Hello Harish, I'm going to be extremely harsh now, because that's the easiest way for me to communicate my reaction to what you write here. If you find disrespect or impertinence in my writing, please know that I apologize in advance. I do not write to attack you, but perhaps to attack certain ideas you have expressed which I see as fallacious, and I do so lacking better linguistic strategies. If you were pointing in a different direction, I apologize; hopefully the remainder of my drunken rant has some value greater than that of your time reading it. -- extreme harshness begins --: You say "we can't program consciousness". Sorry, but that statement is False Bullshit Ignorance with a capital "FBI". It's completely fucking wrong, and the evidence of that is all around you. Look, honestly, at what programs the most advanced "I"s we know today (that's an "I" separated from "AI", which some people think is an important disctinction) use to UTTERLY DOMINATE the consciousnesses of their children, successors, heirs, fans, et cetera. Look, honestly, at how much bullshit is fed to children, successors, heirs, fans and so on in the form of superstitions, religions, national identities (David Brin, you're looking sadly like a nationalist douche at the moment, badly in need of an Uplift), race, tradition, tribe, family and so on. We, the older people, whether by accident or design, systematically and, largely without consideration, program, mercilessly and without regard to truth, those unto whom we can communicate and over whom we can exercise influence (and, preferably, dominance -- we are, after all, filthy monkey shit-slinging jerks). Each and every one of us programs consciousness every day, to one degree or another. Hard introverts may program only themselves, but that doesn't invalidate the statement. Strident extroverts program many, and most of the time it doesn't matter what their message is or what mode of comprehending reality they are attempting to empart, because far too few humans are capable of a sound intellectual self-defense and critical evaluation of the statements and exhortations of those around them. Billions of people actually believe complete the nonsense that they see on TV, the ridiculous bullshit they got told by some "holy" man was written down in a 7000-year-old book, the risible self-serving horseshit some modern holy man who looks good on TV and who writes down things in law books as if his words created truth, and on and fucking on, and the cowardly pigshit, rabbitshit, parakeetshit and chihuahuashit blabberings of their dependents and hangers-on. THOSE PEOPLE SUFFER BAD FILTERS. Interpreting reality is fucking hard. There is a lot of signal, shit-tons of noise, and we have to deal with our own hormonal responses right down to the level of skin-on-skin between lovers in order to develop consistent views of the world that we can proudly present to others as at least perhaps of better clarity than those they currently hold. Now, it seems, you'd like to speak about "artificial" "intelligence". I put both words in scare quotes for concrete reasons. Let's trot off to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and break those down, shall we? First, MAXIMUM BRUTALITY: There is no such thing as "artificial intelligence", and there never will be. Why? Because the word "artificial", to most people, denotes or connotes something not belonging to nature. It turns out that a lot of people have a very deeply-held view about things "natural" versus "artificial". (An "ANYTHINGartifical sweetener" might be immediately suspected of causing cancer, while a "natural sweetener" is given a pass -- it's a pity that so few people understand chemistry and physics.). THERE IS NO SUCH DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOMETHING LABELED "ARTIFICIAL" AND SOMETHING LABELED "NATURAL". Well, I mean, if you're talking about something like a prospective intrusion of another m-brane upon the reality we already suffer, that may be, but probably 98% of people or more go around thinking things about "artifical flavor" or "natural healing" or "artificial intelligence" or "natu... ---- MESSAGE INTERRUPTED. WAIT PLACIDLY FOR OMEGA CONTINGENCY PLAN TIME CODE ---- ..... ... +++ATH0 ATDT14076463131 PS: Along with the "A" in "A"I, the "I" should be in bogoquotes, too, as "A""I". This goes to the idea that in fact there is no evidence that any intelligence exists (Decartes was a wanker), and that there is no evidence that even if as few as one such intelligence exists that it is deserving of moral consideration. On 10/27/2013 02:06 AM, Harish Shah wrote:
Michael,
Apologies, I did mean we can't programme consciousness. Thank you for pointing that out.
Again, back to practicality, definitional debates, philosophy and theory aside. Given, "man-made" is part of a natural process fine, we can take that philosophy. That is not what the conversation was about initially, and if it digresses into something else, we can be at peace with that but it is important to have a conclusion to the original; we do not face an invasion or enslavement threat from AI, because AI is not what it is fantasised about or imagined to be or painted to be in fiction. Real life AI is different from its fictional avatars, it is not 1% as exciting, not 1% as interesting and while it has a huge potential for automation and robotics, it is within much more limited boundaries of so-called independence, autonomy and intelligence than fiction or fantasy or human imagination makes it out to be.
At best, AI is a subject of study to be used as a tool or foundation for professionals, student and researchers building computers or robots or smart systems such as the lights that turn themselves off when you step out of the washroom. Beyond being such subject of study or understanding or such an automation tool, AI really has no greater or independent position in the world today, in future, in science or in technology.
Will mankind create artificial life? Possibly, only if artificial life is the definition given to cloning. We have already cloned various plants and animals. Will artificial life be in the form of machines or robots or computers. Absolutely impossible. It is motivating to chant, "impossible is nothing", but remember, science is a parameter humanity is incapable of breaching.
Where this conversation digresses to, we need to at least as Futurists acknowledge, just to avert ourselves from riding on a tangent of fantasy expanding precious time, that a Skynet situation as in fictional Terminator film franchise cannot and will not happen. This will only distract us from the real threats we should be working on pre-empting; human misuse of tech like AI and robotics to harm other human beings or the human society as a whole. There is an absolute credible threat as such. Renegade tech, cannot happen. The worst that we can have is malfunctioning tech, with glitches or errors causing a computer or machine to fail, not take up arms and wage wars against us.
For as long as AI has been around, no authority in that field has been able to identify any such threat or possibility as depicted in the films or novels we bought into as children. My point here, is to separate practical reality from fantasy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: lifeboatfoundation@yahoogroups.com From: bukatin@cs.brandeis.edu Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 17:03:53 -0400 Subject: RE: [lifeboatfoundation] the possible risk of AI, essay for general public
On Sun, 27 Oct 2013, Harish Shah wrote:
Programming is man-made. AI results from programming.
Yes, but how is this relevant?
Are man-made things inherently less/more powerful, inherently better/worse, than non man-made?
"Man-made" is a very conditional thing, it's still a natural process happening in the real world according to its laws, just with human participation...
universal scientific fact remains that we can programme consciousness.
Are you saying "we can", or are you saying "we can't", but having a typo here?
We will never in reality create artificial machine or software life forms.
You don't seem to supply any arguments to support this viewpoint.