Artificial Intelligence and the year 2047

[ciphergoth]

Clarification: By "smart" I mean general smarts: the sort of smarts that allow you to do things like pass a Turing test or solve open problems in nanotechnology. Obviously computers are ahead of humans in narrow domains like playing chess.

NB: your guess as to what will happen should also be one of your guesses about what might happen - thanks! This applies to wriggler, ablueskyboy, thekumquat, redcountess, thehalibutkid, henry_the_cow and cillygirl. If you tick only one option (which is not the last) in the first poll, it means you think it's the only possible outcome.

[Poll #1103617]

And of course, I'm fascinated to know why you make those guesses. In particular - I'm surprised how many people think it's likely that machines as smart as humans might emerge while nothing smarter comes of it, and I'd love to hear more about that position.

Comments

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised how many people think it's likely that machines as smart as humans might emerge while nothing smarter comes of it

I don't think that's very likely but it's just about conceivable. I can imagine an argument along the lines that you can't build something that's smarter than you yourself are (for some definitions of smart). It'd be a bit of a woolly argument to my mind, but it might have some force. I also think it's possible (but not at all likely) that there turns out to be some fundamental limit to how general-purpose-smart things can be made, and humans are already at it.

I suspect, though, that most people holding that position a) don't hold it very explicitly or consideredly (if that's a real adverb), and b) are somewhat influenced by fear of the consequences if the process doesn't stop at the point they claim it will.

Not me! I, for one, welcome our new machine overlords.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Even if it were only as smart as us in some deep sense, it might still think a million times faster than we do, and thus give any question a lifetime of thought in half an hour, and that would be a pretty substantial change.

[djm4]

It might. But intelligent thought might well require interaction with the real world, and it may not be possible to speed up how quickly that happens in any useful way.

See also 'control systems engineering: how to make a system unstable by making it too sensitive to small changes, and too fast to respond'. ;-)

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

Well, all right, but it might still have a useful thing or two to say once it's read every scientific paper and every book ever published.

(moved to correct comment, sorry!)

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

This thought inspired me to do something silly.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Even if it were only as smart as us in some deep sense, it might still think a million times faster than we do, and thus give any question a lifetime of thought in half an hour, and that would be a pretty substantial change.

Oh, absolutely - but I'd argue that for pretty much any sensible definition of "smart" the thinking speed is a key factor, so what you're talking about there is unequivocally machines being smarter than us. Not for nothing are "quick" and "slow" used to connote levels of intelligence.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I would nonetheless say that there's a good chance of machines being outrageously vastly smarter than us in a deeper way than merely being able to think very much faster or remember a lot more.