What is the definition of life in the future? Where is the boundary between humans and AI?

In a future society where the lines between humans and machines are blurring due to advances in artificial intelligence, a new definition of life is needed. The movie “Ghost in the Shell” explores the side effects and potential dangers of unpredictable technology.

 

While the precise definition of life is still highly debated, broadly speaking, the most important characteristics that must be included are the ability to react to, adapt to, and reproduce in the external environment. Despite their seeming simplicity, these criteria make it possible to distinguish the living things that we take for granted from the many non-living things around us. If you ask elementary school students to point to a rock they picked up off the street and a potted flower and ask them which is a living thing, they will point to the flower because these criteria have been learned and embedded in our minds. The definition of life has changed steadily over time. Before Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which is less than 200 years old, humans had never thought about the evolution of life. However, this remarkable achievement in the mid-1800s led to a rethinking of life that has gone down in scientific history and has had far-reaching effects on not only biology but also philosophy and sociology.
Despite its short runtime of 80 minutes, Ghost in the Shell hinted at another big impact to come, one that would rival Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in shaking up the way we think about life. Humans have long tried to emulate what we see in nature, and after many years of research and experimentation, they have succeeded in creating technologies such as airplanes. Research into “artificial intelligence,” the ultimate goal of these endeavors, is still not at a satisfactory stage, but compared to a decade ago, it has come a long way. The movie is based on a society with highly advanced artificial intelligence technology, and I think it asks the question of what can happen when human-made objects are able to think on their own and even become beings that create new changes on their own.
Humans carrying electronic brains in their heads, developed to be efficient in the future, and other humans maliciously manipulating them and feeding them misinformation. For humans who define and recognize themselves through their memories and interactions with the beings around them, like the janitor whose memories are manipulated in the film, if memories can be manipulated and behavior can be controlled by programs, has the object lost the right to be called a human being anymore? Mamoru Oshii focuses on the unpredictability that is an inevitable side effect of increasingly complex and sophisticated technology, pointing out the problems that may arise in the future society and hinting at the birth of new “life forms” that may arise in the future.
Is there any way to prevent these unintended ‘new life forms’ in advance? In programming, we often use the term “bug,” which simply means an outcome that is unexpected by the author. If you program a calculator and divide a certain number by zero, you will get an error, and programming to anticipate bugs like this is the most important virtue for creating a highly reliable program. However, today’s programs are more complex, and it’s becoming increasingly impossible for authors to predict all potential bugs in programs used in AI. Unpredictable errors literally mean that you never know what the outcome will be, and these problems can compound, resulting in a program that “defies human control” at some point. And this is what the puppeteer in the movie becomes.
The animation is based on a pre-existing comic book, so the creator probably had a basic understanding of programming. This is because the popular perception of computer programs is that they are accurate and fast, whereas this film shows the fatal weaknesses and potential problems that exist within them. While films such as “Gattaca” and “AI” have raised the dangers of genetically engineered or cloned humans, I believe that “Ghost in the Shell” presents a new paradigm for understanding the limitations of seemingly accurate “high technology” and the life it can create.
Networks developed for the purpose of making human life easier. And at this very moment, there is a lot of data and programs being transmitted within them. In just a few decades, we’ve come to the point where the human race is connected by nothing more than a computer. Eventually, we will be able to unlock the principles of the human brain and apply them to create programs, meaning that we will be able to create something with our own hands that has the ability to think for itself and to be creative, which are the most distinguishing characteristics of human beings. And that program will learn and adapt to existing vaccines and other restrictions, just as humans do to the external environment, resulting in a “smart program” that no amount of countermeasures can prevent forever, and will exist on the network forever. Just as existing organisms grow by interacting with the external environment and eventually reproduce and disappear by mixing their own genes with those of other individuals, programs in the network will mix their core information with other programs to create new programs and disappear, and what will be the criteria to distinguish them from us?
I personally think that in the distant future, what we see in the movies could happen. Furthermore, I think it is possible that a truly human-made program (although it will be too complex and sophisticated to be called a program) will be able to refuse human commands, become self-aware, and stand on equal footing with humans. But I’m cautious about making any claims at this point. Because even if technology is misused in ways we don’t expect and causes harm, the eternal human quest to satisfy our intellectual curiosity will continue. There are potential problems with AI, but at this point, they are still in the distant future. The world in the movie is difficult to comprehend by today’s standards, and serious problems could arise, but the point I want to make at this point is that humanity should continue to advance science and technology as we have been doing. I think the girl at the end of the movie, who is a combination of a puppeteer and a major, can be recognized as a life form in terms of diversity. Of course, the shock when it first appears is enormous, but I think it’s not necessarily a bad thing, and I think we can adapt and coexist.
In the movie, there are crimes and phenomena that are hard to predict now, but I don’t think we need to be afraid of them. Although it is an irresponsible conclusion, I think that humans in the future will be able to adapt to new environments and conditions just as we do today and have a compromising relationship with new life forms. However, I think that recognizing and accepting new “mutations” is essential for human progress.