Artificial Intelligence & Society

[AceTrainerGreen]

Central Discussion:

Is artificial intelligence a 'good' or 'bad' thing in society?

The soundtrack is beautiful. I've been listening to it as I study. In a way, it's terrifying because of how advanced the compositions are. I thought AI in the short term of 10 to 15 years would only be capable of replacing industries such as transportation and that the creative industry would be the last bastions of humanity; however, it seems that advancements in AI are extraordinarily much faster than anticipated.

Once there is a sufficiently advanced AI that is capable of mimicking a human in every way possible, mind and body,

• Will it have consciousness?
• Is it possible for it to obtain enlightenment?
• Will it have empathy?
• Will it be able to describe absolute infinity?
• How will we as a species best be able to minimize its risk?

I recommend watching this mini-documentary. It was released two months as it captures the current state of AI.

Some other videos I recommend watching if you have the time.

Technology without humanity and consciousness is perhaps the greatest existential threat to us as a species.

As Leo himself stated, we do not need more technology. We need more consciousness.

This is in reference to Elon Musk.

It's an idealistic proposition. I mostly agree. I agree that the overwhelming majority of our problems as a species can be solved through deep inner work; however, it's like convincing everyone on the planet to veganism. Although veganism is a noble pursuit, it's not possible on a global scale, let alone trying to get everyone committed to self-actualization.  The next best solution would be to make lab-grown meat. Similarly, for artificial intelligence, perhaps, the next best solution is integrating ourselves with AI in a symbiotic relationship. Elon Musk created Neuralink (https://waitbutwhy.com/2017/04/neuralink.html) to help solve the problem.

I'm curious how AI will transform our species. What are your thoughts?

Sincerely,

An Organic Lifeform

Edited December 13, 2018 by AceTrainerGreen

[non_nothing]

Musician and Computer scientist here, with personal interest on AI, successfully developed an AI that plays on stocks.

 

AI will never, achieve a mind and consciousness. This is yet another fairytale. Wrong on so many levels. So maaaaaany levels.

[Strikr]

9 minutes ago, non_nothing said:

Musician and Computer scientist here, with personal interest on AI, successfully developed an AI that plays on stocks.

 

AI will never, achieve a mind and consciousness. This is yet another fairytale. Wrong on so many levels. So maaaaaany levels.

but what about the sex robot ?

 

edit : nice music mate ! I'll listen

Edited December 12, 2018 by Strikr

[Sahil Pandit]

@AceTrainerGreen Some questions along the line you are asking:

https://www.actualized.org/insights/designing-a-conscious-robot

[ajasatya]

16 minutes ago, non_nothing said:

Musician and Computer scientist here, with personal interest on AI, successfully developed an AI that plays on stocks.

AI will never, achieve a mind and consciousness. This is yet another fairytale. Wrong on so many levels. So maaaaaany levels.

AI researcher/engineer here. this is what i've been trying to say on this forum for quite a while.

AI is a tool, like a sophisticated hammer.

Edited December 12, 2018 by ajasatya

[AceTrainerGreen]

8 minutes ago, non_nothing said:

Musician and Computer scientist here, with personal interest on AI, successfully developed an AI that plays on stocks.

 

AI will never, achieve a mind and consciousness. This is yet another fairytale. Wrong on so many levels. So maaaaaany levels.

2

Quote

Bostrom noticed the shift in attitude. He recently conducted a poll of A.I. researchers to gauge their sense of progress, and in Puerto Rico a survey gathered opinions on how long it would be until an artificial intelligence could reason indistinguishably from a human being. Like Bostrom, the engineers are often careful to express their views as probabilities, rather than as facts. Richard Sutton, a Canadian computer scientist whose work has earned tens of thousands of scholarly citations, gives a range of outcomes: there is a ten-per-cent chance that A.I. will never be achieved, but a twenty-five-per-cent chance that it will arrive by 2030. The median response in Bostrom’s poll gives a fifty-fifty chance that human-level A.I. would be attained by 2050. These surveys are unscientific, but he is confident enough to offer an interpretive assumption: “It is not a ridiculous prospect to take seriously the possibility that it can happen in the lifetime of people alive today.”

1

For the unaware, Bostrom is the public intellectual who proposed the simulation argument.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nick_Bostrom

Outside of the consciousness problem entirely, in the nearby future, we're having self-driving cars. There are already ethical debates regarding the determination of AI choosing the values for life in case of accidents.

Outside of that as well, in the next decade, narrow AI will replace tens of millions of workers in the United States alone. It gives rise to questions such as the somewhat controversial nature of universal basic income.

8 minutes ago, Strikr said:

but what about the sex robot ?

 

edit : nice music mate ! I'll listen

I forgot to mention. There's this thing called deep fakes. It's another example of technology without humanity. They're using it for pornography as well by adding individuals such as Emma Watson into sex scenes.

1 minute ago, Sahil Pandit said:

@AceTrainerGreen Some questions along the line you are asking:

https://www.actualized.org/insights/designing-a-conscious-robot

Thanks. I'll look into it.

[non_nothing]

The paradox is human minds try to create consciousness which is in illusion itself by ego. Consciousness is not numbers. Mind has numeric properties. human minds are confused consciousness with mind. Thus human minds believe they can simulate consciousness. This is false. Mind can be simulated, this is OK.

 

Even when you are talking about AI becoming consciousness, in what part exactly you are talking about? Circuits? IC? CPU? Program itself? Numbers? What if I told you everything is consciousness already since this thread is in spirituality section of forum? So what you are trying to achieve there is already there but within what you are trying to mistakenly say is already been achieving since industrial revolution.  machines operates, calculators calculate as like human does. So your points and words are so much misidentified and mixed.

[Hellspeed]

Something created, that is not biological, that is crated from a biological creator, meaning man made the machine. The machine will never ever surpass the biological created from the biological. 

[Strikr]

Just now, Hellspeed said:

Something created, that is not biological, that is crated from a biological creator, meaning man made the machine. The machine will never ever surpass the biological created from the biological. 

though, it isn't sure.

[Hellspeed]

1 minute ago, Strikr said:

though, it isn't sure.

Oh the heart is sure. Trust it. Don't let mindfuckers fool you. 

[Strikr]

10 minutes ago, Hellspeed said:

Oh the heart is sure. Trust it. Don't let mindfuckers fool you. 

my earth don't know what to think, there is nothing to think about this matter.

time answer everything.

[Arthur]

I agree with what was said previously. At the current stage, AI is simply a tool. It is a clever way of approaching problem-solving. AI as we know today needs a problem with a clear set of well-defined rules (like a game). On the contrary to human intelligence, which can deal with more than simple black and white approach. 

The models that are used right now are very rudimentary. It is true that you don't particularly define every node in the AI, in other words, you don't program how it should behave. In that sense, it is a revolution. However, to achieve any kind of results with Machine Learning, you need a structured linear task and an obscene amount of trial-error iterations. You constantly need to apply error correction in a feedback loop.

That is not to say that I don't believe in the evolution of consciousness in form of a "machine". Fundamentally, everything is already consciousness, so I don't see why expression of sentience should be limited to the human form.

For AI to evolve further it will have to be an incredibly complex and chaotic structure. Each node will have to interconnect with another in a very complicated manner. To challenge human intelligence, AI will have to be at least as complex as the human brain. Considering that we know so little about the human brain, a truly powerful AI is hundreds if not thousands of years away. I don't believe that a couple of computer scientist will create a structure as complex as the human brain in our lifetime.

If a system reaches a certain level of sophistication and freedom, it can give rise to an even higher order of complexity. Examples are everywhere: A simple skeleton and cells in our body produce a living organism; A simple low-voltage signals on copper traces produce powerful computational tools; A gathering of individuals can build an empire. Take for example the game Minecraft. It is an extremely simple video game, but it has a lot of freedom in it. This freedom keeps people entertained and allows for creations of complicated structures within the game. Someone built a replica of the Roman Colosseum in Minecraft. The programmers of Minecraft certainly did not have to code in every possible structure. They simply laid out the ground rules of the game, and let the complexity to emerge.

[sarapr]

1 hour ago, AceTrainerGreen said:

For the unaware, Bostrom is the public intellectual who proposed the simulation argument.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Nick_Bostrom

Outside of the consciousness problem entirely, in the nearby future, we're having self-driving cars. There are already ethical debates regarding the determination of AI choosing the values for life in case of accidents.

Outside of that as well, in the next decade, narrow AI will replace tens of millions of workers in the United States alone. It gives rise to questions such as the somewhat controversial nature of universal basic income.

I forgot to mention. There's this thing called deep fakes. It's another example of technology without humanity. They're using it for pornography as well by adding individuals such as Emma Watson into sex scenes.

Thanks. I'll look into it.

That's exactly the thing. If we took AI all the way to the point where no one needed to go to work which is exactly what's happening, then how would our lives look like? 

[TheAvatarState]

AI is a sophisticated tool that will replace a large portion of mindless jobs in the near future. It will definitely shift us into Spiral Dynamics Stage Green. It's already happening, and in 20 years at most, we'll be in the thick of it. We'll have to drastically rethink what we value as a society. Here's a great interview with a leading scientist and investor in AI technologies, and he kind of lays out the path that we'll naturally take as AI develops. As someone who has studied spiral dynamics, it's beautiful and gives me a lot of hope: 

 

Now talking on if AI will ever fully replicate a human? Literally not in a million years. Not ever. And I'm 100% certain of this. Why? Because a robot fundamentally lacks consciousness, love, and intuition. These are irreducible aspects of our human experience as a sliver of this giant, connected mind. AI is not consciousness, and it will never be it.

[AceTrainerGreen]

12 hours ago, non_nothing said:

The paradox is human minds try to create consciousness which is in illusion itself by ego. Consciousness is not numbers. Mind has numeric properties. human minds are confused consciousness with mind. Thus human minds believe they can simulate consciousness. This is false. Mind can be simulated, this is OK.

 

Even when you are talking about AI becoming consciousness, in what part exactly you are talking about? Circuits? IC? CPU? Program itself? Numbers? What if I told you everything is consciousness already since this thread is in spirituality section of forum? So what you are trying to achieve there is already there but within what you are trying to mistakenly say is already been achieving since industrial revolution.  machines operates, calculators calculate as like human does. So your points and words are so much misidentified and mixed.

7

 I mostly disagree. Mathematics describes all of reality. From particle physics to macroeconomics to astronomy and beyond, it describes everything. Mathematics is the foundation of all science. For example, without Isaac Newton's Principles of Mathematics, the Industrial Revolution would not have been feasible. His equations, the giants before him, and the ones after such as Einstein are direct reasons to why our modern society exists in the first place.

In response to the location of consciousness within this hypothetical AI, this is similar to asking a human where consciousness is. You can state it inside of the neuron; however, a single neuron alone is not sufficient. It is through a combination of neurons which are also in symbiotic harmony with other cells that allows it to exist. Theoretically, if you were to remove every part of the human body outside of the brain, it is all you need to form consciousness.

Quote

The concept of a last universal common ancestor of all cells (LUCA, or the progenote) is central to the study of early evolution and life's origin, yet information about how and where LUCA lived is lacking. We investigated all clusters and phylogenetic trees for 6.1 million protein coding genes from sequenced prokaryotic genomes in order to reconstruct the microbial ecology of LUCA. Among 286,514 protein clusters, we identified 355 protein families (∼0.1%) that trace to LUCA by phylogenetic criteria.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol2016116

2

If all of reality is already consciousness itself, is it not possible for us to construct it ourselves through artificial means? It took evolutions billions of years to stumble upon the creation of our species. The creation of life can be explained through biochemical means. In fact, all life on Earth possesses at least 355 protein families.

11 hours ago, Hellspeed said:

Something created, that is not biological, that is crated from a biological creator, meaning man made the machine. The machine will never ever surpass the biological created from the biological. 

I disagree. Is it possible for the student to surpass the master? It is possible. Once this hypothetical AI can reach the technological singularity, it will be smarter than all humans who have ever lived.

11 hours ago, Arthur said:

I agree with what was said previously. At the current stage, AI is simply a tool. It is a clever way of approaching problem-solving. AI as we know today needs a problem with a clear set of well-defined rules (like a game). On the contrary to human intelligence, which can deal with more than simple black and white approach. 

The models that are used right now are very rudimentary. It is true that you don't particularly define every node in the AI, in other words, you don't program how it should behave. In that sense, it is a revolution. However, to achieve any kind of results with Machine Learning, you need a structured linear task and an obscene amount of trial-error iterations. You constantly need to apply error correction in a feedback loop.

That is not to say that I don't believe in the evolution of consciousness in form of a "machine". Fundamentally, everything is already consciousness, so I don't see why expression of sentience should be limited to the human form.

For AI to evolve further it will have to be an incredibly complex and chaotic structure. Each node will have to interconnect with another in a very complicated manner. To challenge human intelligence, AI will have to be at least as complex as the human brain. Considering that we know so little about the human brain, a truly powerful AI is hundreds if not thousands of years away. I don't believe that a couple of computer scientist will create a structure as complex as the human brain in our lifetime.

If a system reaches a certain level of sophistication and freedom, it can give rise to an even higher order of complexity. Examples are everywhere: A simple skeleton and cells in our body produce a living organism; A simple low-voltage signals on copper traces produce powerful computational tools; A gathering of individuals can build an empire. Take for example the game Minecraft. It is an extremely simple video game, but it has a lot of freedom in it. This freedom keeps people entertained and allows for creations of complicated structures within the game. Someone built a replica of the Roman Colosseum in Minecraft. The programmers of Minecraft certainly did not have to code in every possible structure. They simply laid out the ground rules of the game, and let the complexity to emerge.

The rate in progress of artificial intelligence is unprecedented. For example, Google's AlphaGo was not suspected to beat world Go player in at least ten years. However, it was done in two years.

As stated,

Quote

We also struggle to understand what’s meant by intelligence. For example, AI experts consistently underestimated the ability of AI to play Go. Many thought, in 2015, it would take until 2027. In the end, it took two years, not twelve. But does that mean AI is any closer to being able to write the Great American Novel, say? Does it mean it’s any closer to conceptually understanding the world around it? Does it mean that it’s any closer to human-level intelligence? That’s not necessarily clear.

https://singularityhub.com/2018/01/01/when-will-we-finally-achieve-true-artificial-intelligence/

 

Leading experts in the field who work with this stuff on a daily basis did not expect this to be possible. Your Minecraft analogy is interesting because it reminds me of a video where someone managed to literally program Pokemon into Minecraft without any mods.

The property you're describing is called emergence. It's interesting.

11 hours ago, sarapr said:

That's exactly the thing. If we took AI all the way to the point where no one needed to go to work which is exactly what's happening, then how would our lives look like? 

8 hours ago, TheAvatarState said:

AI is a sophisticated tool that will replace a large portion of mindless jobs in the near future. It will definitely shift us into Spiral Dynamics Stage Green. It's already happening, and in 20 years at most, we'll be in the thick of it. We'll have to drastically rethink what we value as a society. Here's a great interview with a leading scientist and investor in AI technologies, and he kind of lays out the path that we'll naturally take as AI develops. As someone who has studied spiral dynamics, it's beautiful and gives me a lot of hope: 

 

Now talking on if AI will ever fully replicate a human? Literally not in a million years. Not ever. And I'm 100% certain of this. Why? Because a robot fundamentally lacks consciousness, love, and intuition. These are irreducible aspects of our human experience as a sliver of this giant, connected mind. AI is not consciousness, and it will never be it.

I disagree. As what I've stated to another individual, evolution took billions of years to eventually form our species. It took AI less than a hundred years for it to eventually outpass in multiple domains of human cognition. Our modern smartphones are orders and orders of magnitude smarter than all of the computers that took man to the moon. Modern AI researchers are looking at the human brain for inspiration on how to construct consciousness. If we can simulate the human brain, we can simulate consciousness.

Where did love and intuition come from? They arose through billions of years of evolution. Humans are fundamentally social animals. In the days of hunter-gather societies, it was important for ourselves to stick together. If we don't, we would die. Additionally, love and intuition are not limited to humans. Dogs are capable of love, and we artificially selected them to do that. Dolphins are incredible of intuition as they are capable of learning systems that young children can.

Artificial intelligence will happen in our lifetimes. At the minimum, the ones who are Millenials and Gen Z.

 

Here is a paper from leading AI researchers published from Yale and Oxford University when this will occur:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1705.08807.pdf

Quote

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) will transform modern life by reshaping transportation, health, science, finance, and the military [1, 2, 3]. To adapt public policy, we need to better anticipate these advances [4, 5]. Here we report the results from a large survey of machine learning researchers on their beliefs about progress in AI. Researchers predict AI will outperform humans in many activities in the next ten years, such as translating languages (by 2024), writing high-school essays (by 2026), driving a truck (by 2027), working in retail (by 2031), writing a bestselling book (by 2049), and working as a surgeon (by 2053). Researchers believe there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks in 45 years and of automating all human jobs in 120 years, with Asian respondents expecting these dates much sooner than North Americans. These results will inform discussion amongst researchers and policymakers about anticipating and managing trends in AI"

 

I'm not particularly concerned when this will happen. I'm mostly concerned with how artificial intelligence will transform our society. Will it be like the TV show Black Mirror or will it be something grand?

[purerogue]

Maybe if AI becomes biological  and artificial hybrid, AI as only data, no. 

 

[luckieluuke]

14 hours ago, non_nothing said:

Musician and Computer scientist here, with personal interest on AI, successfully developed an AI that plays on stocks.

AI will never, achieve a mind and consciousness. This is yet another fairytale. Wrong on so many levels. So maaaaaany levels.

 

14 hours ago, ajasatya said:

AI researcher/engineer here. this is what i've been trying to say on this forum for quite a while.

AI is a tool, like a sophisticated hammer

 

I am amazed how people can say that "computers" will never have consciousness. Do you really 100% know everything what reality is and how it works? Sure you might have an opinion but you say you know for sure?! Either you are buddhas or have the biggest egos in the world.

Me personally I don´t know. It would surprise me but then again I can see how everything is consciousness. A rock is conscious, it makes a sound when I hit it. We humans are equally conscious but just a lot more complex, or in another say.
Computers are conscious today but very primitive but I don´t see how in the future when a machine is equally complex as a human should be much different.
What´s interesting with humans is that we are aware of our consciousness which creates a loop of being aware of being aware which have some pretty amazing results.
I don´t see any reason why a machine couldn´t become aware of being aware.

[luckieluuke]

This is an amazing interview if you´re interested in AI you have to watch it!
It covers AI - Open source - Spirituality and psychedelics

 

Edited December 13, 2018 by luckieluuke

[Hellspeed]

@AceTrainerGreen You speak about society in general. I speak from an expertise perspective experience of Buddhahood, Awakening, etc. 

 

Show me an AI that can heal another human being from any disease possible. Auch!

At the end of the day, the natural forms and biological are infinite decimals superior. 

Awake, you will encounter that you will not need to read anymore per example, all the knowledges comes to one with the projection in an awake state. 

Edited December 13, 2018 by Hellspeed

[non_nothing]

2 hours ago, AceTrainerGreen said:

Mathematics describes all of reality

Describe why 1 + 1 = 2?