comedy

The previous one is one question and two books: two books with similar themes will be introduced together. Then don't let it stop.

The two books presented below are not related. To talk about it, it can only be said to be the title of the book: Hu Qingfang's "Human Comedy" and Dong Qizhang's "Post-Human Comedy".

Teacher Hu Qingfang's background is very "interesting": she has worked in different parts of the world - Hong Kong, New York, Paris. Her book "The Office" tells all the weird things about the office. I still remember the first article, "I" entered the president's room and wanted to ask something, and finally:

I nodded obediently, went back to the office, and checked my e-mail. Fifteen minutes later, I suddenly realized that from beginning to end, the president did not answer my questions at all. (page 18)

Her "bystander" eyes often make me see another scene, just like this "Human Comedy". This book is a collection of 10 short stories that take place in the cities of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, and New Delhi. The characters are all ordinary people, like you and me; the storyline is ordinary, maybe you've heard it before. But when reading, it always makes people smile. For example, "Paris belongs to no one", a non-Parisian who worked as a trader in a bank, was arrested because of a deficit, and was interrogated by the police. The following paragraph made me agree with my heart:

But Malone didn't need those stories. He is a Parisian himself. He didn't believe what the Parisians told him, he was more interested in what they didn't say. He was used to looking at their faces rather than listening to them, and if the Parisians had a story to tell, it was written on their faces and not on their tongues. Outsiders think that Parisians are eloquent and thoughtful, but they just like how smart they are when they speak. Behind their minds, there is a set of values that they never speak out. It is the deep-rooted code of conduct left to them by their grandmother. No matter how many kings and queens are beheaded, it will not evolve with the times. Outsiders are always fond of accusing Parisians of inconsistency and demanding explanations. They always shrug their shoulders and give each other a rude look, they're Parisians, they don't care what you think. (pages 16, 17)

This is Paris as I know it, although I have never been there. Paris, perhaps people think she is the personification of romance; but what I often hear is something else. And the author seems to have shattered the imagination.

The other is about a man and woman living in New York who returned to India to get married. In the end, the girl couldn't bear the "unfreedom" and left her husband and returned to New York. Is this a "comedy"? You will know after reading it.

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Having dinner with a friend one day, he said that he hadn't read a magazine for a long time. One day I saw the "metaverse" and asked me what it was. I gave an example to explain: Animal Crossing.

Thanks to COVID-19, the virtual world is no longer just the game world, and now all industries are using technology. Whether it will wear AR (Augmented Reality) to travel, study and work in the future is unknown. In addition, AI has developed very mature. AlphaGo has proven that computers can learn very well.

As for whether AI can become like a human being, this has been discussed in the computer world for a long time. And AI has always been the subject of literary works, and "Comedy of the Future" is an example.

The story goes something like this: The protagonist, Professor Hu Dehao, was invited to Singapore as a visiting professor. He thought he was going to be a professor, but was unexpectedly involved in the development of a post-human project: the Kant machine...  

So...what does it have to do with AI? Posthumans are a type of AI to some extent. As I said before, AI is receiving instructions to a certain extent, so what is there for humans that AI does not have? This is the question that Dong Sheng explores in this work. This work starts from Kant's moral code.

To put it simply, humans basically accept orders, which is no different from AI, but the difference between humans and AI is that humans have one more thing, and that is morality. Before people execute orders, they will also add moral dimensions to think:

Kant believes that moral judgments must be closely tied to the will of the actor. "The moral value of an act of duty consists not in the end attained thereby, but in the metric by which it is determined; therefore, not in the realization of the object of the act, but only in the principle of will. ” That is, whether an act is ethical or not, one should look at the principles behind the act. [Note 1]

The book proposes a concept: whether AI has the ability to switch this thinking mode. The protagonist tries to start with Kant's theory. Kant proposes three imperatives: the universal principle, the end in itself, and the self-discipline of the will. The autonomy of the will is the freedom of the will [Note 2]. Dong Sheng explained in his words:

The freedom Kant speaks of is not freedom in the general sense that is completely unrestricted. On the contrary, freedom always accompanies the law, inside and outside of each other. One must be completely free in order to fully practice the moral law. In liberty there is the meaning of being one's own legislator. That is to say, a free man is not constrained by external heteronomy to make moral decisions: he becomes a moral man because of the constraints of self-discipline. This is the true meaning of Kant's freedom. The legitimacy of such a moral law is also not explained by external reasons. Because there is freedom, there is morality, and because there is morality, there is freedom. He admits that the two are circular arguments, or to put it mildly, reciprocal causation. (page 269)

This book analyzes Kant's theories while taking readers to imagine the AI world. When reading, it is inevitable to think of Aldous. Huxley's Brave New World. Aside from digesting Kant's theories, the book begins with a slow pace and then improves. The latter part of the story is like watching a Hollywood movie.

Last year, there was a website discussing what jobs would be replaced by AI under the epidemic [Note 3]. Of course, AI has been in the realm of life for many years, and it can develop for good or for bad. What does the author think about this? The title of the book may give the answer.

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"Human Comedy" (from blog) —
https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010771887

"Post-Human Comedy" (from blog) —
https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010872117

[Note 1] Ou Liying (2008). On Kant's View of Moral Subjectivity (Master's Thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/16 page 20

[Note 2] Ou Liying (2008). On Kant's View of Moral Subjectivity (Master's Thesis, Lingnan University, Hong Kong). Retrieved from http://commons.ln.edu.hk/otd/16 page 34

[Note 3] "20 kinds of jobs" may disappear in 10 years! AI will replace a quarter of manpower | ETtoday Financial Cloud | ETtoday News Cloud https://finance.ettoday.net/news/2112139#ixzz7IaxMkheo