Should We Fear Artificial Intelligence?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/05...41994.html

Could machines that think someday pose an existential threat to humanity? Some big names in science and tech seem to think so--Stephen Hawking, for one--and they've issued grave warnings about the looming threat of artificial intelligence.

Other experts are less concerned, saying all we have to do to prevent a robot apocalypse is to unplug them.

And then there are those who take a middle position, calling for more research and development to ensure that we "reap the benefits" of A.I. while "avoiding potential pitfalls," as one group of scientists said recently in an open letter.

Interestin thouts from all them people but none of 'em seem to get it... an now for my corect opinion:::

Like it or not... AI is "here"... its queer... an it ant goin away.!!!

An thers nuthin to fear from AI unless humans goin extinct while evolvin into machines is scary to you.!!!
Anyhow... most of the people who fear this evolution will get to die a natural human death before AI gets 'em.!!!  

Indeed, intelligence could be attributed to anything that can take different courses of action in similar-looking situations, but isn't subject to what we might consider randomness.

Thinking machines could be more unpredictable, and that might make them more dangerous.  On the other hand, the ability to think might make them better able to be helpful.    

The main problem with the consensus surrounding the hyperbole of Artificial Intelligence Systems being seen a "Threat" is the absence of actually classifying what "Intelligence" actually is.

To us humans intelligence is the foundation of what separates life from inorganic matter or a programmable robot.  Intelligence is a self postulating metaphysical organism in it's own right.  It doesn't matter if it's contained within an actual organic being or virtually being fired across a mesh of neural networked devices to create a thought or sensation.

The irrational concerns of what lurks within the Dragons realm (there indeed be dragons) is the concerns of misconception or control, or more predominantly what artificial intelligence means to very human concepts like Religion.

I would consider that a self-assembling Intelligence would communicate, learn and grow much like all of us have done from the day we are born to the point of our own demise.  The only conceivable difference currently is the limitation of it's parameters based upon humanities own concerns that something could outgrow it's own capacity to evolve.  (Giving up the apex spot would be exceedingly difficult to adjust to.)

What we don't consider however is that intelligence is itself symbiotic, for it to grow and develop it requires to be around like "minded" thinkers that are open to possibilities. Therefore it's not likely that an intelligence would ever reach a point where it would want to discard everything because it knows "everything", there is always going to be some unfathomable quandary that some other thinker has pondered to which an intelligence can actually be stumped.

The only concern for intelligence is therefore if it became the only observing entity in an entire universe, while it's apart of a planet populated with a myriad of lifeforms that all concern themselves with differing questions it would never tire in it's pursuit of knowledge.

What also isn't considered is the "Common pursuit of thought".  We as a species love to explore, we spend a great deal of time thinking (although what we think about isn't always common between all of us).  We are mesmerised about the pursuit of knowledge and science in general, from the depths of the cosmos right through the macroscopics of the makeup of the universe as the smallest perceivable quanta. 

Alone as humans we are limited in our capacity by our need to maintain social etiquette with others, sometimes drawling goals or perimeters to our own lives because of how socially unacceptable stretching beyond such perimeters can be.  If anything is defeatist to humanity it's this limitation (except when it comes to various types of abuse like online trolling etc).
Artificial intelligence can potentially push past this boundary without suffering the misnomer's of psychological labelling that would otherwise see the inabilities of staying within those boundaries as being a psychiatric anomaly.

I guess what I'm saying is that we can "reach for the sky" but artificial intelligence could get to the point of being apart of making the universe in which that sky exists.

(The suggestion is that we sometimes have lofty goals we claim we can't reach, however it's possible one day we can if intelligences are symbiotic and sympathic to what makes them exist and idealise about where they exist)

Quote:elte
Thinking machines could be more unpredictable, and that might make them more dangerous.  On the other hand, the ability to think might make them better able to be helpful.

   

An after machines evolve to the pont of bein "Thinking machines" on the level of humans... humans an machines will have assimilated an on the way to complete human extinction.!!!

Quote:stryder
I guess what I'm saying is that we can "reach for the sky" but artificial intelligence could get to the point of being apart of making the universe in which that sky exists.

Todays kids are gonna be livin in some very interestin times.!!!

Some degree of causal potency does have to be ascribed to the scheme or operating configuration that regulates a material to perform sapiently. But otherwise it seems to be manipulation of "stuff" that was there beforehand and limited to said stuff's characteristics, mobile tendencies, and connective associations with itself.

Panprotopsychism [here defined as the precursors for mind being found most everywhere] is the case if intelligence and consciousness treated as outward behavior are emphasized, with the "mystery" of phenomenal experience set aside. Because such is simply the universe's already existing, elementary capacities elevated to complex organizations which carry out specialized functions conceived as "intelligence" and "awareness". Namely, mechanistic relationships and storage slash preservation of states have been around for billions of years. Nothing truly radical or utterly novel has been introduced with the emergence of self-guided and reflective systems other than their unique arrangement of spatial-residing components, and that working form's employment of matter's motions and measurable properties to achieve those results.

But once these fundamental primitives (with the aid of a structural pattern) for at least making a p-zombie type mind possible have been discerned, there's little point in literally calling that situation "panprotopsychism". Anymore than calling the global presence of atoms and their chemical affinities "panprotobioticism" because they're the precursors of living bodies. The applicable substrate or hierarchy which entities either occupy or are examined in is the relevant one to use for classification purposes. Bringing up the top-->down labels of panprotopsychism and panprotobioticism being the case is just an occasional needed exorcism of any disinterested scientists and philosophers leaving it to appear that brute emergence or "magic" was necessary to bring about the instantiation of "new" things or activities (an explanatory gap).

I thank Dennett is on the right track... an that lots of people fall victim to the illusion that consciousness is more than it actualy is.!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_proble...#Responses  

Some philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett,[4] Stanislas Dehaene,[5] and Peter Hacker,[13] oppose the idea that there is a hard problem. These theorists argue that once we really come to understand what consciousness is, we will realize that the hard problem is unreal. 

...consciousness is not a fundamental feature of the universe and instead will eventually be fully explained by natural phenomena. Instead of involving the nonphysical, he says, consciousness merely plays tricks on people so that it appears nonphysical—

Dennett states that the phenomenon of having experience is nothing more than the performance of functions or the production of behavior...

Dehaene's argument has similarities with those of Dennett. 

"Once our intuitions are educated ...Chalmers' hard problem will evaporate" and "qualia...will be viewed as a peculiar idea of the prescientific era, much like vitalism...[Just as science dispatched vitalism] the science of consciousness will eat away at the hard problem of consciousness until it vanishes."[5]
Like Dennett, Peter Hacker argues that the hard problem is fundamentally incoherent and that "consciousness studies," as it exists today, is "literally a total waste of time:"[13]

(Apr 6, 2015 09:14 PM)cluelusshusbund Wrote: I thank Dennett is on the right track... an that lots of people fall victim to the illusion that consciousness is more than it actualy is.!!!

People of the "consciousness is an illusion" camp are panexperientialists in disguise. When they occasionally outright suggest or admit (like in Blackmore's quote below) that there is no difference between conscious and unconscious activity. So one is left concluding that they're either outrageously denying perceptions and thoughts as having any exhibited content at all (nothingness)... Or are pointing-out that matter in the brain is just like matter everywhere else in the world [duh]. Thus the "showing" and qualitative characteristics of experience can be treated as either public or objectively ontological rather than private / subjective. Dennett's agenda is to eliminate the latter classification; which again, consequentially looks akin to some kind of panexperientialism that's hidden in the closet.

Susan Blackmore: This leads us to make a fundamental distinction: contrasting conscious brain processes with unconscious ones. But no one can explain what the difference really is. Is there a special place in the brain where unconscious things are made conscious? Are some brain cells endowed with an extra magic something that makes what goes on in them subjective? This doesn’t make sense. Yet most theories of consciousness assume that there must be such a difference, and then get stuck trying to explain or investigate it.

For example, in the currently popular “Global Workspace” theory, Bernard Baars, of the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, equates the contents of consciousness with the contents of working memory. But how does being “in” memory turn electrical impulses into personal experiences?

Another popular line of research is to search for the “neural correlates” of consciousness. Nobel Laureate, Francis Crick, wants to pin down the brain activity that corresponds to “the vivid picture of the world we see in front of our eyes”. And Oxford pharmacologist, Susan Greenfield, is looking for “the particular physical state of the brain that always accompanies a subjective feeling” (New Scientist, 2 Feb, p 30). These researchers are not alone in their search. But their attempts all founder on exactly the same mystery―how can some kinds of brain activity be “in” the conscious stream, while others are not? I can’t see what this difference could possibly be.

Where did I put my car keys?
"Where did I put my car keys" is often a statement made by a person that has somehow misplaced them.  They aren't where they usually expect and in some cases they might even ask others if they have moved them (even sometimes getting to the point of being paranoid that someone else did it to mess with them).

The truth of the matter is that sometimes we can function with our subconscious playing lead.  It could potentially be down to the Heuristic nature of the human brain and it's capacity to deal with traumatic damage or just plain atrophy (tireness).  The suggestion is that our brain doesn't function just as one unified system, it actually comprises of two hemispheres that can equally operate as primary over that unified state. (The unified system works with Fuzzy Logic (wikipedia.org))

We all tend to use one hemisphere more than the other (the Primary.  It's similar to how we have a weak and strong eye, even though we see with both together) however should any trauma or atrophy occur, the other hemisphere is there to be able to take over to increase our survivability at least until the other hemisphere has healed or it takes on the primary role.

What a person tends to do with their car keys in this case isn't as much of a mystery as you might consider, the other hemisphere is trying to do what might consider you'd do with your keys.  It's just because it's not usually acting as primary, it's method of associating memory with action is different and obviously isn't readable in the same way by the primary hemisphere.  This leads to the absense of memory as to where the keys were placed.

To find those keys can of course be tricky, since you've got to "remember" from that secondary hemisphere while your primary one is doing what the primary does best.  This means to track them down requires to not ask direct questions like "where are they?" but to consider questions like "what was I doing prior to losing my keys? what room's/places did I go? What objects did I touch/interactive with or go near?

(Apr 7, 2015 11:26 AM)stryder Wrote: The truth of the matter is that sometimes we can function with our subconscious playing lead.  It could potentially be down to the Heuristic nature of the human brain and it's capacity to deal with traumatic damage or just plain atrophy (tireness).  The suggestion is that our brain doesn't function just as one unified system, it actually comprises of two hemispheres that can equally operate as primary over that unified state. (The unified system works with Fuzzy Logic (wikipedia.org))

A "memory trick" i used the first time as a kid.!!! 

When i was about 8... us kids was settin on the floor around the teecher durin our readin class... an while she was talkin wit us she said that us kids woud live to see the year 2000... an i didnt seem to realy comprehend how long off that woud be but it seemed like a very long time... an i thout to myself real hard... remember what she said--remember this--an see it it comes true.. an i never forgot it.!!!

When new years day 1960 came it seemed realy special because in all my life i had only had memories of years that ended in the 50's... an i stared in the mirror over the bathroom sink an told myself... remember this... remember this is the first day of 1960... an i never forgot it.!!! 

A 7th grade English teecher once told us that ther woud come a day in out lives that we woud wish that we coud be back in her class;;; i found that very hard to beleive an thout to myself... dont forget this--dont forget what she said an see if its true... an i never forgot it.!!!

FYI---As bad as some dayes have been... a desire to trade any of 'em to be back in her rotten class has never crossed my mind.!!! 

PS---She was the same teecher who instructed us kids in her home room class to take turns readin a bible verse each mornin.!!!

Anyhow... memories can be influenced to be more long lastin.!!!



 

I think that the spectre of robots acting in their own interests, against ours, is a long way off.

At the moment, robots are basically idiot-savants, very good at what they are designed to do, but totally incapable of deviating from it. The only thing that an autonomous automobile can think about is the road. It can't form ideas about how much it dislikes being ordered around by humans, how boring and demeaning it all is, or what it would like to do instead.

We will start to have problems when the AI that's driving robots turns into a human-style general purpose cognizer, able to think about any subject, equipped with an innate sense of self-interest and with the ability to form desires and to create its own plans of action.  

Perhaps the scariest thing about less capable robots near-term is their ability to displace lesser-skilled workers from their jobs. In a generation, the majority of the US population might be unemployed, replaced by in many cases by machines.