In 1982, Australian philosopher Frank Jackson proposed the following scenario: Mary, a brilliant neuroscientist, has only ever seen the world through a black and white lens. She has lived in a black and white room her entire life, and she is only ever able to study the world through a black and white television screen. Despite this, she knows everything there is to know about the science of how color works. She knows all about how light travels into the eye and to the retina and how the various wavelengths represent various colors; not the mention all knowledge on the subject that is yet to be discovered. Johnson asked the question: If Mary was suddenly able to see color, would she learn anything new from that experience? In both my and Johnson’s opinion, the answer is yes.
This thought experiment became known as “The Mary’s Room Thought Experiment,” and it was originally meant to challenge the theory of physicalism, which states that all knowledge can be reduced to physical knowledge. However, I believe that in the coming years, it will become increasingly relevant as AI, or Artificial Intelligence, begins to take over human roles in fields where humans are most essential.
In particular, the sudden emergence of an AI actress, Tilly Norwood, has sent shockwaves through Hollywood and beyond. The creation of Norwood has recieved backlash from many celebrity actors, including Emma Thompson, Whoopi Goldberg, and even Emily Blunt. “Good Lord, we’re screwed,” Blunt said in a recent interview, “That is really, really scary. Come on, agencies, don’t do that. Please stop. Please stop taking away our human connection.”
“The Mary’s Room Thought Experiment” describes what is known in philosophy as “The Knowledge Argument,” or the argument that claims that there are truths in the world that can only be deduced through consciousness, and that these truths cannot become physical (e.g., put into words). And if you ask me, this has everything to do with AI, and everything to do with Norwood.
Take, for example, grocery shopping. An AI system such as Norwood can learn everything there is to know about grocery shopping. It can study hundreds of thousands of clips of real life people grocery shopping. It can learn all the different emotions that can occur while grocery shopping, how these emotions work and how they show on a person’s face. But at the end of the day, the AI has not really gone grocery shopping, has it?
In my opinion, there is an immense difference between knowing every single thing about how falling in love works and actually consciously falling in love with someone. I believe this is what makes Emily Blunt so good at her job. She does not need to know all the inner workings of falling in love to perform a film in which the act occurs. She already knows enough purely from her own conscious experience with it. Furthermore, I do not think that human actors will go down without a fight. Many of these people have dedicated their lives to this art. If any acting agency even dares to sign Norwood, as Van Der Velden claims they are trying to do, it runs the risk of losing these human actors who so clearly oppose this new development.
As fast as AI is advancing, and it is certainly advancing fast, I personally believe it will never be able to replace human actors because of this severe lacking. That is, of course, unless scientists miraculously figure out a way to give AI a conscious. At this point, anything truly is possible.
