Artificial SuperIntelligence
Timeline
Not only is ASI able to perform better than humans, it can also process sensory information significantly faster than humans can. Experts are very divided regarding the timeline of the development of ASI. Some believe that the growth of ASI will occur at an exponential rate. As deep learning continues to develop, growth rates that currently appear slow will skyrocket as machines continue to increase in the rate of growth. The median prediction among experts for the arrival of ASI is 2060. There are milestones that technology needs to hit before ASI. The first must be the transition from ANI to AGI. The median prediction from experts on the arrival of AGI is 2045. From there, AGI must transform into ASI.
Applications
Nick Bostrom claims that ASI could manifest itself for 3 subsections of use. The first use is as a question answering service in which the user can ask questions to a machine, which can answer. This service is similar to Google but is capable of answering much more complicated questions that humans feasibly cannot answer. The question “Is there life outside our galaxy?” is an example of this form of a question. The second use of ASI is a service that creates tangible solutions to problems. An example of this would be asking the ASI device, “use stem cells to create a solution to solving cancer”. The third function for ASI is to act on its own to intelligently solve problems. The service can independently recognize problems in daily life and use its resources to present a solution without the inquiry or involvement of humans at all. Elieze Yudkowsky, an expert in AI, states that “There are no hard problems, only problems that are hard to a certain level of intelligence. Move the smallest bit upwards in intelligence, and some problems will suddenly move from “impossible” to “obvious.” Move a substantial degree upwards, and all of them will become obvious.” Additionally, many experts believe that ASI will help us become immortal. The machines will find cures for the deadliest diseases, solve environmental destruction, help humans cure hunger, and combine with biotech to create anti-aging solutions that prevent people from dying. Furthermore, ASI will lead the human race to live in a manner that is experientially better than its current state. Bostrom states that the implementation of a superintelligence will help humans generate opportunities to increase their utility through intellectual and emotional avenues. It will help generate a world that is much more appealing than the current one. Through the assistance of a superintelligence, humans will devote their lives to more enjoyable activities, like game-playing, developing human relations, and living closer to their ideals.
Ethical Implications
Experts have concluded that they don’t know what the result of an ASI world would be. Bostrom claims that as machines get smarter, they don’t just get score well on intelligence exams, rather they gain superpowers. The machines will be able to help itself become even smarter than it previously was. They will be the ability to be persuasive through social manipulation. They will also be able to prioritize tasks. They will be strategizing things like long term goals, and step by step how to accomplish them in the short term. It must be noted that ASI will be significantly more developed than humans in these areas. There will be a race among different groups to accomplish ASI superiority. These groups will likely consist of governments, tech firms, and black-market groups. Depending on who solves the problem first, it could prove consequential. This will be a revolutionary technology, and Bostrom believes that the first group to develop ASI will have a strategic advantage over any successors, as the first mover will have an advantage because it would be far enough ahead to oppress other ASI’s as they come about. This could give power to those who create successful ASI first. The issue is that the first ASI could be backed by morally unethical individuals. In this case, ASI could be harmful.
Additionally, if ASI can help humans become immortal, is this ethical? In a sense, ASI and humans would be playing the hand of God, which leaves people divided about the idea. Furthermore, there are serious implications if people become immortal. In a world where there is a no death rate, but still a birth rate, a serious impact on our living conditions and other species around us could occur. Could this lead to overpopulation? Or would ASI provide a solution to this? What if ASI concludes that certain humans/species pose a threat to society as a whole, and its solution is to eliminate a certain group of humans/species? What if we don’t like the answers that ASI has for humanity?
Media
Lucy (film)
Lucy is a 2013 science-fiction drama film starring Scarlet Johansson. The plot follows Lucy, a woman who gains telekinetic abilities following her exposure to a cognitive enhancement drug. Immediately following her exposure to the drug, Lucy begins to gain enhanced mental and physical abilities such as telepathy and telekinesis. In order to prevent her body from disintegrating due to cellular degeneration, Lucy must continue taking more of the drug. The additional doses work to further increase Lucy's cerebral capacity well beyond that of a normal human being, which gifts her with telekinetic and time-travel abilities. Her emotions are dulled and she grows more stoic and robotic. Her body begins to change into a black, nanomachine type substance that spreads over the computers and electronic objects in her lab. Eventually, Lucy transforms into a complex supercomputer. She becomes an all-knowing entity, far beyond the intellectual capacity of any human being. She eventually reaches 100% of her cerebral capacity and transcends this plane of existence and enters into the spacetime continuum. She leaves behind all of her knowledge on a superintelligent flash drive so that humans may learn from all of her knowledge and insight about the universe.
The story of Lucy can be likened to the concept of artificial superintelligence. Lucy is transformed into an all-knowing supercomputer with intelligence much greater than any human. Although she is not artificial, but rather a superintelligent human, she gains the ability to create solutions to problems that are unfathomable to the human mind. In a sense, Lucy loses her humanity and evolves into a machine with an intellect that is smarter than that of any human.
References
- https://nickbostrom.com/superintelligence.html
- The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology by Ray Kurzweil
- http://yudkowsky.net/
