An Anthropological look at the World

On March 27, 2021,  The Wall Street Journal carried an article by Lisa Ward reporting on the discussion between AI researchers and Therapists focused on the question: "Can AI make mental-health treatment more accessible?"

This article points to a real problem facing humankind that requires an anthropological study and debate. AI machines are NOT humans. It may replace Humans, taking advantages of the distinctions and evolving to fill many of the roles considered too dangerous for human animals. Just as in Nature, human evolution has adapted to the context in which events occur and a drive toward efficiency. Efficiency is measured by the numbers. The number is determined by the rate and volume of reproduction over time. 

H. G. Wells was on target in the "Time Machine". He envisioned the evolution of the human animal and the AI machine with his characters of the Eloi and Morlocks. Two species will evolve, each filling a different ecological niche but tied together by a common origin and distinguished by different functions.

As pointed out in the article -- AI is being used as a method for discovering ways to identify and treat human mental health problems. But when machines begin to perform human functions, what is left to being human, or for that matter, distinguish the animal from the machine?

AI researchers and human psychological therapists must wonder what happens when AI is designed to mimic and adapt to more animal-like means of independence -- such self-containment, self replication, and mobility? But most of all, complete "self-awareness"?

Do they change into an alternative to the human animal? Does self-awareness mean the AI device is now part of its environment, rather than just an instrument to measure it? Will they or can they become the trainer of the human animal or the environmental threat to the human animal?

AI may learn to domesticate humans in the same manner that humans have domesticated many lower animal species. Some of these as work animals, some as food animals, and others as "emotional support" animals. Of course, the latter assumes AI will develop "emotions of empathy." That is, can and will AI replace humans at the top of the evolution chain. Interesting article! How and when will we know it happened?

The question is: How does it relate to anthropology?

Specialization is something that has come to the human species slowly. The past two hundred years has seen the rapid radiation (expansion and diversification) in society. This has been created by our increase in knowledge leading to technology and leading to human specialization in activities. It is in this context that we must view the raise of AI as both the benefits and the tensions between the haves and the have nots. What will be the anthropological impact of AI on Society and Culture?

Nature has evolved through a matter of layering from the single cell to the complex integration of cells  that form an individual organism. Anthony F. C. Wallace has identified two key processes which drive the integration of the individual (the bio- psychology evolution) and society (collective cultural evolution) of the human species, (Wallace 1961 ). These are The organization of diversity and uniformity of replication. 

Raised to the macro-level of the universe, these process suggests that evolution takes place through two processes: Individual replication and environmental diversity.

The first operates on an individual life-cycle basis with the replication of uniformity, within the current conditions and constraints of the event environment. The replication of uniformity, which is a time limited variable, is the tension between cloning the original vs. the statistical differential between clones within the population group. This latter affects the rate of individual traits within the environment. The replication of uniformity is like the odds in a game of cards, e.g. getting four of a kind in poker or making a  grand slam in bridge in no trump.

The second level, the organization of diversity is domain sensitive. That is, do the physical and/or cultural elements produce an organizational unity or chaos.  The former works within the critical uniformity of the organization's population (society's statuses) and the latter in the transmission of content (roles) that favors the organization of diverse statuses that society requires to survive in a stable environment. The organization of diversity is a variable limited by the degree of compatibility. It is the difference between dumping the puzzle out of the box (chaos) and the assembled puzzle (organization of uniformity).

Non-life becomes life, but that does not stop non-life from forming. In fact, "life" depends upon it. Life builds on non-life in specific contexts and not in others. Life itself is the story of this layering over time on this planet.

An example I witness in my own backyard is the Oak Tree, every three years it seems to have an abundance of acorns (replication). This is a time of plenty for the replication Oaks in the form of acorns.  But it also creates an abundance of food for squirrels this year. And more acrones being buried by squirrels increases the chance for more young shoots appearing next year.

Meanwhile, more buried acorns also means that more squirrels survive the winter and to reproduce next spring. These added squirrels make available more food to be prayed upon by the fox and coyote in the second year. This, in turn, means more foxes and coyotes will be replicated to survive the winter and be born in the spring. Meanwhile the oak trees are now just beginning their third year of of the cycle, and producing an abundance of new acorns. This mass replication will be seen next year in the number of squirrels, etc, etc.. 

The cycle of oaks, squirrels, and fox/coyote is the layering. This is the layering of  acorns, grazers, and predictors in nature. What will be the layering of humans and AI is the anthropological question?

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Ward,  Lisa  3/26/2021, "Can Artificial Intelligence Replace Human Therapists?", Wall Street Journal

Wallace, 1961,  Culture and Personality, New York: Random House.

Applied Anthropology and Standardization

 In the real world, the replication of uniformity (See AFC Wallace or Ward Goodenough) is what distinguishes Order from Chaos. Standardization is a goal that society and culture strive for since it provides the base from which the next step of evolution or progress begins. If you are always looking back because you can't trust the past, then you can never make any real progress to a future.

Standardization provides a reference point. It is not an end all. It is a beginning. Anthropology has benefited by the "standardization" that John Wesley Powell called for in the training of field anthropologist back in the 1870's and which Boas introduced in his training program at Columbia that created the first generation of professional anthropologist.

In recent years, it seem that we have drifted away from a set of professional standards and into the realm of the "eclectic, fashionable, stylish." This is a trend that seems to parallel the over-production of PhD graduates and the shrinking and transformation of the academic market place -- especially for anthropologists which began in the 1980 and continued. It has severed the tentative academic/applied connection where the former generated theory that the latter might test in practice. It also served to drive some of us out of academia into the real world.

Standardization and the process of helping to create (discover) best practices is a rich area for applied anthropology and applied anthropologists. Program evaluation, which is applied research, was, for me, a very profitable career path during the early stage of my own career development as a consultant and coach.

The public wants to know, "What is valid and reliable,?" not novel. "What is predictable," not innovative. The majority do not want "new" as much as it wants to know "what works." Standardization makes answering the latter question a lot easier. The "New", and untested, is basic research, while "evaluation" and "standardization" are respectively -- engineering and auditing. The latter are the realm of the applied anthropologist.

In accounting and legal professions -- both applied practices serving a public need -- there are basic internal standards, e.g. "general accounting standards" and "code of professional ethics" It might be suggested that anthropology become more standardized in its methods and terminology when employed by or marketing to a non-anthropologically literate clientele. But this will require major input from the practitioner branch of the discipline and acceptance by the academic branch. 

Such standardization must apply across of the many contexts in which one finds ethnographic work being applied to solve practical problems. There is a similar dimension for the other sub disciplines such as archeology. If you are always looking back because you can't trust what you did in the past, then how can you convince the public that your advice help the client to make any real choices and progress affecting their future?

Political attitude as an influence on Human Evolution?

 I recently ran across a question in the Anthropology Network which asks how political perspective influences the role of culture in the evolution of H sapiens.The writer presented the question in terms of poll and asked readers to respond by selecting between 5 political attitudes ranging from the most conservative to the most radical. Specifically, between Reactionary and Radical.

At first I dismissed the question and the poll as "interesting" but irrelevant. How could my political outlook today have anything to do with the development of culture and human evolution? But as I thought about some more, I realized the question really attacks the question of how does cultural dynamics work and what impact has this had on the evolution of our species and its cultural diversity. A question that has been at the center of my own anthropological interests for more than four decades.  

The answer which I have found come from readings dating back to the 1960s and 1970s related to a seminar in community development which I took with Dr. Edward H. Spicer upon my return from the Peace Corps. The key book was Ward Goodenough's Cooperation In Change. Goodenough builds much of his theoretical argument based on the work of Anthony F. C. Wallace's Culture and Personality.

I realized that political attitude played out at the supraorganic or societal level certainly can influnce the cultural response of the group and thus indirectly the course of human evolution.

Anthony F. C. Wallace answered this question a long time ago and the Eastern religions even longer ago. It is the tension between "radical" and "reactionary" that produces the evolution in Human culture which in turn has promoted the biological evolution of the Homo sapiens species.

Wallace identifies two forces or principles at work in cultural development. The first, here the radical, is the principle of the ORGANIZATION OF DIVERSITY (OD). Human group activity which brings diverse elements in the environment(s) together to successfully solve a survival problem favor the survival of that group. The willingness to experiment and break with or question tradition is a radical position leading to innovation.

The second, here the reactionary, is the principle of REPLICATION OF UNIFORMITY (RU). Individual activity does not guarantee success and individual success does not guarantee group success. What is required to produce both innovation and evolution is the replication of successes across generations and the elimination of failed experiments. The resistance to change, orthodoxy, is critical to the replication of success.

Culture, based on these two principles, provides the tension which enables these principles to operate. Evolutionary success is the centrist or moderate product of these principles operating in a give environment. Change the environment and the system must recalibrate, i.e. the species must adapt and evolve..

So to answer the original question, I must ask another question: What is the environment for making a choice?