Jun 8, 2018 03:42 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 9, 2018 03:09 AM by C C.)
https://aeon.co/essays/first-contact-wha...but-ets-ai
EXCERPT: . . . Another explanation for the great silence of the galaxy is that any surviving intelligence out there is so different from us, so radically evolved, that we can’t even conceive of its forms or behaviours. [...] The idea is not truly new. Back in the 1940s, the mathematician John von Neumann explored the possibilities of non-biological, self-replicating systems steeped in computation but requiring no operating minds. Later on, in the 1980s, others expanded on this concept by considering the real engineering needs for autonomous, replicating, space-faring devices; these machines would be able to roam the Universe, finding raw materials to build more and more of themselves, creating the infrastructure for energy from space or human settlement among the stars.
[...] One possibility is that this machine is super-capable, exceeding our human capacity for cognitive or analytical tasks. Such an AI might be exceedingly hard to understand, either in terms of its underlying motivation or because of practical barriers of communication bandwidth. For this device, talking to us might be like talking to an infant. Or trying to discuss the collected works of Shakespeare using pictographs. An alien system optimised for processing vast data streams might not even be able to downgrade its pace enough to notice that we’re trying to talk, whether we use technology or not.
[...] If we do meet an AI in our cosmological jaunt, it probably won’t be conscious in the full sense of the word. In fact, I think we’d find ourselves facing something akin to a ‘savant’ intelligence – a whiz at specific tasks, but otherwise extremely limited in its capacities.
[...] If this pattern of machine development is happening for us, it could represent a pattern that happens across the cosmos to influence the nature of cosmic exploration itself. Savant AIs would become the ultimate tools for allowing biological life to reach across interstellar distances: more robust than biology, and not smart enough to raise ethical concerns about being sent off to roam the cosmos according to our scientific whims. Propelling millions of these investigators into space would be an inevitable step. They could be sent to other stars and planetary systems, and designed to recognise the most interesting characteristics of these places, from astrophysics to the presence of life. These machines would reflect the motivations of their biological creators; perhaps simple curiosity, perhaps something more.
[...] In a sense, such AIs parallel the microbial machines that are at the core of life on Earth – forming the smallest units of intelligence to traverse the Universe, and ultimately combining together, as the evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis posed, to create multicellular creatures, larger entities and consciousness itself. In fact, long after a biological species has faded away amid the relentless torrent of natural selection, or self-destruction, this type of machine will remain.
AI beyond Earth might be hard to recognise. Just as someone living on the steppe in 12th-century Mongolia would find a self-driving car both magical and meaningless, we might be quite incapable of registering or interpreting the presence of billion-year-old machine savants. Equally, savant machines might not be actively seeking to talk to us, or any other intelligences. But a recognisable encounter with even one savant machine would indeed change everything. It would tell us that the galaxy is awash with intelligence, and could suggest that our future might be one of a vestigial, fading biological presence...
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/first-contact-wha...but-ets-ai
- - - Media Bias / Fact Check - - -
Aeon: LEFT-CENTER BIAS
Factual Reporting: HIGH
~
EXCERPT: . . . Another explanation for the great silence of the galaxy is that any surviving intelligence out there is so different from us, so radically evolved, that we can’t even conceive of its forms or behaviours. [...] The idea is not truly new. Back in the 1940s, the mathematician John von Neumann explored the possibilities of non-biological, self-replicating systems steeped in computation but requiring no operating minds. Later on, in the 1980s, others expanded on this concept by considering the real engineering needs for autonomous, replicating, space-faring devices; these machines would be able to roam the Universe, finding raw materials to build more and more of themselves, creating the infrastructure for energy from space or human settlement among the stars.
[...] One possibility is that this machine is super-capable, exceeding our human capacity for cognitive or analytical tasks. Such an AI might be exceedingly hard to understand, either in terms of its underlying motivation or because of practical barriers of communication bandwidth. For this device, talking to us might be like talking to an infant. Or trying to discuss the collected works of Shakespeare using pictographs. An alien system optimised for processing vast data streams might not even be able to downgrade its pace enough to notice that we’re trying to talk, whether we use technology or not.
[...] If we do meet an AI in our cosmological jaunt, it probably won’t be conscious in the full sense of the word. In fact, I think we’d find ourselves facing something akin to a ‘savant’ intelligence – a whiz at specific tasks, but otherwise extremely limited in its capacities.
[...] If this pattern of machine development is happening for us, it could represent a pattern that happens across the cosmos to influence the nature of cosmic exploration itself. Savant AIs would become the ultimate tools for allowing biological life to reach across interstellar distances: more robust than biology, and not smart enough to raise ethical concerns about being sent off to roam the cosmos according to our scientific whims. Propelling millions of these investigators into space would be an inevitable step. They could be sent to other stars and planetary systems, and designed to recognise the most interesting characteristics of these places, from astrophysics to the presence of life. These machines would reflect the motivations of their biological creators; perhaps simple curiosity, perhaps something more.
[...] In a sense, such AIs parallel the microbial machines that are at the core of life on Earth – forming the smallest units of intelligence to traverse the Universe, and ultimately combining together, as the evolutionary biologist Lynn Margulis posed, to create multicellular creatures, larger entities and consciousness itself. In fact, long after a biological species has faded away amid the relentless torrent of natural selection, or self-destruction, this type of machine will remain.
AI beyond Earth might be hard to recognise. Just as someone living on the steppe in 12th-century Mongolia would find a self-driving car both magical and meaningless, we might be quite incapable of registering or interpreting the presence of billion-year-old machine savants. Equally, savant machines might not be actively seeking to talk to us, or any other intelligences. But a recognisable encounter with even one savant machine would indeed change everything. It would tell us that the galaxy is awash with intelligence, and could suggest that our future might be one of a vestigial, fading biological presence...
MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/first-contact-wha...but-ets-ai
- - - Media Bias / Fact Check - - -
Aeon: LEFT-CENTER BIAS
Factual Reporting: HIGH
~