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

[meico.livejournal.com]

"Mu" to both... How smart are humans?

We (humans) cover a pretty broad range of intelligence- everything from drooling meat bags with mere traces of brain activity to polymaths living hundreds of years ago that have given us insights that today we are only beginning to understand with full might of a massive technologically enhanced computer powered civilization...

So how smart are we? I find it amusing that not even humans always pass Turing tests. :) I also find it interesting that for _most_ humans an impressively consistent basic level of intelligence does exists- one surprisingly afforded to us across a wide assortment of brain sizes, shapes, and variations.

[wild-speculation]

I suspect that in the near future (about 25 years) we will be able to simulate a full human brain inside a single computer in real time. Last I checked "fully" accurate brain tissue simulations with over 10000 neurons were being done in real time nowadays. Taking that and Moore's law is how I got the figure of ~25 years.

At that time I suspect that we as humans will still not know that much about how to make ourselves vastly smarter and at first neither will any simulated human- intelligence itself will still be a mystery even if it is one we can replicate. Quickly after that though I think things will get interesting... "Singularity" levels of interesting.

Since simulated people can be replicated and work on problems in parallel, societies of them can do interesting things that human societies can't (or at least not as effectively). Slicing and dicing parts of their living brains in ways that would be considered crimes against humanity could be routine and pretty quickly they (not us) will have a real notion of what intelligence is, the minimum requirements to generate it, and how to optimize it. Then the copying and replication parts really kick in. Viola a "singularity".

[/wild-speculation]

[super-wild-speculation]

But what would a singularity do? I suspect such an entity would be well beyond almost all human concerns. It would regard us with as much importance as we do for the bacteria living inside our keyboards. It would however need to survive and perpetuate and the only real way to do that is by making sure no other singularities come into being.

I would make any further research into super intelligences downright impossible- and don't think we could outsmart it and do the work secretly... Remember, it would be infinitely intelligent compared to us and probably see through any plans we had well before they were even formed.

[/super-wild-speculation]

Uhg. Sorry for the ramble- it's late and I should be in bed.

In short, without winging about definitions, I suspect "Machines vastly smarter than humans will be developed, but the impact will stop short of transforming everything in the world".

[meico.livejournal.com]

This line:

I would make any further research into super intelligences downright impossible- and don't think we could outsmart it and do the work secretly... Remember, it would be infinitely intelligent compared to us and probably see through any plans we had well before they were even formed.

Should have been:

It would make any further research into super intelligences downright impossible- and don't think we could outsmart it and do the work secretly... Remember, it would be infinitely intelligent compared to us and probably see through any plans we had well before they were even formed.