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Intelligence and Learning |
Smart Computers - Update on Artificial Intelligence
When you do not know exactly how digital computers work and how programmers
utilize the hardware, it is easy to be fooled into believing that computers are
intelligent or will be soon. When you know exactly how digital computing works,
you are less likely to believe in computers that will develop their own
intelligence. In fact, a programmer knows that he or she has to tell the
computer exactly what to do in precise and annoying detail. Without expert
programming, digital computers are dumb machines.
The ability of a digital computer to calculate quickly exceeds human ability. A
common impression is that a calculating computer is smart. Humans have
difficulty doing calculations and only a small percentage of any student
population will excel in mathematical ability. The ability to calculate quickly
and accurately is overly impressive.
The abstract reasoning that underlies advanced mathematics is more interesting
and is independent of the ability to calculate. Most mathematicians are happy to
do calculations on a digital machine and do not feel the least bit threatened
that some computer will take over their job of abstract reasoning. Digital
computers have no sense of meaning, cannot perceive and are only able to make
simple robotic decisions about the data they receive. They can store images
accurately and will faithfully recall stored data unless a malfunction
intervenes. Output procedures are echoes of input procedures. The biggest
advance in programming involves searching thru large databases to find the right
answers to specific questions. Goggle`s search engines represent state of the
art algorithms, designed to deliver relevant results to search inquiries.
Failure to achieve relevance remains a persistent search problem. Google
requires teams of programmers working full time everyday to monitor and refine
their software.
Popular science fiction postulates that digital computers will become
intelligent sentient beings and take over the world. Arthur Clark’s Science
fiction novel and Stanley Kubrick’s movie version of 2001 were thrilling in
1968. I was thrilled the sense of motion during the docking of shuttle with the
space station, transformed by Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz. The spacecraft in the
movie was operated by HAL, the computer. HAL represented the possibility of
computers developing human-like artificial intelligence.
In 1968, anything was possible, but with subsequent developments in computer
science, we now know that living intelligence is so developed, complex and
profound that any success with machine programming is disappointing and
rudimentary. We now know that real intelligence lies well beyond the ability of
present and future digital machines. In AI there is more artificial and less
intelligence.
David Stork,a machine intelligence researcher wrote: “Perhaps a dark side of
HAL’s legacy is to have fixed an anthropomorphic view of artificial intelligence
so firmly in the minds of a generation of researchers… But those idiot savants
(AI programs) did not show even the slightest signs of achieving general
competence. In the subsequent AI winter -- brought on by the end of a military
research spree as well as the inevitable collision between venture capitalists
and reality – only the mechanical cockroaches survived.“
I do not believe that digital computers even of great speed and complexity will
attain consciousness, nor do I believe that robots controlled by digital
computers will ever come close to achieving the self-organizing, free-living
intelligence of a human.
Mark Tildon of Los Almos Laboratories makes small robots from spare parts
derived from discarded portable cassette players. A few transistors in his
robots handle the task of moving limbs and solving problems such as getting past
obstacles or dealing with broken parts. His robots resemble insects and move
like insects. Tildon observes that living brains solve the complex tasks of
surviving as free beings in an ever-changing world by using simple and compact
circuits. He observes that efforts to make free-living robots using digital
computing fail because even simple tasks quickly grow in complexity and require
state of the art computing power.
Digital robots are in a much simpler domain than living creatures and may never
compete well, even at a rudimentary level. While the work done on robotics and
artificial intelligence is interesting and useful, progress to date informs us
that it will be exceeding difficult to achieve the digital equivalent of the
free-living intelligence of an ant. AI and robotics helps us to appreciate that
the ant brain is a marvel of computation and miniaturization. We may eventually
progress to computational devices based on different materials and strategies
that are more brain-like and achieve better and unexpected results. At this
writing, no one knows how to do this. The search continues with the study of
animal brains.
Despite the science fiction roots and unrealistic arguments (often delusional),
machine intelligence enthusiasts are more visible and vocal than ever before.
Their meetings have the giddy feel of a born-again religious revival. One
god-substitute is singularity:” Techno-Rapture. A black hole in the Extropian
worldview whose gravity is so intense that no light can be shed on what lies
beyond it. … the human mind is not the final word. Someday, human technology
will advance to the point of being able to improve on the underlying hardware
(the brain) - an event known as the Singularity. Depending on how much futurism
people have been exposed to, they tend to imagine different candidate
technologies, “different timescales, and different outcomes for humanity. The
Singularity Institute's favored technology is computer-based synthetic minds -
"Artificial Intelligence" or "AI" - which we think can be developed quickly and
with an outcome favorable to humanity … The Singularity Institute seriously
intends to build a true general intelligence, possessed of all the key
subsystems of human intelligence, plus design features unique to AI. We do not
hold that all the complex features of the human mind are "emergent", or that
intelligence is the result of some simple architectural principle, or that
general intelligence will appear if we simply add enough data or computing
power. “
There is room for fantasy and speculative thinking; however, no-one needs to
take the Singularity view or timetable seriously. Some of the worst future
predictions claim that digital circuitry is becoming faster, denser and less
expensive and therefore “supercomputers’ will soon emerge that have greater
processing power than the human brain. Some even suggest that massive parallel
processing is superior to brain computational abilities.
There is no knowledge that allows anyone to assess brain processing ability and
no basis to compare brains with digital computers. One of the aspects of
“futuristic speculations” that amazes me is the lack of knowledge about the
present. Another aspect that concerns me the most is the ignorance of life
processes. I doubt that any machine will soon display free-living competence.
Ant brains are amazing but digital robots are disappointing. The challenge for
future computer designers is to make robots that do as well as an insect in a
free-living competition. This task will require a new computing technology, lots
of money and the rest of this century to achieve. Unless, of course, some genius
discovers and copies brain circuitry that underlies insect competence.
I am concerned about human treachery, but have no concern about machines
independently developing destructive intentions that could rival or match their
human makers. Evil is a human invention. Humans already make world-destroying
machines. This is not a future scenario. Once launched, a world-destroying
machine such as an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying hydrogen bombs is
self-sufficient. The ICBM is a dumb robot that after launch can find its way to
its target without further assistance from human programmers. A bevy of dumb
ICBM robots with hydrogen bomb warheads can destroy human civilization. The
combination of bad and dumb humans and dumb robots is to be feared. This is
history and no one has to wait for future malevolent robots to be constructed.
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