AI vrs. The human mind; Which force shall win? AI has advanced considerably in the past few years, and even though our culture has the ideals of a electronice "wireless" society, we cannot look beyond the boundries of the tech leaps of our time. As growing up in a world constantly changing, I was given a view that as one grew, his world grew as well. I beleive that this is the same in nations and cultures.

Civilizations rose and fell. Rome conquered and was defeated. The USSR was scattered. The mesopotamians disapeared. What force allows things to be created and be destroyed? It is the inevitablitiy that anything, and EVERYTHING can make and destroy. AI is one of the growing dangers in the world of man. As we take longer strides towards smarter computers, we also add more laws to our governments, such as viruses, hacking, etc.. Eventually, machines will have rights.

Is the world destined for this? Will AI take over our lives in the future? Can the human race stop its consuption of Anything and everything? I beleive that we will not stop until we have been destroyed utterly. As the Oracle even said: Everything that has a beginning, has an end.

AI operates on a level of practicality, equations and balances. It does what it knows and as its time of operation extends, it will have the capacity to learn more. Thus even machines can consume. The question that everyone is asking is this: Will AI over take the human intellegence?

Neix

PS: I'm sorry if there's another thread on this, but I'm too tired to search stuff up right now. apologies if I'm spamming.

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It all depends on the level of strain we put on our AI setup. It depends on how much control is put over 'them'. What do you mean exactly by "take over" ? In a sense yes, all the time computers/machines are being invented to do the jobs of man. If you mean by how the machines from 01 took over probaly not. I dont think we will be so naive as to not put some sort of control mechanisims over these AI. Like the 3 laws from 'I,Robot'.

I think that AI and human intelligence will work together, but AI could never completely takeover human Intelligence. Throughout history there have been "sudden glimpses of insight" that leaped human technology forward. A machine is something that advances at a constant pace. Its imagination that makes the difference, for example using imagination a person could design a machine that could "know everything".

'Consumption of Anything and Everything' - Humans will not stop at this until they can find or make something that cannot be fully consumed.

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Why would AI replace man? If we can make AI better than AI, why not make our own brains better through genetic enhancements as well? Personally, I think that in the future, we will be integrating a lot of the sciences. Nano-probes curing illnesses, and other combinations. I really doubt that there will be some Master AI with a large red light lighting up if it says anything, and than takes over the world with magnetrons and such.

PLUS, a machine will never get the idea of killing something or someone on it's own. A baby that stays in touch with other children and is raised peacefully will not suddenly start taking a child and hit it's head against the wall. And even if an AI would show such behaviour, it is possible do induce pain (which we are now making progress with), to show that it is bad to kill human beings.

A giant army of robots coming to kill everyone, doubtful? A robot in each house helping us in our daily needs? You bet! Just go to the kitchen, and check out the appliances. How long will it take before someone designs a coffee machine that remembers your settings to make the same yummy coffee each day, and how long after that will a coffee machine be spawned into existence to which you can give input on how nice you thought it would be, so it can slowly make better and better coffee?

Mr U

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If AI learns from what is sees, does, and hears. If a Robot learns about a murder, the events that happened after a murder, the mehod in which the murder was conducted, then it will learn how to kill. It will then asess it's environment and decide if it needs to kill. AI is also used in games where guns are used. It can learn to be sneaky, crafty, and how to eliminate something.

AI has the capability to destroy, whether we mean it to or not.

Neix

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No AI doesn't learn. By it's very nature, it can't. It can be programmed, but that doesn't have the same definition and connotations as learning does to a human. AI can only do what it's told to do. If you give it enough information, it could make logical deductions, and follow through ideas to their ultimate conclusions. But it couldn't learn to kill by seeing it happen! It wouldn't even know what 'killing' was, unless the concept of death had been programmed into it, and even then, you would have to teach it morals and ethics to make it 'safe' and not a robotic serial killer.

Helios made a good point about the 3 Laws of Robotics from the Asimov stories, but I wonder if you had read one of his later stories, when the laws were modified to accomodate more intelligent and creative robots? (That Thou Art Mindful Of Him) Rather than have minds based purely on the laws, robots were also programmed to have judgement- ie- they could ignore orders from idiots, or criminals, and they could decide which group of humans to help if they were put in a situation where they had to choose only one group. From this very logical idea of basing a humans worth on their intelligence, ability to learn, and usefulness to society, these characteristics actually came to define humans. (Physical appearance was excluded so that race, sex and other distinguishing marks were irrelevant) And from this, the two most advanced robots finally asked:
'....Of the reasoning individuals you have met, who possesses the mind, character and knowledge that you find superior to the rest, disregarding shape and form since that is irrelevant?
You, whispered George 9 [to George 10]'
It was actually possible for robots to define themselves as human beings, and superior ones at that. (Read that story and you'll see how completely insidious the take-over could be. At this point in the book, George 10 had complete control over the worlds robot design and production- and nobody knew it) Even in the movie it was possible for AI to see that it was obeying the Laws and protecting humans by taking over the world 'for the humans own good'. The natural conclusion of any restraints imposed on AI will eventually be domination.
Even now, although we don't like to think of being dominated by machines, our technological cultures couldn't survive without it. From the computers that navigate an airplanes flight path, to the systems that keep the traffic lights running, even the thermostat in the fridge, we rely on machines for almost everything. If all that was taken away tomorrow, we'd be helpless, at least for a while. So imagine a time when we've developed a little more, and maybe our homes are completely assimilated with a computer, from locks and lights, to temperature, electricity, and access to communication. Then we really would be dominated.

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I know I keep repeating myself here people (sorry) however has anyone ever read 'Society of the Mind'? Truth, wonderful explanation, HU, yes indeed we would (I dearly hope) in future create/make/perform genetic enhancements on ourselves, however theoretically, and this is what scares people the most about the AI factor, is when, if indeed it does, reach the point that is commonly called The Singularity'.



So, in effect, if we don't become more genetically enhanced or evolve at a much faster pace, (which I feel would take a miracle) then we would could very well see AI become free thinking, at an expadential rate that we would theoretically have an extremely hard time keeping up with.

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Perhaps so. Still, I tend to agree with Truth.
The problem about the AI question is whether or not the singularity ever happens. What is more Science fiction than Science fact? Can AI really be able to learn? I wish I read the book you refer to, T: it offers more answers to the I, Robot novel's questions that I wouldn't mind digesting.
Anyway, evolving or in any way changing the human body to improve at phenomenal rates is not only impossible: it's foolish. The human body is too inflexible to change, and ultimately reaches its limits easily; also at a certain point (remember Deus Ex?) one will cease to be human. I've also wondered: Darwin didn't seem to factor the AI problem into his law. AI, or at least a possible assumption of it, is more a virus than humanity because it doesn't need the survival of anything else in the world to sustain it, and it can reproduce and adapt far too easily. It would wipe almost any other form of intelligent life you can throw it with. 'Survival of the fittest'...but this is more like 'Sole survivor'. We're not talking about the human race's chances; we're talking every other possible thing in the universe.
Now, the control mechanisms. Frankly, all rules are meant to be broken: the three laws being too easily those. They are just too ambiguous, even in their apparent simplicity. All things that arise from language, law and religion included, are so. And if we try to make their application flexible and teach the robots themselves how to, there are too many ways for them to be flouted. If we ever come to the point of having and trusting 'safeguards', I'd say then its only a matter of time.
This is all moot in the light of one important factor: whether that spark of life really flashes. Can AI be truly creative, even given time? Or is this just a manifestation of our irrational fears? To make AI creative, its inventors - namely us - will have to teach it so: till that point, it will never glean any knowledge by itself. That said, how can we humans, a species that can't even comprehend the secrets of its own sentience, instill that in our creations? Lastly, even if we do, AI will still have reached a limit of sorts: they can only be creative in human ways i.e. they most likely won't be able to deduce master plans a talented human wouldn't. How can it create above-human forms of thinking when its own ability to imagine them is ironically restricted in its freedom?
After all, Asimov's stories, and in extension his robots' behaviors, are written by Asimov.

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Cease to be human? Would that not require a definition of human? Are we truly capable of defining ourselves? If we define ourselves with a word, can we take in effect the enormous diversity?

Let me elaborate. Imagine I am making a hamburger. I start with two pieces of bread, put some meat between it and some tomatos. It is now, where previously were ingredients, a hamburger. If I leave it there, it will begin to decompose. After how long will it seize to be a burger?

The same goes for humans. When are we human and when aren't we? What is the true difference between me and the computer? How do we actually differ?

Darwin. There are two evolutionary theories. One is Darwin's theory. The second is a purposeful evolution, in which throughout the ages, beings have evolved with a purpose. We are here in a chain to create the last chain in evolution, Homo Universalis. Who are we to decide that we can not improve the human body and create such a universal being? I know for a fact that bone structure and such could be optimized with our current technology.
To be honest, do we not already change ourself by using medicins? Do we not put alien things in our body to improve ourselves? As soon as the medicin is in us, we are no longer the being we were before. We have improved, we are now capable of resisting a certain disease. If we get titanium bones, we will not seize to be human, for we will still believe we are human. This is one of the reasons why I chose Homo Universalis as my username. Who is to decide when one has become a renaissance man? Who can see true difference between things, for to be able to determine difference, one would have to see all, and that we can not.

Artificial intelligence is a difficult topic, no question about it. However, if we are looking at intelligence, why not look at our own? For why would we ponder on the secrets of the artificial brain if we got one of our own?
For some reason, our brain, a gigantic mass of neurons (braincells) is capable of not only controlling our entire organism, but also generating something that has puzzled man since the dawn of creation: self-awareness. Unless we are to believe that there is some higher realm in which our souls reside, there can only be one apparant conclusion. Certain cells in our brain generate a sense of self-awareness. Through co-operation of these cells we are able to think and we are able to post replies. There is nothing magical about it.

Once fertilisation (the instance of creation) is initiated, stamcells will be generated, and after a while neurons will be created. These things are merely, nothing more, beings with the ability to communicate. They communicate, and they communicate, and in a way they go through what civilisation goes through: They flourish and they grow wiser as a whole. They act as one government for the whole human body. It is not a strange comparrison than, to say that Earth is Self-Aware, either. We are after all, part of Earth, and as we are aware of her, Earth is self-Aware. And, through this, the Universe is self-aware.

Back to less philosophical questions, however. I am convinced that if we are able to construct something as the human brain, something that is able to communicate with itself (because that is basically what we do when we think!), we will have created not AI, but a human being. All others, all other AI, is not AI at all but an attempt at it.

In terminator an AI uses the internet to become aware, and this is very possible. Imagine a single Neuron, alone, with no one to communicate to. Suddenly, out of the blue, it is placed in the middle of millions of other Neurons! If we configure the computers connected to the internet, I believe we could truly create an artificial intelligence. Yet, what would this mean? What would we have created?

Nothing. We would have created another something of which we already have 6 billion walking around on this dying planet. Congratulations .

Mr U

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Hmmm. Why is it somehow I expected this reply, HU? No time to be philosophical! :rollseyes:
I'll start my argument against the human modification on the grounds that I assume you agree on replacing any (even most) amounts of a person, not just Deus Ex-style, artificially. For one thing, I guess I was being literal. In the definition of human in this case I meant the physical and genetic form. Medicines are artificials, yet most importantly, consumables. How many of us have parts of us that are completely not the way natural Darwinian growth was supposed to provide? Anyway, I for one avoid medicines like the plague. That does not make me any more human than others. It's not just how we feed ourselves things that make us different. It's how our bodies were tuned to accept them. Medicines and vitamins for example: they are not that artificial. Our bodies are tuned in ways that accept them; add them to the existing makeup. Raw and brute replacement on the other hand imply something else indeed.
And: the speed of the change. Undoubtably, the things around us are artificial to the extent that we have been in some ways changed, even genetically. But the stated brute Mechanical changes cannot be naturally reproduced and replicated; changes that break all known Darwinian patterns. It is therefore as unnatural in the ecosystemic scale as the introduction of AI. Also, there are also no guarantees as to the integrity of the human minds, our greatest prize and undoubtably most treasured in its current heights, in these different bodies. In a nutshell, I'm also saying that if we resort to such means to 'improve' ourselves, how then are we different from the machines? It's no longer a matter of how much we change from; it's how much we change to. Is there no difference between a large change and a long series of equal but much smaller changes? All through the past tens of thousands of years we remained almost the same, though very similar physically. A few years of mechanical enhancements will throw all doubts of the definition of change away. All's fine and well philosophically with the burger, but seriously, ask anyone and he'll just throw the damn sight away.
In a sense, my own name was derived from a philosophical viewpoint. I do not believe a true answer can be easily found but the only way I believe it can be found is through experience and time. Of knowing you're right, realising then you're wrong, finding out you're right again, and going through the cycle any number of times, until pride or shame no longer hinders. Anyway, just being cute. ;)
Now, to science fiction. Creating a brain making an AI is what you did not say, so I am curious though why then you said it. Anyway, I've already agreed: humanity's secrets are still a long time from unravelling. How then can we start on AI?
You say the right program, given access to the internet, can gain a consciousness. How? Sure, every imaginable sort of information is out there, but then again every counter to that information is too, causing a literal pile of garbage to sort through. And how can a sheer volume of data spark off consciousness? Is my older, more seasoned computer more 'sentient' then my newly bought one?

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