Brent Kearney

Other Side of The Singularity

Posted on: November 28th, 2009 @ 16:20

The technological singularity is a point in time when a self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) recursively increases its own intelligence, leading to an “intelligence explosion” of unimaginable scale. Some people consider this project to be the fastest way, perhaps even the only way, for us to solve our most serious problems. As a species, we may not be smart enough abrainto solve the big problems of the human condition, such as war, psychopathy, environmental sustainability, etc., so the idea is to create “super intelligences” that will show us how to fix the potentially civilization-destroying problems we face.

Much of the thinking and effort into strong AI development concerns the obvious risk of the project — how do we ensure that the resulting super-intelligence will be friendly? Or, as Johnathan Goldstein puts it in his interview with AI and robotics researcher Professor Noel Sharkey:

… twenty years from now, you think it’s more likely that a robot will be changing my bedpans than chasing me down the street, with lasers coming out of it’s eyes?

Dr. Sharkey thought that the latter scenario would be very unlikely.

There is another aspect of this super intelligence project that seems to get little mention, at least in the popular literature: what will it be like for them? Will the AIs be able to communicate with us, or for them, would it be like trying to explain calculus to a pigeon? How long will they try before giving up, if indeed at all?

That idea is artfully expressed in the following little piece of creative genius. It is from one of my favorite podcasts, CBC’s Wiretap, with Jonathan Goldstein. This is from the November 21st episode, The Answering Machine, where Goldstein played a reading of “Spirals”, a short story from David Eagleman:


alt : Spirals.mp3

Excerpt from Wiretap: Spirals by David Eagleman

I highly recommend that you listen to the whole episode, which includes the interview with Professor Sharkey and other humourous AI-related material. You can get it here, or in iTunes.

I’ll be attending the Humanity+ Summit next weekend, where one of the leading proponents of strong AI, Ben Goertzel, is speaking. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to ask him about how communication with a super-intelligence will be possible, given the gap.

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  • Nick

    Interesting post!

    I keep wondering how we could justify shutting down a self-aware entity?

    What of its rights?

    Are we obligated to help it survive? Indefinitely, since it would have no natural life-span?

    Could we compel it to work for us without entailing slavery?

    I think these questions are being overlooked in the hunger for more powerful digital tools.

    We should be wary of the ethical ground we tread when creating an intelligence. My fear is that we will reach a crucial breakthrough before any real ethical guidelines are reached and before any resulting policies are enacted.

    I fear the danger to ourselves, should we become happy slavers…

  • http://brent.kearneys.ca Brent

    Good questions, Nick! They call into question the very nature of ethics: is self-awareness a sufficient condition for moral rights? Or is being alive, in the biological sense, necessary?

    If you think the latter, that may be a problem in the future, when humanity merges with non-biological — or at least, questionably biological — technology. This won’t happen all be at once. One might add some artificial blood cells first, then upgrade the liver, enhance the nervous system… with each step, improving over nature. Is each step also a step toward exclusion from the ethical community? It would seem unlikely.

    However, suppose we figure out how to completely virtualize our consciousness into a different substrate? The “uploading your mind to a computer” scenario. Identity questions aside, this would seem put us in the same realm as the self-conscious AI. So would your questions have more pertinence if the self-aware entity was once a human biological being?

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  • Andrew

    The only way to fix the potentially civilization-destroying problems we face is to destroy civilization then we have no problems to solve ! we can not have a utopia state with out the anti we can not have our cake and eat it with new technology comes new problems ,if we did not have any problems we would not advance because solving problems is the mother of invention of ways to solve problems if I did not have a 3G data problem I would not be here explaining to you why I am here and so others and you would making a problem so we can fix it That is why US like wars so they can fix things and the problems get bigger but they never give up war because Mr fixer is happy how to fix the wars

    We will all die yes or no and then we leave behind a problem or a solution but one mans problem is another mans solution so good on us what ever we do but a lot of us are unhappy with these end of the world problems never being solved we are lucky to have these problems look how many children born dead or killed before they knew of problems are they unlucky to be not born? My father was suffering from war trauma he lost his father when he was young and said God why was I wish I was never born I felt sad but I say the same things because I too lost my children they are in Japan abducted and I wish I was dead in but I say Thank you God for taking care of them The Japanese want me and them to suffer slowly but I have faith in God they the kids will go to heaven and the tormentors will go to hellfire after a short life of enjoying cruelty so what ever our problems here think now how will escape eternity in hell fire by doing good and our best to have the intention to help each other

    peace and love

  • Andrew

    By the way if you want to live long ask God because God has plans for you and you should be grateful for every minute you live when we die we will know how long we lived.

    I lost a comrade at twenty he was a fine man a man of good morals and struggle for a good life for all but he was wrecking his own life what an irony of death
    My Moms Doctor is keeping her alive with drugs but she can not live happily and I am sad please help me God That doctor wants to find a cure for her suffering but she suffers al the same and he gets to try the drugs on my mother, she loves him I am sure because she will suffer just to see him and love can be most wonderful painkiller.

  • Matt

    You need to do further reading on what the “singularity” actually is. Whilst the idea of exponentially intelligent AI is part of the picture, you made the mistake most people do, which is imagining future humans to be exactly like they are today. The singularity is about the coming together of humanity and technology (hence singularity). We should be able to upgrade/alter ourselves for example in such a fashion that there is a blurred line between human and AI, which will eventually become indistinguishable. You need to ask yourself what fundamental differences there are between you and machines.

  • http://brent.kearneys.ca Brent

    I’m aware of that, Matt. This post addresses one aspect of the singularity which is relevant even if you consider the transhuman aspect. An exponentially self-improving AI will still outsmart us, unless you think humanity would acquire the same capacity.

    I also keep in mind that all of the theories and ideas surrounding the singularity concept are highly speculative. Some aspects may come to pass, and others not so. Nobody knows with certainty what the future will hold. We may not even survive to see strong AI.

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