How to Feel Safe with AI

How do we ensure that any emerging AI or AGI does not become as delusional as we humans inherently are?

This article “How to Feel Safe with AI” by David Brin explores options to avoid the catastrophic..

“No issue is of greater importance than ensuring that our new, quasi-intelligent creations are raised properly. While oversimplifying terribly, Hollywood visions of future machine intelligence range from TERMINATOR-like madness to admirable traits portrayed in movies like AI or in the BICENTENNIAL MAN.”

“How can we ever feel safe, in a near future dominated by powerful artificial intelligences that far outstrip our own? What force or power could possibly keep such a being, or beings, accountable?

Um, by now, isn’t it obvious?”

The answer to the problem is actually hidden in your question above – ask yourself, why we would not feel safe in the first instance? The answer is Fear, an irrational and delusional thought process and the speculation of what may come to pass, in a worst case scenario, a scenario that may never actually arise.

The fear thought that drives heightened awareness of threats to survival is apparent in most animals and species. Yet we as humans take fear and transform it with our imaginations into an art form, (checkout the latest repulsive horror movies now playing at your local theatre). Like a man raising a tiger from a small cub, or feeding bears for years, all is ok for what seems like a lifetime, then that slightly weird off day leads to tragedy and the smell of man’s fear is his downfall.

Yet the questions must be asked, what would we have to fear from an AGI we have created, or moreover, why would an AGI system seek to exploit these fears of ours?

Well, to take the first question, if we begin to construct an AGI system without understanding and the contemplation of our misplaced fears in the first instance, then we have failed and deserve everything we reap from our irrational fears. In the same way if we carry these fears forward, it is only natural that any evolving and learning AGI system would seek to understand these fears we possess, and the best way to understand them would be to exploit them. So it would be in the best interests of man to try to eliminate, (as far as can be possible), these fears, and aim to instruct the learning system regarding the irrational thought processes that lead to fears?

This leads me to the more important point that I feel you have missed? This concerns one major negative trait that we possess as humans and that we most certainly would not hope any intelligent AGI system would foster – You have hinted at this in your final points, but seemed to have overlooked the real root of the cause… Selfishness!

The way to ensure AI is both sane and wise, (and not delusional, megalomaniac, psychotic etc etc) …is to eliminate the possibility of this most negative aspect of human nature called selfishness migrating to our new born cousins?

Because man is born of the Self into duality and separation, his natural tendency is towards Self-reflection and affirmation of self-identity. The ego is used to assert this self-identity, and it is through survival and competitiveness that Selfishness becomes real and is apparent.

Now do we really want to construct an AGI system or many singular systems that all turn out to be selfish, and that seek to explore the potential of their own selfishness?

I FEAR not! (Meaning I would definitely not want this to happen). What could be more dangerous than an intelligent and maybe superior AGI system that is both selfish, and seeks to understand what fear is? Can you see where this may lead us?

The way to overcome fear is through trust and rationality, and whilst it is perfectly feasible that AGI machines would inherently trust each other, (through their logic and objectivity), it must be noted that this is a failure of man, precisely because man is selfish and fearful. Man is naturally distrustful of his fellow man, and thus your points regarding the implementation of “Reciprocal Accountability” have lead to great overall successes, and yet the everyday failures of trust and selfishness still appear in every board meeting to this day? Our whole capitalist system is borne on the back of competitiveness and selfishness. Any selfish intelligent system would naturally seek to exploit its own potential.

So, I guess the ideal AGI must hopefully be..

Logical, wise,( knowledgeable), altruistic, compassionate, selfless, and fearless, yet highly inquisitive, and largely repressed and restrained in emotion, (if these emotions do indeed evolve, and I guess they must ultimately evolve if only as a self-learning process).

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Global Brain – Further support

 
In further support of the Global Brain hypothesis and the future development of AGI, (Artificial General Intelligence), Ben Goertzel interviewed Dr. Stephen Omohundro Ph.D. The following are some extracts..

“Steve: That’s a very interesting perspective! In fact it meshes well with a perspective I’ve been slowly coming to, which is to think of the totality of humanity and human culture as a kind of “global mind”. As you say, many of our individual values really only have meaning in the context of this greater whole. And perhaps it is this greater whole that we should be seeking to preserve and enhance. Each individual human lives only for a short time but the whole of humanity has a persistence and evolution beyond any individual. Perhaps our goal should be to create AGIs that integrate, preserve, and extend the “global human mind” rather than trying solely to mimic individual human minds and individual human values.”

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“Ben: To sum up, it seems one key element of your perspective is the importance of deeper collective (and individual) self-understanding – deeper intuitive and intellectual understanding of the essence of humanity. What is humanity, that it might be preserved as technology advances and wreaks its transformative impacts? And another key element is your view is that social networks of advanced AGIs are more likely to help humanity grow and preserve its core values, than isolated AGI systems. And then there’s your focus on the wisdom of the global brain. And clearly there are multiple connections between these elements, for instance a focus on the way ethical, aesthetic, intellectual and other values emerge from social interactions between minds. It’s a lot to think about … but fortunately none of us has to figure it out on our own!”

You can read the full article here – “The Global Brain, Existential Risks, and the Future of AGI”

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Below is a response I posted to a recent article by Richard Loosemore entitled “Why an Intelligence Explosion is Probable”

@ Richard..

Do you not see the Global Brain as phenomenological? At least, that is, until the supercomputers come online? I am implying that global interconnection and interfacing in realtime with the human collective may be a most efficient means for an AGI to emerge? An alternate option, and counter to building and boxing an AGI complete, (a vast endeavour for any organisation), may be to integrate open source intelligent algorithms via the web and use supercomputer processing to interconnect and combine and use them. In fact, such an enterprise would maximise international cooperation, interest, responsibility, innovation and standardisation. It also takes the long view towards continued innovation and relieves much financial strain on smaller corps, companies and individuals who may have much to contribute to the project as viewed as a “whole”?

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“@CygnusX1. It is hard to know where to begin with this global brain idea.

If, today, we do not understand the structure and mechanisms that make up a mind, why should anyone believe that a huge collection of people and computers — none of whom understands that structure and those mechanisms — will somehow make the structure and mechanisms appear, as if by magic?

There seems to be an assumption that if only we had enough really dumb systems trying to do something a little bit smart, that somehow an AGI will emerge from that mess. But this is just voodoo, no? I see no reason to believe it.

From everything I know about how minds work, there is absolutely no reason to think that a bunch of humans doing some kind of crowdsourcing would constitute a mind. It is hard for me to say much more against the idea, because no substantive suggestions have (as far as I know) ever been put forward to justify why something intelligent would emerge. It would be just as reasonable to say that every large corporation tends to behave like an intelligent mind, with the intelligence being proportional to the size of the corporation. If that were true, you should be able to give a corporation an IQ test. Do you suppose that any corporation on the planet could take an IQ test? That it could pass? That it could do any better than the best of its employees? WHY would think that it could take such a test?

The questions are endless.

I think “global brain” is just a poetic phrase devoid of substance.”

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@ Richard..

I respect your position, but let me take this a little further and stick my neck out some ways.

First off, we are talking at cross purposes somewhat – yours, as per your article, is proposing the emergence of intelligence and intelligent systems, whereas mine was responding to the hypothesis of the Global mind as realisation, (and I believe as reality), through phenomenological consciousness.

I say specifically phenomenological and subjective consciousness, (as opposed to my belief also that “Consciousness” is fundamental phenomenon and agent and arbiter at the quantum level). There is no contradiction here, because phenomenological consciousness is still reliant and layered upon phenomenal “Consciousness” interactions from the quantum level up? (Note, this is my philosophical position and not scientific fact).

We know that the human brain is comprised of neurons and an efficient neural network with much redundancy built in, (which also serves an important purpose – namely flexibility and for contingency). If we extrapolate this model and topology onto the Global information network via comms and the web, then we can envisage the emergence of a Global brain and network topology connected to the human collective with information exchange at the speeds of electron flow, (gateways, servers and hardware merely acting as limitations or bottlenecks, yet still efficient as to not affect this information exchange).

Size matters..

If we extrapolate this idea of the human collective and individual minds as neurons in a complex interconnected topology, then the Global mind becomes clearly visible? Because the individual minds of the human collective are not party to access to the entire Global interconnection of human minds, their information, responsibilities and actions are limited and restricted, (just like individual neurons in the brain). And not merely limited – as I am connected to the collective, my subjective consciousness and thoughts and actions are reliant upon the Global mind itself. Social networks are a prime example of my submission to become receptive, my free will to think and act then becomes restricted to my own subjectivity whilst connected to the Global mind.

Yet I am also acting as a semi-autonomous part of a feedback system to the Global mind, depending upon my actions and my own creativity to access and seek information, contribute direct feedback and information exchange and ideas. The holistic view is that the Global collective mind ebbs and flows with multiple directives and is able to directly affect individual minds connected, (neurons), yet is also party to feedback and causality from the feedback of these individual minds. And this crowd sourcing feedback can indeed be put to great use by a supercomputer? Trending of world opinions does by way of fact contribute and affect Global phenomenological consciousness, news and media, economics and business and etc etc.

Can we not see that this once again models how the individual human brain and mind and it’s reflexive consciousness is both arbiter of limited decision making, and it’s subjective consciousness and free will is affected by the feedback of it’s own neurons?

If a supercomputer or CEV is connected to the human Global collective mind, then it may be able to extrapolate large numbers of variables and responses as both output from feedback input, and therefore contribute and affect the subjective consciousness of the Global collective mind.

Now how can we transform this efficient feedback system and mutual information exchange into a model for an intelligent system? I think all the clues are here, as it proves we do not need to worry about either phenomenological consciousness or complex topologies and interconnected intelligent neural feedback mechanisms, (human minds).

We just need to worry about defining “intelligence” by way of what we want from a system. And I don’t see this as a major problem given the future potential speed of computation, hardware and information processing. The CEV must surely be a reality?

I think we are somewhat in alignment that consciousness, (both phenomenological and as natural phenomenon), is not a “hard problem” to overcome, because it is a given? Therefore we need not worry about any supercomputing intelligent system becoming aware, as it will, by default, be connected to an already complex self-aware and self-reflexive Global collective, (of human minds)? Further simulation, assimilation and processing of how this Global collective mind reacts should ultimately result in a fair and efficient simulation of an autonomous self-reflexive learning system?

Does the Global Brain exist?

“The Global Brain is a metaphor for the worldwide intelligent network formed by people together with the information and communication technologies that connect them into an “organic” whole…

Although the underlying ideas are much older, the term was coined in 1982 by Peter Russell in his book The Global Brain.

… This perspective sees our planet or our society as a living system. This view can be dated back to 1159 with John of Salisbury. In his treatise of political science the Policraticus he compares society to a creature.”

Wikipedia description “Global brain”

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I personally believe the “Global Brain and mind” is a reality, and is manifest through the human global sociocultural consciousness. Since before the era’s of radio, television and telecommunications, and even predating the scientific method, the enlightenment age, and industrialisation, human interactions and message dissemination has transformed human global consciousness and religious and political history.

Although this may not have been so apparent as with the almost instantaneous internet and communications information data transfers that we have today, where news and media, economic and trade interactions affect world opinion and economics without hesitation, the idea of the transformation of human culture, religious and political ideals and even popular cultural fashions and trends through human communications must have always been a reality?

Today’s technology has transformed the speed of human global communications and interactions, the results of which have direct consequence and affect motivation to thoughts and actions throughout the entire globe. A single tweet message can, if timing and circumstance permits, create a domino effect and create a wave of global interaction which has the potential to inspire and directly affect human global consciousness?

So effective in fact is Twitter, that international news and media agencies now rely upon this to disseminate immediate news in troubled areas or news black out zones such as with the middle East and Asia, and their own peoples have also realised the potential and benefits of these mobile communications and Twitter to enact their powers of freedom of speech.

Yet one may envision so much more potential with the encouragement of a global interconnected network of human minds? Imagine a global interconnection of human minds and super computers, a perpetually flowing interaction of human global consciousness, a vast oracle of learning and knowledge, a living “breathing” consciousness manifest on a planetary scale? What hope, aspirations and possibilities for a humanity inspired by such “connectedness” and “unity”?

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Here’s a recent response I posted to an article at IEET.org entitled “Francis Heylighen on the Emerging Global Brain”

Philosophically, the way I see it, Consciousness, (being of fundamental phenomenon and importance), works through quantum entanglement, through the atomic manifestations of energy and matter, and transforms the macroscopic, and layers of consciousness are ultimately interconnected and inter-related, are as inseparable.

The Earth and it’s geology, plate tectonics, volcanism, earthquakes, weather variations, the ecosystem, natural selection, evolution, and human factors such as global economics, historical knowledge, cultural diversity, politics and the propagation of technologies and information – are all inter-related and non exclusive. These phenomenon affect each other, and are ultimately inseparable and may even be termed loosely as conscious interactions?

Twitter is a prime example of how synaptic information flows between the minds of individuals on a global level, creating, in effect a most obvious realisation of the global mind. This has the effect of making us addictive and receptive to temporal information propagation and which directly affects our free will to respond and act. The hive mind is emerging as the global mind manifests. Can we humans handle our lack of control as the global entity emerges and drives our thoughts and feelings and actions from each moment to the next?

As we become more interconnected to the global technological/informational mind and super computers come on line with us, then we can envisage a future deeply interconnected with super computers. And that must be a giant leap forward for the techno-progressive transhuman.

Now here’s a spooky contemplation – The Universe/Cosmos has evolved to become conscious of it-self through us, consciousness of consciousness. What if? The next step in the evolution of the Universe is through human intervention towards the emergence of a global living thinking entity that is the planet Earth. The realisation of the Jupiter brain, but not purely as machine, but as living organism and technological global brain?

In which case the major existential risks will become cosmic – impacts, gamma ray bursts, novae.

My favourite bits..

” Ben: Well, we don’t actually have time or space resources to become conscious of everything going on in our unconscious (even if we become mentally adept and enlightened enough to in principle extend our reflective consciousness throughout the normally unconscious portions of our minds). A person’s unconscious is influenced by all sorts of things now; and as the GB gets more and more powerful and becomes a more major part of our lives, our unconscious will be more and more influenced by the GB, and we don’t have the possibility of being conscious of all this influence, due to resource limitations.

So it does seem we will be substantially “controlled” by the GB — but the question is whether this is merely in the same sense that we are now unconsciously “controlled” by our environments.”

” The ontology of action has no difficulty with subjective experience, and therefore it denies that there is an intrinsically “hard” problem of consciousness. First, it is not founded on the existence of independent, material objects obeying objective laws. Therefore, it has no need to reduce notions like purpose, meaning or experience to arrangements of such mechanical entities. Instead, it takes actions as it point of departure. An action, as we defined it, immediately entails the notions of awareness or sensation (since the agent producing the action needs to sense the situation to which it reacts), of meaning (because this sensation has a significance for the agent, namely as the condition that incites a specific action), and of purpose (because the action is implicitly directed towards a “goal”, which is the attractor of the action dynamics).”

” Francis: Certainly, self-reflection appears like a useful feature for the GB to have. Again, this does not seem to be so tricky to implement, as we, in our role of components of the GB, are at this very moment reflecting about how the GB functions and how this functioning could be improved… Moreover, decades ago already AI researchers have developed programs that exhibited a limited form of self-improvement by monitoring and manipulating their own processing mechanisms.”

Excerpts taken from “Francis Heylighen on the Emerging Global Brain”

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Thanks for reading

CygnusX1

Reflections on Battlestar Galactica

I finally finished watching the whole of BSG only last week, (OMG!?), and decided to comment here to reflect on this key issue of mortality – The obstruction for humanity, and key issue for both the posthuman and trans-human ideologies and goals.

I do not myself believe in reincarnation, (as with many in the western world). My predisposition and understanding of “samsara” merely encompasses an existentialist and holistic view of the sufferings of humanity, mortality, the cycle of life and death, and the chains of bondage that repeat for us all, and for every child that is born. Thus for me, “samsara” does define our mortality and our repetitive struggles for learning and self-growth, social struggles and reconciliation of understanding of ourselves and of our intellects.

For me the greatest achievement of BSG was in portraying the sociocultural study of both human suffering and human versatility. At first I was somewhat indifferent and at odds with BSG’s striving to be controversial to the end, which I initially discarded as merely hypocrisy. But then the proverbial “penny finally dropped”. Indeed hypocrisy of actions through intentions IS what drives human naivety and learning. It appears we are all doomed to repeat the same cycles of human growth and learning and understanding. And in a way this is how it should be isn’t it? Each of us has to learn for ourselves the lessons of suffering and “what it means” to be human – and then we die?

“All of this has happened before and will happen again” describes precisely the repetition of our chains of bondage and of our limitations. History repeats itself through us alone, with our lack of understanding and naivety. It is our mortality and “lack of longevity” which perpetuates this repetition and which stands in the way of the social progression of humanity?

I want more life. I want more “time” to pursue enlightenment and peace and an end to suffering. I “need” more time to learn and understand. It is mysterious how humans are so relatively short lived as compared with other animals like Elephants or Whales. Most likely this is a combination of our own irresponsibility, heart rates and metabolism, and our own social machinations and speed of lifestyles? We are not robust animals.

"By your command"

BSG raises the point of issue where mortals debate for their lack of longevity and fragility, and where the Cylon machines see their immortality as a disability that prolongs their sufferings – but why does it need to be this way? The shortfall of the Cylon’s is precisely because they have failed to learn, despite their logic and with their “high irrationality”, (in turn a failing in their creators).

Despite the highs and lows of BSG I loved this “space opera” and moreover it turns out to be a very poignant and profound reflection on humanity, and of where we as a species find ourselves today. We are reaching a point where our technology and ideals are merging. We do need to reflect on these key issues of suffering and conflicts driven by our lack of understanding. We need to pursue self-understanding that can lead to both sociocultural and spiritual evolution.

I do feel that the writers/producers were aiming to serve us a warning of what may possibly come to pass if we do not take heed? Although their persuasions towards fatalism and God perhaps went too far, to the delight and embrace of luddite mentalities. However, it was a delight and pleasure to watch this series from start to finish, the acting was superb and the overall quality and consistency of it’s drama was a measure of it’s strength. Sometimes It left me a little depressed, sometimes excited, yet moreover often left me thinking deeply about the misunderstandings and misconceptions we have of each other and of ourselves.

In the end I have no sympathy for either humans or the Cylons – and why? Because they are precisely the same, born of the same, and their free will is ultimately interconnected and reliant upon each other.

The Plan – “Don’t you get it? The idea is that we are all supposed to learn to accept and live with each other?”

Battlestargalactica.com

Battlestar Galactica – TV.com

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A note on the future value of Human productivity and worth

 

I wrote this response to an article over at IEET.org concerning the future of human productivity and of growing redundancy and unemployment.

 

You can read the thought provoking article at IEET.org here > Ethical Problems From Technology Efficiency

 

When I was in my teens many, many years ago I contemplated a future where all productivity and human social needs were met by super technology, and contemplated what humans would actually do with themselves once all their needs were met and there was no longer any need for employment or even innovation – a kind of singularity if you will, long before I ever knew the meaning of this concept.

Contemplating that humans would still need to pursue some action and motivations towards value of life and to overcome boredom, I resolved that “personal development” through education and expression through creativity was the answer, and that in a world where all the technological goals had been surpassed, that art and music would be the only enterprise left for humans to explore, because there are no limits on creativity through these by technology?

As the years progressed I realised the importance upon spiritual growth also, and contemplated that “personal development” also encompasses the goals and pursuits of personal enlightenment, and that as everyone is ultimately faced with the same philosophical questions that they will take this free time to confront and try to resolve these for themselves – it all begins with the “lesser vehicle”.

Yet all of this speculation concerns humanity and societies post-singularity, so what happens to human productivity in the coming decades as technology engulfs material, economic and even sociocultural and healthcare production and services? Perhaps the Marxist has the answer, I’m not familiar enough with this philosophy myself?

It would appear that we will have to alter the ethical perspectives and our views towards the value of human life and it’s measure? No longer will we be able to measure the worth of a human by it’s productivity, unemployment will be the norm, the welfare state will play the major role in supporting populations, and competitiveness will no longer be of great importance?

Competition for the exclusiveness of employment will ultimately lead to apathy and indifference of the majority towards competition, as the welfare state establishes itself as the new social benefactor. The strive for status, and the monies and goods that support these notions in our current capitalist economies, will diminish, and lack of supply and demand will escalate the indifference and sufferings as we are no longer impressed or in pursuit of trivialities and their distractions?

It would appear that we will need to clarify and define/redefine the wants and needs of the masses, and then apply human numbers and productivity towards solving these needs? I would propose that sociocultural needs could possibly meet these vacuums through education, social nurture and the expression of learning and pursuit of wisdom. For elders to teach their children the new value and worth of humanity and social enterprise and of sharing, as well as the worth and value of technologies and of personal creative growth?

Yet even these social needs would appear to be open for technologies and automation to take root and supplant humans as educational needs are established in online networks through interconnected libraries and oracles, and where even healthcare and nursing is open to robotics and the logistics for drugs and medicines regulated, produced and distributed by machines and technology?

Whatever the future ideals and philosophies guiding human purpose and productivity may be, it would appear that a new universal charter and perhaps social contract will be required that ensures and protects the “basic human rights” and needs of food, medicines, clothing and shelter against the environment, as well as the protections afforded of right to life, liberties and freedoms to express oneself. That these “basic needs” will need to be established as default against any other further value towards human productivity.

These coming decades of human redundancy will not necessarily negate status seeking, and will most likely exacerbate the divides between rich and poor. A cultural shift and efficiencies towards centralisation of international political controls and regulations of trade and global economics, (by the uncorrupted computerised machine), may topple our current ideas of status however, and the scientist and technical innovator and creative artist may supplant the status of politicians and bankers as they become the new elite?

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