Artificial
Intelligence has been discussed and in active development for many
years. There are many positive theories about its deployed and many
foreboding ones as well. One part of any of these future speculations
this author has never read or thought about is hate within AI. Many
terrorists might fantasize upon building armies of drones or humanoids
who would selectively try to harm specific "enemies". But this is, as
per the article below, very simplistic thinking. It is a great segment
and gives food for thought.
One more thought here . . . it seems that programming AI with Netiquette would be far easier than programming AI with hate!
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From techcrunch.com
Programming Hate Into AI Will Be Controversial,
But Possibly Necessary
zoltan istvan
In the last few
years, the topic of artificial intelligence (AI) has been thrust into the
mainstream. No longer just the domain of sci-fi fans, nerds or Google
engineers, I hear people discussing AI at parties, coffee shops and even at the
dinner table: My five-year-old daughter brought it up the other night over taco
lasagna. When I asked her if anything interesting had happened in school, she
replied that her teacher discussed smart robots.
The exploration
of intelligence — be it human or artificial — is ultimately the domain of
epistemology, the study of knowledge. Since the first musings of creating AI
back in antiquity,
epistemology seems to have led the debate on how to do it. The question I hear most
in this field from the public is: How can humans develop another intelligent
consciousness if we can’t even understand our own?
It’s a prudent
question. The human brain, despite being only about 3 pounds in weight, is the
least understood organ in the body. And with a billion neurons — with 100 trillion
connections — it’s safe to say it’s going to be a long time before we end up
figuring out the brain.
Generally,
scientists believe human consciousness is a compilation of many chemicals in
the brain forced though a prism that produces cognitive awareness designed to
insist an entity is aware of not only itself but also the outside world.
How can humans develop another intelligent consciousness
if we can’t even understand our own?
Some people
argue that the quintessential key to consciousness is awareness. French
philosopher and mathematician René Descartes may have made the initial
step by saying I think, therefore I am. But thinking does not
adequately define consciousness. Justifying thinking is much closer to the
meaning that’s adequate. It really should be: I believe I’m conscious,
therefore I am.
But even
awareness doesn’t ring right with me when searching for a grand theory of
consciousness. We can teach a robot all day to insist it is aware, but we can’t
teach it to prove it’s not a brain in a vat — something people still can’t do
either.
Christof Koch,
chief neuroscientist at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, offers a
more unique and holistic version of consciousness. He thinks consciousness can
happen in any complex processing system, including animals, worms and possibly
even the Internet.
In an interview, when asked
what consciousness is, Koch replied, “There’s a theory, called Integrated Information Theory,
developed by Giulio Tononi at the University of Wisconsin, that assigns to any
one brain, or any complex system, a number — denoted by the Greek
symbol Φ [phi the 21rst letter of the Greek alphabet sometimes referred a plane angle or a polar coordinate] — that tells you how integrated a system is, how much more
the system is than the union of its parts. Φ gives you an information-theoretical
measure of consciousness. Any system with integrated information
different from zero has consciousness. Any integration feels like
something.”
If Koch and
Tononi are correct, then it would be a mistake to ever think one conscious
could equal another. It would be apples and oranges. Just like no snowflake or
planet is the same as another, we must be on our guard against using
anthropomorphic prejudice when thinking about consciousness.
The human brain is the least understood organ in the
body.
In this way,
the first autonomous super-intelligence we create via machines may think and
behave dramatically different than us — so much so that it may not ever relate
to us, or vice versa. In fact, every AI we ever create in the future may leave
us in very short order for distant parts of the digital universe — an
ego-thumping concept made visual in the brilliant movie Her. Of course, an AI might just
terminate itself, too, upon realizing it’s alive and surrounded by curious
humans peering at it.
Whatever
happens, in the same way there is the anthropological concept cultural relativism, we must be ready for
consciousness relativism — the idea that one consciousness may be totally
different than another, despite the hope that math, logic and coding will be
obvious communication tools.
This makes even
more sense when you consider how small-minded humans and their consciousness
might actually be. After all, nearly all our perception comes from our five
senses, which is how our brain makes sense of the world. And every one of our
senses is quite poor in terms of possible ability. The eye, for example, only
sees about 1 percent of the
universe’s light spectrum.
For this
reason, I’m reluctant to insist on consciousness being one thing or the other,
and do lean toward believing Koch and Tononi are correct by saying variations
of consciousness can be seen in many forms across the spectrum of existence.
This also
reinforces why I’m reluctant to believe that AI will fundamentally be like us.
I surmise it may learn to replicate our behavior — perhaps even perfectly — but
it will always be something different. Replication is no different than the
behavior of a wind-up doll. Most humans hope for much more of themselves and
their consciousness. And, of course, most AI engineers want much more for the
machines they hope to give a conscious rise to.
Despite that,
we will still try to create AI with our
own values and ways of thinking, including imbuing it with traits we posses. If
I had to pinpoint one behavioral trait of consciousness that humans all have
and should also be instilled in AI, it would be empathy. It’s empathy that will
form the type of AI consciousness the world wants and needs — and one that
people also can understand and accept.
On the other
hand, if a created consciousness can empathize, then it must also be able to
like or dislike — and even to love or hate something.
For a consciousness to make judgments on value, both
liking and disliking (love and hate) functions must be part of the system.
Therein lies
the conundrum. In order for a consciousness to make judgments on value, both
liking and disliking (love and hate) functions must be part of the system. No
one minds thinking about AI’s that can love — but super-intelligent machines
that can hate? Or feel sad? Or feel guilt? That’s much more controversial — especially
in the drone age where machines control autonomous weaponry. And yet,
anything less than that coding in empathy to an intelligence just creates a
follower machine — a wind-up doll consciousness.
Kevin
LaGrandeur, a professor at the New York Institute of Technology, recently wrote, “If a machine could truly
be made to ‘feel’ guilt in its varying degrees, then would we have problems of
machine suffering and machine ‘suicide’”? If we develop a truly strong
artificial intelligence, we might — and then we would face the moral
problem of creating a suffering being.
It’s a pickle
for sure. I don’t envy the programmers who are endeavoring to bring a super
intelligence into our world, knowing that their creations may also consciously hate
things — including its creators. Such programming may just lead to a world
where robots and machine intelligences experience the same modern-day problems
— angst, bigotry, depression, loneliness and rage — afflicting humanity.
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For a great email parody, view the following link:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTgYHHKs0Zw
scoop_post=bcaa0440-2548-11e5-c1bd-90b11c3d2b20&__scoop_topic=2455618
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