The Fallacy of Artificial Intelligence

The recent spate of popularity for the notion that so called artificial intelligence will take over and annihilate mankind from the likes of Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, et al. results from a fallacious worldview that cannot differentiate that which sets humanity apart from all known biological species, (let alone insentient machines.) Mankind's "divine spark," if you will, is our willfully unique evolutionary mission to uplift our standard of living through continuous technological progress. Historically this quality is encapsulated in the classical "myth" of Prometheus the bestower of fire. The mentality that seeks to suppress beneficial technological progress is that of the "mythical" Zeus. This today is represented by financial powers that seek to deliberately keep the standard of living spiraling downward in order to bail out uncollectable debt (for example derivative securities.) The real issue is whether computational advances will be relegated merely as a new kind of parlor games bread and circuses or whether it will be properly subordinated to the service of humanity.