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Westworld's Scientific Adviser Talks About Free Will, AI, and Vibrating Vests (sciencemag.org)
Science magazine has interviewed David Eagleman, the scientific adviser for HBO's Westworld. Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, spoke with the publication about how much we should fear such an AI uprising. From the story, also spoiler alert for those who have not watched the show: Q: Has anything on the show made you think differently about intelligence?
A: The show forces me to consider what level of intelligence would be required to make us believe that an android is conscious. As humans we're very ready to anthropomorphize anything. Consider the latest episode, in which the androids at the party so easily fool the person into thinking they are humans, simply because they play the piano a certain way, or take off their glasses to wipe them, or give a funny facial expression. Once robots pass the Turing test, we'll probably recognize that we're just not that hard to fool.
Q: Can we make androids behave like humans, but without the selfishness and violence that appears in Westworld and other works of science fiction?
A: I certainly think so. I would hate to be wrong about this, but so much of human behavior has to do with evolutionary constraints. Things like competition for survival and for mating and for eating. This shapes every bit of our psychology. And so androids, not possessing that history, would certainly show up with a very different psychology. It would be more of an acting job -- they wouldn't necessarily have the same kind of emotions as us, if they had them period. And this is tied into the question of whether they would even have any consciousness -- any internal experience -- at all.
A: The show forces me to consider what level of intelligence would be required to make us believe that an android is conscious. As humans we're very ready to anthropomorphize anything. Consider the latest episode, in which the androids at the party so easily fool the person into thinking they are humans, simply because they play the piano a certain way, or take off their glasses to wipe them, or give a funny facial expression. Once robots pass the Turing test, we'll probably recognize that we're just not that hard to fool.
Q: Can we make androids behave like humans, but without the selfishness and violence that appears in Westworld and other works of science fiction?
A: I certainly think so. I would hate to be wrong about this, but so much of human behavior has to do with evolutionary constraints. Things like competition for survival and for mating and for eating. This shapes every bit of our psychology. And so androids, not possessing that history, would certainly show up with a very different psychology. It would be more of an acting job -- they wouldn't necessarily have the same kind of emotions as us, if they had them period. And this is tied into the question of whether they would even have any consciousness -- any internal experience -- at all.
The first question is about the show, so that is fine. The second is about the future and although it is nice to hear his opinion, it is not more or less relevant than yours or mine.
I see this also when people quote the three laws of robotics as if they are real. They are not. They solely exist because they can be used to drive the plot. Without them the books would be boring. In fact, the books are basically showing how to get around these laws.
So please take it as it is, a persons opinion that is just as valid as that from any troll.Because what he is saying is "I imagine that it can be possible." That is good and that is also his job and a way to make a great show possible. That does not mean it is realistic.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
"Q: Can we make androids behave like humans, but without the selfishness and violence that appears in Westworld and other works of science fiction? A: I certainly think so. I would hate to be wrong about this, but so much of human behavior has to do with evolutionary constraints. Things like competition for survival and for mating and for eating. This shapes every bit of our psychology. And so androids, not possessing that history, would certainly show up with a very different psychology. It would be more of an acting job -- they wouldn't necessarily have the same kind of emotions as us, if they had them period. And this is tied into the question of whether they would even have any consciousness -- any internal experience -- at all."
How naive people are. No, we can't. The Human Motivation Array is 4 billion years in the making. And who says selfishness and violence are bad? Not the evolutionary process certainly. They satisfy parts of the HMA and dissatisfy other parts at the same time. They are obviously necessary -- or they would not be there. They would have evolved out long ago. The complex, evolved HMA delineates a behavior-space that we share, - the nominal HMA - but differently accented subtly individual to individual (You can see this on the nightly news, especially the badly maimed HMAs.) You can see this by looking at us. We recognize that we are all human, but we recognize that we all look different. Our entire physicality is our motivation array as humans and as individuals. When you look in the mirror something 4 billion years in the making is looking back. And "Sault's law" (to order my thinking) states that a thing cannot make an artifact as complex as itself. It is an asymptotic goal requiring more and more effort and resources but never reaching the goal - like the speed of light. Why? Because you must know more about reality than the thing you are creating. We cannot know ourselves completely from the inside. Humans will always be able to tell when they are interacting with an android when they grow up around and interact with humans. We communicate each to the other the internal state of satisfaction of our complex motivation array through emotions. Emotions are the state indicators that evolution made for us to interact in groups. Groups are not possible without them. We perceive the internal states of others and react to those states by modifying our own behaviors - and we are motivated to do that if our motivation array is "normal." The HMA will never be replicated in a machine for this reason, we can't see it in detail. It keeps getting in the way of our thoughts and perceptions of reality. Like putting a "colony" on Mars. We cannot bootstrap ourselves. Remember that scientists have said that 100 Billion humans and things that can be called humans have existed. There are seven billion of us today. With the snap of the fingers we will all be gone and replaced by billions more. And more, and more, and more....We are cells in the body of the evolving human species. We are a construction of nature over billions of years. We will not be able to replicate that.
And I've been recently thinking that our very fuzzy perception of the existence of the HMA is what we call "God."
E Proelio Veritas.
Really? AI is a valid subject for certain, but this isn't a serious discussion on AI in any regard, it's just viral marketing for a TV show.
However we are in a process now of going up on the uncanny valley. Where CGI characters use to seem like animated corpses, now they seem like people with Novocain injected in their faces. Even in Rouge One, I didn't really notice the CGI characters until my second viewing, they did a decent job on its editing to try to distract us from the fact there was a CGI guy in front of our faces. Sure the face moved a bit odd, However it would have moved odd if they had some sort or prognostics as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.