On being smart, or not

Aeon magazine has an intriguing essay about why we fear A.I. and smart robots, looking at how intelligence has been used for good and ill over the years. Cambridge’s Steven Cave writes:

”The notion that intelligence could determine one’s station in life … runs like a red thread through Western thought, from the philosophy of Plato to the policies of UK prime minister Theresa May. To say that someone is or is not intelligent is … always also a judgment on what they are permitted to do. Intelligence, in other words, is political.

“Sometimes, this is sensible: we want doctors, engineers and rulers who are not stupid. But it has a dark side. As well as determining what a person can do, their intelligence – or putative lack of it – has been used to decide what others can do to them. Throughout Western history, those deemed less intelligent have, as a consequence of that judgment, been colonised, enslaved, sterilised and murdered (and indeed eaten, if we include non-human animals in our reckoning).”

Hmm. Thoughts? Email rrollins@coxohio.com.

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