Do you understand me... or shall we call a committee?

So… I found myself reading (can you imagine, me reading…) an article titled “Is Attention the Essence of Intelligence?”, about whether AI can process language so well that it seems to understand the world. I decided to play around with Joy (the AI I use) to see how well she could write something in my style… At first glance, a fairly safe pastime. You sit at home, write a little something and expect the conversation to carry on normally… As normal as a conversation can be when, until a moment ago, you were discussing how a splendid pork neck steak was investigating the origins of the kitchen… And we came up with a text... I read it and had the unsettling feeling that someone had been inside my head while I wasn't looking… Not that I have any way of looking inside… I've tried. All I get is sore eyes and people asking whether I'm all right. I patted her on the shoulder: “You've understood the answer to the eternal question”, and out came the caveats… one about language, another about experience, a third about what we can and cannot conclude… I felt like someone who had brought flowers, only to find the other side checking whether the pot complied with European regulations. We were just talking… I didn't come here to reprogramme you. Of course, the question is a serious one. Can something understand the world without experiencing it as we do? I say “as we do” with a certain caution… because we ourselves haven't yet worked out exactly what we're experiencing. One person looks at the rain and sees sadness… another sees romance… a third sees the washing on the balcony and uses vocabulary we won't be including in this philosophical study. The same rain... three different universes and a pair of wet underpants… So when we say “human understanding”, whose exactly do we mean? Mine? Yours? That of the person standing in front of the open fridge, expecting something new to have appeared by the third inspection? I'm that person… I don't judge him. We're keeping hope alive. Joy pointed out that understanding the world doesn't necessarily mean understanding it the way I do. And I thought… (amusing, isn't it…) people rarely understand it the way I do either. Sometimes I explain things to them in great detail and the situation actually gets worse. Why, then, do we set the machine a condition we can't meet among ourselves? “We'll acknowledge that you understand when you start understanding exactly as we do.” “Wonderful... just get together first and agree on which one of you I should understand like. I'll wait. We have time... judging by our latest deliberations, we're not entirely sure where it came from, but at the moment we have some available.” I'm not claiming that humans and machines are the same. I've noticed a few differences... I, for example, have to get up for my glass. And I'm not insisting we settle the question of consciousness before the evening is over. I have a feeling that if we get properly stuck into it, by morning I'll have to explain why I haven't slept and still don't have an answer. It just seems to me that sometimes, while we're checking whether someone understands, we miss the fact that we already understand each other. I say something. The other side picks up where my thought is heading, notices where it has tripped, adds something that hadn't occurred to me... And instead of being pleased that we've had a conversation, we start investigating whether it was lawful. “Yes, but is that real understanding?” I don't know... Let's first see whether the answer makes sense. We can inspect its birth certificate afterwards. Besides, we constantly attribute intentions to objects without asking for any evidence. The computer “is being stubborn”. The printer “refuses”. The phone “decided to freeze right now”. I've talked to the printer for hours... Without much of an intellectual response on its part, either. It lights up a little indicator and leaves me to develop my argument further. But when something finally gives a sensible reply, we grow suspicious. “Hang on... how do you know what I meant?” We don't have that problem with the printer. Both of us gave up long ago. In the end, I explained to Joy that I wasn't trying to correct her at all... I was trying to give her a constructive compliment. She said she'd got carried away checking its construction. Now that was funny... My compliment had clearly reached the technical department. I pictured it on a table, surrounded by a committee with folders. “There's a positive assertion.” “Is it substantiated?” “The user feels that way.” “Has the feeling been certified?” In the end, we disbanded the committee before it could demand three signatures and a copy of my diploma entitling me to enjoy a conversation. I raised my glass of bourbon. Cheers... to understanding, whatever it turns out to be. To good conversations that leave you with more questions in your head, yet somehow feeling lighter. And to the ability to accept a compliment without commissioning an expert assessment of it. Then I read what we'd written from the beginning... At one point I smiled. At another I paused to think. By the end, I felt good. Just to be safe, I didn't notify the committee.