to input the data they need to do whatever they’ve been assigned to do.

Robots have been used for decades in industry, but there have always been humans building them and programming their functions. And those that supposedly “think” always use knowledge and/or information provided by humans to reach some conclusion.

Some will say that we already have machines doing surgery, but to what extent are they able to actually perform the procedure without a human doctor present? What about future scientific discoveries? Will AIs be able to identify something new on their own, or will they always rely on a human to provide the information?

And when it comes to art, it’s even harder to accept the idea that one day it will be feasible for AI to take our place. Today it’s possible for AI to “create” diverse forms of art: digital paintings, digital drawings, and books, to name a few. But it needs to use, and be “trained” on, data that includes virtually everything that has ever been published (by humans), and that information must be available in a database created by humans. Also, this borders on plagiarism, since the AI will always have to use references from artistic works that already exist.

But let’s go to a practical example that I always propose in this kind of discussion. I’m going to ask an AI to create a story about a robot vacuum cleaner that has become sentient and taken it upon itself to save the world. However, the AI will not be allowed to use any databases; it will instead have to create the story from its own ideas. Well, I’m sure it won’t even be able to write the title, let alone a complete story that has any coherence.

This suggestion of mine is the opening plot of the series “The Toilet Bot Diaries” by Gerhard Dennis, where a cleaning robot named Cloacina accidentally becomes sentient, but due to lack of human supervision cannot distinguish fact from fiction. (A little aside: I totally recommend reading it, starting with the first entry, “Cloacina Maxima”.)

Every time someone uses AI to “create” something artistic, it is always necessary to make several adjustments for the result to be at least satisfactory. Of course, we humans don’t have the same speed or access to as much of the information available in cyberspace; but do we really need all of that to create our art?

Even though I write fiction, I do a lot of research on the theme(s) contained in the story, to be used as reference material. But the most important thing is: I created the plot, the characters, the dialogues, etc. It’s my story, my universe. An AI will never have this creative capacity, even using all the data available in the world.

My point is, is an AI really smart, or is it just an accessory to help people to get things done faster? Or worse, it might just be a means that people use to circumvent their own inability to create something new by themselves. To me, there’s no substitute for human intelligence. And I believe there never will be.

What do you guys think? Do you agree or disagree with me? I’m curious to know. Leave your comments.