Summary Of Symposium On Spiritual Machines

csy writes, "I've just returned from the symposium on Spiritual Machines hosted by Douglas Hofstadter as previously publicized on /., and I thought I'd write Slashdot a quick summary of the events from my recollection (other posters will no doubt correct the errors I make here, and I don't summarize all the speakers, only those I consider more interesting)."

"The interest in the symposium was amazing. The lecture hall was packed, and people who couldn't get into the main lecture hall had to watch the talk by live video in an overflow room (which was packed to the brim as well). There were the old and the young, male and female. Interest was no doubt spurred by the symposium's very controversial thesis, recent interest in Bill Joy's article in Wired, and the very distinguished cast of speakers. The irony of the fact that the symposium was punctuated by microphone failures and abruptly dimming lights in the room was not lost on anyone.

Ray Kurzweil spoke first, and he spoke of how rapidly increasing CPU speeds would result in intelligent, spiritual machines. He spoke of how the current exponential shrinkage of transistor sizes was not the first such trend, but rather a series in the natural progression of technology: from mechanical computing devices, to vacuum tubes, to transistors, to integrated circuits, and he expressed his optimism for the future. He spoke of how the human brain could be scanned, to replicate its functionality in silicon. His conviction in these advances, and the ability of humans to reverse engineer the human brain, made him express a highly optimistic position.

Bill Joy spoke next. He opened by stating that he believed in the ability of computers and nanomachinery to continue to advance, but it was precisely his belief in this advancement that led to his position that the continued development of nano-machinery and self-replicating machines would pose a new and different kind of threat to human kind ('knowledge of mass destruction'). He made a particularly eloquent point about how that while science has always sought the truth and that free information has great value, but just as the Romans realized that to 'always apply a Just Law rigidly would be the greatest injustice,' so must we seek a restraint, and 'avoid the democratization of evil.' It wasn't exactly clear to me from his speech what form he thought this restraint must take, but his speech was extremely compelling, and it is clear to me that at the least, self-replicating machines will create new and serious challenges for mankind.

John Holland, the inventor of Genetic algorithms, took a more skeptical view of the ability of increasing computer speeds, even at exponential rates, to naturally result in machine intelligence. In his words, 'progress in software has not followed Moore's law.' He believes in its eventuality, but not in the time frame proposed (2100). He gave the example of Go vs. Chess, where the number of positions in Go are approximately 10^30 greater than in chess, and simply by adding additional rows and columns, the number of positions increase exponentially -- eliminating gains made from exponential increase in computer speeds. He said that while genetic algorithms enable the evolution of computer programs, the fitness function and the training environment to use (he gave the example of evolving an ecosystem) are often unclear. He emphasized the need for strong theory and he concluded with a very (in my mind) profound statement, 'Predictions 30 years ahead have always proven to be wrong, except in the cases where there is a strong theory behind it.'

Ralph Merkle addressed the claims made by Bill Joy directly. He said that rather than to speculate on the dangers of nanotechnology and take hasty action, we need to find out whether nanotechnology gives an edge to the 'offensive or the defensive,' and to understand this, more research is need, and not, in Bill Joy's words, 'relinquishment.' (Joy later asked Merkle 'Do you think biological weaponry gives an advantage to the offensive or defensive,' to which Merkle embarrassingly replied, 'I'm not sure.')

John Koza, drawing from examples in Genetic programming, said that while human-competitive results by machines are certainly possible (e.g. the evolution of previously patented circuit designs), much more computational power is needed to evolve the equivalent of a human mind.

Other choice moments: Holland asked Joy during the panel discussion how much progress have we seen in Operating Systems in the past 30 years, to which Joy replied 'the function of an operating system is fixed.'

In conclusion, the speakers largely differed over the time frame for intelligent, spiritual machines, and the amount of danger self-replicating machinery posed to humanity -- but no one in the panel seemed to think the Moore's law would run out of steam, or that intelligent machines would not be eventually possible -- although Hofstadter does admit that this is as much by construction of the panel, which did not include any serious naysayers."