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Arguing A.I.
In some ways, the author argues, the debate over A.I. is undergoing a profound revolution. What was once a discussion largely confined to tech and academic circles has mushroomed into a more mainstream brawl as a growing number of engineers and lay authors vent on the acceleration of modern technology and the future of humanity. Given the explosive growth of the Net, the near-continuous increases in computing power and much-publicized A.I. breakthroughs like Deep Blue's 1997 victory over chess champion Gary Kasparov, the question is no longer whether artificial intelligence will reach the level of human intelligence: It's when.
As the title suggests, Williams's book is less about A.I. itself than about the increasingly ferocious debates raging through the scientific community about it. The conflicts surrounding A.I., Williams suggests, may be the most significant since the titanic battles over evolution a century ago. In fact, Williams is among those who've argued that the A.I. debate is really an extension of the same fight. Artifically intelligent machines are already changing human evolution, many argue, even evolving inevitably into life-forms and species all their own. A growing number of critics and skeptics also argue that A.I. proponents are moving too quickly, failing to take into account the mind-boggling cultural and philosophical problems being raised by their new, still-imperfect technologies.
Williams traces the contemporary birth of A.I. -- via Hilbert and Turing -- on to the living pioneer credited with coining the term (John McCarthy), and talks to several of the principals guiding the A.I. debate today, like Ray Kurzweil, Jaron Lanier and Bill Joy.
This is a necessary book. It's one you could actually recommend to students, journalists, friends, parents, anybody trying to grasp the issues and implications of A.I., surely one of the most significant technologies human beings will face in the 21st Century. Even if A.I.'s impact on life is being overstated, it's poorly understood by the public. So Williams walks us through inventor Kurzweil's almost radical optimism about A.I. and the future -- especially his claims that human society is rapidly approaching the evolutionary equivalent of a new species, a fusion of humans and intelligent machines. This is the point of no return when it comes to artificial intelligence, Kurzweil claims. "The progress will ultimately become so fast that it will rupture our ability to follow it. It will literally get out of our control. The illusion that we have our hand on the plug will be dispelled."
But Williams also introduces some of the people that don't see this as a good thing -- or even a likely development. Bill Joy is more pessimistic, as he made clear in his now famous article in the April 2000 issue of Wired, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us." The piece thrilled technophobic intellectuals and journalists because it came from a software entrepeneur and reaffirmed something they desperately wanted to believe: technology -- especially genetics, bio-tech and robotics -- is out of control and likely to generate as much evil as good in the future. Joy sees little in the modern history of software development to suggest the emergence of sentient machines. His experience has led him to believe that it's difficult to build things that are reliable.
Jaron Lanier, whom Williams also interviews, coined the term virtual reality and once likened A.I. research to alchemy. Lanier accuses many in the A.I. firmament of choosing faith and hyperbole over science and reality. He likens the current tech obsession with A.I. to medieval scholars' attempts to prove the existence of God through Aristotelian logic. In their rush to endorse the concept of thinking machines, warns Lanier, many authors are putting scientific faith before scientific skepticism.
Williams does a skillful job of presenting these different points of view without intruding on them. It might have been nice to hear more of Williams's own thoughts and perspective, since he's one of the few journalists with this much understanding an access to so many principals in the A.I. discussion. On the other hand, he might not have been wise not to wade in amongst these A.I. heavyweights and their raging debate. "Arguing A.I." is as timely a book about technology as you're likely to come across, and, perhaps more surprisingly, highly readable.
AI won't be considered successful until we build HAL or Data, but the journey so far has been very useful.
the brain runs at 20 Hz, but it's massively parallel. No, I couldn't begin to guess how many 20 Hz processors the brain contains the equivalent of.
One thing that's always bothered me about the AI debate is that the thinking for a long time has centered around how to model intelligence on silicon.
Actually this is not true, for example an early AI system was constructed to play tic-tac-toe on a computer using matchboxes and marbles. No silicon at all.
One of the fundmental results of computing (discovered by Alan Turing, the first researcher in the field of AI) is that there is a basic set of computable functions. It doesn't matter what hardware you use, the set of things you can compute is ultimately the same. An interesting question is whether human-like intelligence is a combination of functions from the computable set or not. People like Roger Penrose argue that there is something more than computable functions going on in the human brain (he calls it the "divine spark"). In my opinion that's nonsense.
If an AI system can be built using computable functions it doesn't matter what hardware you execute it on (apart from perfromance issues). The results will be the same.
To me the true marvel of the mind is the holographic quality of intelligence and the way in which the physical form of the brain influences, and is shaped by, the quality and nature of one's thoughts.
You should look into neural net research. This uses massively parallel networks of artificial neurons to simulate the real structure of the brain. Its an important branch of AI research. Of course neural networks can be completely simulated on traditional computer hardware. Again, the hardware is not the key, its totally down to the software you run.
By the way, what do you mean "holographic" nature of intelligence. I don't understand what you are trying to imply with this term.
It will be exciting to see what part the new polymers can play in this research.
In my opinion, none, except perhaps to give us faster computers. They can do nothing to change the fundamental computations that are taking place.
Sailing over the event horizon
Let's define intelligence.
Ability to perceive oneself as part of the universe? Animals have it.
Self-awareness? Dogs seem to have it. Chimpanzees, elephants, cetaceans certainly seem to know that they are individuals. Dolphins even recognize their own reflections in mirrors.
Tool use? Chimps use sticks to dig with. They can stack boxes to reach high places, which is borderline engineering for most humans.
Language? Chimps have one. So do gorillas. Dolphins and other cetaceans have great capacity for communication underwater.
Now, machine intelligence. Turing test? Simple programs passed limited tests years ago. The more complex ones to come will be far more capable of fooling people into believing they are speaking to a human.
Play chess? Limited, but the best can beat our best.
In the future, the AI's will be able to speak, emote, manipulate items and use tools, even be able to design their own descendents. Give tools, the AI's could even build their successors.
But, will they ever be regarded as intelligent by humans?
Nope.
Most europeans and americans for centuries considered blacks and American Indians as sort of half-people, using great logic and rigor that was totally idiotic looking back from our time.
Many tests for animal intelligence and self-awareness has shown that the subjects can indeed show the traits necessary to be considered sapient. But, after each hurdle, the bar gets raised another notch philosophically.
If I were a suspicious type, and I am, I would say that humans simply don't want to recognize intelligence in other species, much less animals, because it threatens us enormously. Our pride in ourselves, our domination of the planet, and our cruelty towards other species are all shaken if the animal looking back at us in the treetops is actually a thinking being, tho a bit furry.
Religion has more than a little to do with it as well.
Down to my definition of intelligent life:
If it fights back, and wins, it is intelligent. All other players are dead meat.