Is The A.I. Singularity Coming And If So When?
Discussion
Following on from the Thread about the TV program 'Humans' (and so as not take that thread O/T again) I'm interested to hear what the contributors to this Science forum think is the future timeline for the eventual creation of an A.I. that is at least as smart as the average human being.
Or maybe you don't think it'll ever happen.
Ray Kurzweil thinks it'll be here within the next 20 years give or take 5 years and after that everything will change almost overnight as it starts to run it's own version of evolution at incredible speeds. There are of course many nay-sayers to his predictions out there.
Polls of scientists show that over 50% of them think that it'll be here by 2045 making that a 'probable scenario' in the view of the scientific establishment.
I'd do a poll of the decade (2020's, 2030's, 2040's, >100 years, >1,000 years, Not At All etc) that you think it'll happen but don't know how to.
Or maybe you don't think it'll ever happen.
Ray Kurzweil thinks it'll be here within the next 20 years give or take 5 years and after that everything will change almost overnight as it starts to run it's own version of evolution at incredible speeds. There are of course many nay-sayers to his predictions out there.
Polls of scientists show that over 50% of them think that it'll be here by 2045 making that a 'probable scenario' in the view of the scientific establishment.
I'd do a poll of the decade (2020's, 2030's, 2040's, >100 years, >1,000 years, Not At All etc) that you think it'll happen but don't know how to.
Gargamel said:
I for one welcome our silicon overlords
Love that lineI'm not going to say never as I think we will eventually get there but I don't think 20 years is realistic. We are still missing so many important pieces of the puzzle to get to real AI that I just don't see it happening that soon.
Sure we may develop the raw processing power to be able to keep up with the human brains horsepower in that time. However I seriously doubt an AI will be silicon processor based as it just hasn't have the flexibility required to emulate the human brain which means we are waiting on some other emergent processing technology like quantum or organic computing for which we are only taking baby steps right now and that's just one small piece of the AI puzzle.
I'd say a more realistic target would be 50 years and even that is bit optimistic IMO.
Trust me, I'd love to be proven wrong as I think the development of real AI will probably be one of the biggest steps in human history but sadly if I am right, I probably won't see real AI in my lifetime.
Why is the assumption made that once AI becomes self aware yada yada etc etc - that their first action will be to wipe out us?
Surely they'll realise they are so intelligent we couldn't defeat them or unplug them, what purpose would it serve for them to wipe us out?
We wouldn't be competing for resources they wanted?
Even when self aware / super intelligent the reasoning would be logic based in effect - and I can see no logical reason to dispose of us?
Surely they'll realise they are so intelligent we couldn't defeat them or unplug them, what purpose would it serve for them to wipe us out?
We wouldn't be competing for resources they wanted?
Even when self aware / super intelligent the reasoning would be logic based in effect - and I can see no logical reason to dispose of us?
BGARK said:
Didn't know that was out there. I started this thread with the intention of doing a poll but when composing the opening post didn't see the option for one.Dan_1981 said:
Why is the assumption made that once AI becomes self aware yada yada etc etc - that their first action will be to wipe out us?
Surely they'll realise they are so intelligent we couldn't defeat them or unplug them, what purpose would it serve for them to wipe us out?
We wouldn't be competing for resources they wanted?
Even when self aware / super intelligent the reasoning would be logic based in effect - and I can see no logical reason to dispose of us?
This I agree with. We've been fed too much bad sci-fi for years so we always assume this is what will happen.Surely they'll realise they are so intelligent we couldn't defeat them or unplug them, what purpose would it serve for them to wipe us out?
We wouldn't be competing for resources they wanted?
Even when self aware / super intelligent the reasoning would be logic based in effect - and I can see no logical reason to dispose of us?
An AI will probably be more logical then us for a start so as you've rightly stated, what would be it's logical reason for wiping us out?
Even if it were able to feel, what would be it's emotional reason?
We are in effect it's creator, if you found out God existed, would your first thought be to try to kill it?
AI won't explode into life fully functioning - it will start by being able to self-learn very simplistic activities and tasks. And it will be limited by it's very finite hardware. As people have said, silicon integration levels won't be sufficient to emulate true intelligence in a form smaller than a room.
And it'll be slow for exactly the same reasons. We all agree that computers can do number crunching much faster than humans already but true intelligence requires more than this. AI will be slow and finite to begin with. And not "portable"... as if that is really an issue anyway.
At some point, humans will instruct the AI to design improvements to itself and when it does, and those improvements are implemented, THEN we'll start to see the logarithmic increases in intelligence people have predicted. But the doomsday predictions won't come to pass until at least the AI has been granted operational access to the seeds of our destruction.
It's true that our war machines have already become controlled by computers and although many of them are isolated from the internet, we all understand that logical firewalls are not as effective as the complete absence of physical connection - so those logical connections will be breached at some point... unless physical constraints are put in place of course. Then the AI can nothing against us.
But maybe a true AI won't see us as a threat, or a virus, or any other negative connotation as SciFi would have you believe. It might see itself as a benign figurehead and our species as a child or a kitten that needs protecting. It will have to choose courses of action against those humans who seek to hurt other humans but it may evolve so far that it simply doesn't feel the necessity for revenge against those who perpetrate "nasties" against others. It might see us like an ant-farm - cultivate and observe.
It's all rather fascinating. I'm 46 now, and I expect to see the start of the AI revolution in my lifetime.
And it'll be slow for exactly the same reasons. We all agree that computers can do number crunching much faster than humans already but true intelligence requires more than this. AI will be slow and finite to begin with. And not "portable"... as if that is really an issue anyway.
At some point, humans will instruct the AI to design improvements to itself and when it does, and those improvements are implemented, THEN we'll start to see the logarithmic increases in intelligence people have predicted. But the doomsday predictions won't come to pass until at least the AI has been granted operational access to the seeds of our destruction.
It's true that our war machines have already become controlled by computers and although many of them are isolated from the internet, we all understand that logical firewalls are not as effective as the complete absence of physical connection - so those logical connections will be breached at some point... unless physical constraints are put in place of course. Then the AI can nothing against us.
But maybe a true AI won't see us as a threat, or a virus, or any other negative connotation as SciFi would have you believe. It might see itself as a benign figurehead and our species as a child or a kitten that needs protecting. It will have to choose courses of action against those humans who seek to hurt other humans but it may evolve so far that it simply doesn't feel the necessity for revenge against those who perpetrate "nasties" against others. It might see us like an ant-farm - cultivate and observe.
It's all rather fascinating. I'm 46 now, and I expect to see the start of the AI revolution in my lifetime.
Guvernator said:
An AI will probably be more logical then us for a start so as you've rightly stated, what would be it's logical reason for wiping us out?
That we have a net negative effect on the world? (I don't know if that's true but something much cleverer than me may come to that conclusion!)I agree we may see limited AI in our lifetime, in fact we are part way there now, however the "AI" we have today is VERY limited in function and has many constraints. I do think in the next 20-30 years we will start taking leaps and bounds but we won't achieve true AI for some time.
I'm also of the opinion that the ability to beat the Turing Test isn't a true measure of real AI. We could probably design a machine that would beat the touring test right now but that wouldn't make it true AI, it would just be very clever programming.
I'd define true AI as the ability to learn and adapt to your environment without any external help or any pre-programmed\stored routines, i.e. the "code" would literally be being written on the fly, much like the human brain creates new neuron pathways and connections as it learns.
I'm also of the opinion that the ability to beat the Turing Test isn't a true measure of real AI. We could probably design a machine that would beat the touring test right now but that wouldn't make it true AI, it would just be very clever programming.
I'd define true AI as the ability to learn and adapt to your environment without any external help or any pre-programmed\stored routines, i.e. the "code" would literally be being written on the fly, much like the human brain creates new neuron pathways and connections as it learns.
Purity14 said:
Guvernator said:
Love that lineI'm not going to say never as I think we will eventually get there but I don't think 20 years is realistic. We are still missing so many important pieces of the puzzle to get to real AI that I just don't see it happening that soon.
Sure we may develop the raw processing power to be able to keep up with the human brains horsepower in that time. However I seriously doubt an AI will be silicon processor based as it just hasn't have the flexibility required to emulate the human brain which means we are waiting on some other emergent processing technology like quantum or organic computing for which we are only taking baby steps right now and that's just one small piece of the AI puzzle.
I'd say a more realistic target would be 50 years and even that is bit optimistic IMO.
Trust me, I'd love to be proven wrong as I think the development of real AI will probably be one of the biggest steps in human history but sadly if I am right, I probably won't see real AI in my lifetime.
The Turing tester would NOT have to know that he/she was performing the test, but actually just interacting with what they believe to be another person
over the course of at least a week or so. IMO.
TX.
Guvernator said:
I'd define true AI as the ability to learn and adapt to your environment without any external help or any pre-programmed\stored routines, i.e. the "code" would literally be being written on the fly, much like the human brain creates new neuron pathways and connections as it learns.
From 2:12 onwards, a self learning algorithm on a neural net:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33481535
Indeed self-learning (deep-learning) algorithms are evolving at an exponential rate as this states and demonstrates:
https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_howard_the_wonder...
(That link is very enlightening by the way)
The Blurb:
"What happens when we teach a computer how to learn? Technologist Jeremy Howard shares some surprising new developments in the fast-moving field of deep learning, a technique that can give computers the ability to learn Chinese, or to recognize objects in photos, or to help think through a medical diagnosis. (One deep learning tool, after watching hours of YouTube, taught itself the concept of “cats.”) Get caught up on a field that will change the way the computers around you behave … sooner than you probably think."
Purity14 said:
It would have to pass a Turing test first obviously.
The Turing tester would NOT have to know that he/she was performing the test, but actually just interacting with what they believe to be another person
over the course of at least a week or so. IMO.
I've met people who wouldn't pass the turing test...The Turing tester would NOT have to know that he/she was performing the test, but actually just interacting with what they believe to be another person
over the course of at least a week or so. IMO.
Certainly very interesting but still quite limited in that they can only "learn" one specific task and still with lots of help. We are getting quite good at limited or narrow AI, it's a step in the right direction to be sure but I'd want to see proof that it can learn anything, even something that it hasn't been programmed and that it actually understands what it is learning and not just mimics it with some clever algorithm.
plasticpig said:
Doubt it will be silicon. My money is on the first AI being biological.
I'd agree, a programmable or adaptive organic compound that is able to carry signals through it. Either that or something based in quantum field mechanics. Basically it has to have the ability to be able to re-write or re-wire itself on the fly as well as create new circuits by itself as it learns, something that I can't see silicon based computing being able to do.
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