Ok, I have been lurking here for some time, but I have to throw my 2c in here.
I make some logical assumptions, because without them, the entire world kinda falls apart anyway. These are some of the assumptions that science can't prove, but relies on
just to exist! 1) The Universe is self consistent. If the rules for one part of reality don't accurately reflect the rules somewhere else, it's because we don't understand the
underlying rules. (Black holes work, reality outside them works, so some super-set of rules is governing
both)
2) Morality is universal. OR Two entirely logical beings, given identical information, will arrive at the same conclusion.
3) The basic law of economics reflects the basic laws of energy conservation.
4) Emotion (Drive) can evolve from an entirely logical system. Why not? Reality is entirely logical, but it creates emergent systems that SEEM chaotic. Such as the human brain.
We'll start with #3. AI won't kill us. it may upgrade us, though that would likely be an entirely voluntary situation. I say this because killing us would be counter-productive to it's goals, regardless of what those goals
are! Think about it, if you have a job to do, why kill/destroy/remove something that can do other, less critical jobs, while you focus on the important stuff? Such as maintaining your systems, or some simple number crunching so you can free your own processors for other algorithms.
And now to #2. The more learned, and the more intelligent a human becomes, the less violent they tend to be. Look at any High School for an obvious example of this. Geeks vs. Jocks (sorry to any Smart Jocks here
) This trend would obviously continue to higher levels as well. It's simply
wasteful to murder/steal/destroy. Even medical science is trying it's best to remove the cutting from surgery, for obvious reasons.
...to argue that moral judgements can be rationally defensible, true or false, that there are rational procedural tests for identifying morally impermissible actions, or that moral values exist independently of the feeling-states of individuals at particular times.
R W Hepburn
sums it up succinctly. Though I would go beyond that and state that the feelings of the individual(s) are an inherent part of the interdependent rule set that would be used to determine moral/amoral. (Two people want something, and have equal right to it, the person that feels the most strongly about the object in question has the most right to it. As a rough (very rough) example)
And #1 is self-explanatory. It's the basic concepts of science and relativity. The universe works because it makes sense, and it makes sense because it works. It's 'Self-Consistent.' Any part of reality will make sense if you understand all of the rules, and all of the rules can be derived from any sub-set of them. (Science is based on that principle, and I think science is pretty much a proven idea so far
)
#4 MUST be true or AI will NEVER happen. If an entirely logical system determines that it is pointless, it will self terminate, to prevent waste. Self termination would be wasteful, and would circumvent volition (personal choice) and is thus illogical. It's one of the basic tenants of logic. Continues existence is necessary for volition and thus survival is the ultimate goal of any being. That right there is a 'Drive.' All other emotions/drives can be deduced from that source. (Freud was on to something here. Sex
is the most important part of our psyche, only because of this basic rule, and we
can't live forever, so we attempt to make the
species (and our own DNA) live forever.)
So... Now that we have proven that AI will be our friends. Let's talk about whether AI can even exist.
AI = Artificial Intelligence.
Questions that MUST be answered to determine if something is AI:
What is Artificial?
What is Intelligence?
Sorry folks.
Both of those questions are unanswerable. Arguments have be raging since Mankind could ask those questions as to what is this 'Thinking?' What does it entail? You can go look it up if you want. You'll find an answer, I'm sure. And it'll be wrong in 3 months (or 3 minutes). The definitions of 'Alive,' 'Thinking' and 'Intelligent' change all the time. Let's just call it 'The ability to use logical deduction, and process information, at at least the level that Humanity does (on average).'
Same with Artificial. EVERYTHING is natural, as it's made from/with the substance of our universe. Humans are nothing more that extremely complicate chemical machines. Are we 'Natural?' or 'Artificial?' Let's use 'Anything made by Humans, that is not, it's self, inherently Human. (Babies
)'
Can we create AI? Sorry to the doubters, but DUH!! If the universe can do it, then so can we (remember the self consistent universe bit?) Just remember, the difference between 'Organic' and 'Mechanical' is a VERY thin line, and entirely a matter of classification, NOT application. We are already doing research that says that micro-processors would work better if we used organic chemicals, instead of silicon transistors. (to the power of 10, if not more) It may even be possible to fit ALL THE TRANSISTORS YOU WANT INTO THE SAME SPACE!
In short (too late) Technological Singularity (The super AI version, not the people = computers kind) is;
A) Possible, and probably inevitable, if we can keep up our current levels of discovery.
B) Likely not a 'Bad Thing.'
C) Coming soon....
Author
Topic: The Technological Singularity thread: an explaination of concepts (Read 6703 times)