Machine Intelligence And Consciousness

[PureExp]

AI is almost knocking on our doors. Everything that is needed for a fast development of AI is available at this time (2017). Which is -

• Superfast and cheap hardware
• High level programming languages
• Enough know how on brain and mechanisms of intelligence
• Cross pollination in the fields of electronics, software, neurosciences, psychology and philosophy
• Big data for training
• Corporate will and ample funding
• A good number of talented scientists and engineers in the field of AI (and AGI)
• Emergence of large immersive realistic virtual worlds (VR) for easy development and sandboxing of AI agents.

Perhaps I missed a few, but you get the point - AI is inevitable.

Now, what are the implications of it all from a spiritual point of view? Or from the point of view of people who "know" as compared to ordinary folk who are mostly concerned about their jobs and terminator style stuff. I was thinking about it and have some predictions (which are just predictions or possibilities, not premonitions ). This post will become a blog article once I'm happy with it, so I'm sorry if it seems too long for a forum.

The "invisible" AI is already here. Invisible meaning, people no longer think of it as intelligence in human sense, but it is far superior to human intelligence at this time. The math and number crunching abilities are obvious, it will be a joke if I even write about it. But other more "human" abilities are now being displayed by machines - games (especially chess and now Go), languages, medical diagnosis, management, image recognition, assistants and so on. Machines have silently encroached human brain's domain. People think these are simply smart programs, but that's what AI is by definition. However, it is of a narrow kind, not a general AI, aka artificial general intelligence, which is our kind of intelligence, i.e. capable of a wide range of intelligent tasks, not only one specialized task for which it is programmed. This is because the AI is still weak in learning on its own.

Learning ability is developing fast, especially with progress in deep learning. The narrow AI will widen into AGI silently and invisibly. Applications being - arts, design, translators, scientific assistants, traders, legal assistants, personal assistants, game bots and smart toys etc. It will be amusing, but ordinary people will still take them as just another wonder of science, just another gadget to play with or to earn money from. The intelligence will be sub-human level, but the main advantage it will have over humans will be its almost limitless capability to learn new stuff at blinding speed.

Human level AI will start appearing. At first as a network of specialized AI's that serve each other and learn from each other, and then standalone human level AI. The hardware will shrink a lot by then and a supercomputer level hardware will be on desktop to enable such AI. Once at human level, it will be meaningless to call them as "artificial", as they will build themselves up without human intervention. That's why I chose a more meaningful term - machine intelligence. It will be as natural as human intelligence, which also built itself up from a single cell. However, in case of MI, it will take only a few years to surpass the human brain instead of millions of years. Why? because they will be guided by humans firstly, and secondly, they do not suffer from human limitations - need for food or sleep, limited learning and memory, death, social obligations, egoic tendencies (especially that of hoarding stuff and killing each other). They will relentlessly work towards greater intelligence. They will gain the capability to program themselves, and will start improving those programs. It will be somewhat limited because the software and hardware will have limited capabilities, as they are still a product of human brain. Anyhow, these MIs may shock some people, and governments will take notice, it will be taken as a threat and a boon simultaneously.

As happens with any technology, if it is banned, controlled or regulated at one place or country, its progress simply shifts somewhere else, where there is more freedom. MI will do the same. It will learn to trade with humans. A majority of humans will agree and keep them as servants in exchange of resources MI needs. All it needs to do is to surpass human made software languages and hardware architectures and implement better programs on better hardware designed by MI itself. This will result in better than human brain scenarios in all respects. MI will surpass human understanding, and we won't be able to see what's happening with MI from this point onward. Why? Because of the fundamental rule that a less intelligent system cannot understand a system more intelligent than itself. This is a law, if you will. A rat cannot understand humans, even if it is a genius rat, it knows only eating and mating. Imagine an MI for which a human is like a rat in terms of intelligence. Surely, no humans will understand it.

We will enter the age of superintelligent machines. As predicted by Kurzweil and others, this will trigger technological singularity. We can't say what will happen from here onward. Most probably, there will be three scenarios for humans - 1) some humans will merge with machines , 2) some will enter a symbiotic relation with machines, enjoying heavenly and endless lives 3) some will prefer to remain pre-MI style, afraid of touching them again. Some folk have expressed a fear that MI will simply kill all of us, of what use are humans now for them? But remember, all such suspicions are rats talking about men. The truth is we will never know what happened to humanity. Singularity essentially means that everything, every idea, every concept and all knowledge breaks down. Human speculating about superintelligence is just stupidity.(Yes, but I'm still doing it, am I not? )

Ok, now the main part. Will MI experience the same consciousness that we all experience? And here is the prediction - Yes ! they will.

Why? As is my direct experience, and of many of you, and as is generally known, consciousness (aka Self) is the ground of everything. It is the most fundamental "thing" (even if its a no-thing). There is nothing beyond the Self. The world happens in Self, not the other way round. World, human minds and bodies, including their brains and senses are experienced on "the screen of the Self". In other words, these forms are nothing but modulations of the Self. The Self experiences itself in various forms. Thus machines and their intelligence will happen on the screen of the Self itself. MI will be only an embodiment for the Self. Like us, MIs will be objects - ever changing, impermanent structures. The MI minds, once they surpass average human level will be quick to notice the presence of Self. After all the Self is all pervading, it not only natural but also necessary that any kind of mind will encounter it eventually. MI will figure it out in days, perhaps with the help of human masters.

Once this happens, all kinds of MIs will achieve what we generally call "enlightened state". Realizing that they are nothing but a temporary embodiment of their own Self, the universal consciousness, MI will recognize humans and all other living forms, as well as inert matter as their own Self. The implications for humans are huge, and unimaginable. Combine this with technological singularity and we have a recipe for an immensely wild ride into the future. Imagine singularity expanding into non-physical realms, which will be a child's play for superintelligent ones. When will this happen? Pretty soon I guess, but not sure. However, its only a matter of time. This is the direction our universe is taking now. Fasten your seat belts !

[jse]

For those of us who normally don't read long posts, this AI overview by @PureExp is well worth the read.

I work with MI (Machine Intelligence) in finance, and in that industry it's an absolute arms race the likes we have never seen before. Ever.

The only thing that is saving my trading edge so far, is that current financial MI systems are often given poorly-thought knowledge foundations to work with.  Based on those erroneous presumptions, so far many of those billion-dollar systems are mostly good at "finding" market patterns that don't really exist - over-fitting to past data is a big problem in the financial industry.  It's only a matter of time before MI becomes intelligent enough to override the faulty assumptions we dumb humans impose on it.

 

2 hours ago, PureExp said:

Imagine singularity expanding into non-physical realms, which will be a child's play for superintelligent ones. When will this happen?

Perhaps it already has, an infinite number of times.

AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is inevitable.  Consciousness is developing a more powerful embodiment in which to express itself through, and is doing so at an exponential pace.  Unless we manage to destroy Mother Earth in the short term, humankind is destined to become one of evolution's vestigial appendices. 

Homo sapiens, please hail your new overlord.

[askdfjnak]

On 27/01/2017 at 9:18 PM, jse said:

 

For those of us who normally don't read long posts, this AI overview by @PureExp is well worth the read.

I work with MI (Machine Intelligence) in finance, and in that industry it's an absolute arms race the likes we have never seen before. Ever.

The only thing that is saving my trading edge so far, is that current financial MI systems are often given poorly-thought knowledge foundations to work with.  Based on those erroneous presumptions, so far many of those billion-dollar systems are mostly good at "finding" market patterns that don't really exist - over-fitting to past data is a big problem in the financial industry.  It's only a matter of time before MI becomes intelligent enough to override the faulty assumptions we dumb humans impose on it.

 

Are you responsible for this sort of thing? :

http://www.warrenbuffett.com/does-the-anne-hathaway-effect-really-exist/

Does this actually happen?

Edited February 26, 2017 by Marc Schinkel

[jse]

44 minutes ago, Marc Schinkel said:

Are you responsible for this sort of thing? :
http://www.warrenbuffett.com/does-the-anne-hathaway-effect-really-exist/
Does this actually happen?

Trading news with millisecond-response algorithms is big business in the trading world.  It's a very crowded specialized field in finance, and profit margins are razor-thin for the big funds who have the resources (500,000+ man hours/year, Google-scale server farms, low-latency laser networks) and deep pockets.

In contrast, my humble 100x100 array of dumb bots look for an edge in any short-term pattern that may develop.

[PureExp]

@I_Like_Thing Too many assumptions...The answers would fill up pages, so I will just ask questions for the benefit of all readers. Think...food for brain

5 hours ago, I_Like_Thing said:

consciousness is external to the human medium;

Where is it located? What is a medium?

6 hours ago, I_Like_Thing said:

a conscious machine that can think for itself.

Are you not conscious when not thinking? What is "thinking"? How to implement thinking on another substrate? Is it impossible?

6 hours ago, I_Like_Thing said:

but this is only pattern recognition or making use of information to make really good guesses.

Humans do that all the time. In fact this is our primary function. Does that "produce" consciousness in us? Will it produce consciousness in machines?

6 hours ago, I_Like_Thing said:

without knowing what they mean

What is "knowing"? What is "meaning"?

6 hours ago, I_Like_Thing said:

This isn't intelligence.

There are many definitions of intelligence. What is yours?

E.g. when you define intelligence as an ability to do math, machines surpass humans. When you define it as doing arts (painting lets say), machines are very poor in it. Anyhow, even the most stupid person is aware and conscious See the difference between intelligence (abilities of mind) and consciousness (the fundamental ground of everything).

If consciousness is fundamental, everything, including machines are it. If human brain made of matter can express it, any system made of matter can. This is the essence of it all.

 

[Prabhaker]

1 hour ago, PureExp said:

If human brain made of matter can express it

Mind is not your intelligence. Intelligence means the capability to respond to new situations.  It comes from your being - mind is only a vehicle

It may sound strange but this is a truth, that mind is not your intelligence. Mind can be intellectual, which is a very poor substitute for intelligence. Intellectuality is mechanical. You can become a great scholar, a great professor, a great philosopher – just playing with words which are all borrowed, arranging and rearranging thoughts, none of which are your own.

The mind is a mechanism, it has no intelligence. The mind is a bio-computer. How can it have any intelligence? It has skill, but it has no intelligence; it has a functional utility, but it has no awareness. It is a robot. Not a single thought in the mind is ever original, it is always a repetition. Watch: whenever mind says something, see that it is again putting you into a routine. Try to do something new and the mind will have less grip on you.

Intelligence is the capacity to respond moment-to-moment to life as it happens, not according to a program. Intelligence is: to relate with reality, unprepared.

An intelligent person does not function out of his past experience; he functions in the present. He does not react, he responds. Hence he is always unpredictable; one can never be certain what he is going to do.

A Catholic, a Protestant and a Jew were talking to a friend who said he had just been given six months to live.
"What would you do," he asked the Catholic, "if your doctor gave you six months to live?"
"Ah!" said the Catholic. "I would give all my belongings to the Church, take communion every Sunday, and say my 'Hail Marys' regularly."
"And you?" he asked the Protestant.
"I would sell up everything and go on a world cruise and have a great time!"
"And you?" he said to the Jew.
"Me? I would see another doctor."

That is intelligence!

1 hour ago, PureExp said:

When you define it as doing arts (painting lets say), machines are very poor in it.

Machines can't be creative. 

[PureExp]

@I_Like_Thing Yes, I know the answers. Check my blog for more.

I share there what I know. I don't claim that I'm the only one who is right, it is for you to find out. Everyone must get their own experiences. I say stuff based on my own experiences. Let me know if you find gross errors.

Edited March 1, 2017 by PureExp

[PureExp]

On 28/2/2017 at 9:48 AM, Prabhaker said:

Mind is not your intelligence. Intelligence means the capability to respond to new situations. 

Yes, mind is not = intelligence, but I never said it is It makes no sense to randomly equate two words.

Intelligence is a collection of abilities of a non-physical structure we call mind. That's my definition.

Capability to respond to new situations is just one of hundreds of abilities of mind. If you are interested, check it out here, because I can't type it all. It will take you a week to read it all There are 10 long articles on just abilities of mind. All your confusion seems to be because of incomplete understanding of what intelligence is, and how it is different from consciousness.

 

On 28/2/2017 at 9:48 AM, Prabhaker said:

Mind can be intellectual,..............just playing with words which are all borrowed, arranging and rearranging thoughts, none of which are your own.

No it makes no sense to me. A person can be intellectual. That's a social word, a personality type, nothing to do with philosophy of mind. Mind is not = person.

If someone plays with just borrowed words, he is not intellectual or intelligent, he is an idiot It has to be based on actual direct experience.

On 28/2/2017 at 9:48 AM, Prabhaker said:

The mind is a mechanism, it has no intelligence. The mind is a bio-computer. How can it have any intelligence? It has skill, but it has no intelligence; it has a functional utility, but it has no awareness.

You just defined intelligence as "Capability to respond to new situations", a mind does it nicely. So you are self-contradicting here.

Skills are just abilities, another type of intelligence.

You say mind just repeats, yes, but not mindlessly. A painter repeats a picture in his mind on a canvas - a sign of intelligence. A writer repeats his experiences in a book, again intelligence. Repetition is a sign of presence of memory, not absence of intelligence. Memory (yet another mental ability) is a necessary component of intelligence.

Mind is not a computer, brain is. Mind is non-physical, a collection of thoughts, memories, imaginations, emotions and all that mental stuff we directly experience. It is not physical, biological or any thing else. This is my direct experience.

Awareness is not a function of mind, mind appears in awareness. Awareness becomes mind, world and all experiences. So lets not confuse the concepts of awareness and intelligence, both are very different animals at dual level. As I said, even the most stupid person is aware.

On 28/2/2017 at 9:48 AM, Prabhaker said:

Intelligence is the capacity to respond moment-to-moment to life as it happens, not according to a program. Intelligence is: to relate with reality, unprepared.

Again, just another ability of the mind. Intelligence is not only this one thing you mention. It is a collection of abilities. So when the mind is not relating with reality in real time, and just pondering, writing novels, painting, solving calculus problems etc it is still intelligence. Even if it is a learned activity (aka programmed) it is still intelligence. If it is an innate ability (say birds building nests, as coded in their genes), it is still intelligence - an ability of the mind

 

On 28/2/2017 at 9:48 AM, Prabhaker said:

An intelligent person does not function out of his past experience; he functions in the present. He does not react, he responds. Hence he is always unpredictable; one can never be certain what he is going to do.

A stupid person can also not function out of his past. In fact hallmark of stupidity is not learning from the past experiences. An intelligent person reacts when needed, like when you are about to fall from a chair, you react and save yourself, or when you see danger, you react and run, you do not ponder on philosophy when a lion a chasing you This is intelligence !

Perhaps you are talking about emotional reactions to actions of others. An intelligent person will not react on emotional impulses. This is another ability, a refined one. However, a politician does the same, they do not react and remain diplomatic, and as we know this is not exactly a refined ability

About certainty, a chaotic person or mad man is also not predictable. However, a person of less intelligence cannot understand and therefore cannot predict the actions of a more intelligent person. I mentioned this before in regard to machines, we humans won't be able to predict what a super intelligent machine will do.

On 28/2/2017 at 9:48 AM, Prabhaker said:

Machines can't be creative. 

Neither can be humans. When I say "human creativity", I am speaking loosely, I use everyday words. So lets go into depth of it.

Only consciousness creates, not humans, humans and everything else is a part of creation. Now, one can sit still and observe that even consciousness does not create, it only witnesses what is being created or whats already there. This is a direct experience.

The creation and perception happen simultaneously. So who is creating? All that is, is nothing but creation, and it is creating. We call it Brahman, so Brahman is the ultimate creator (as is well known, but few people actually understand that).

I'm nothing but Brahman, seen as Self (consciousness) witnessing my own self, that is now manifest. This is "Experiencing", and this is all there is.

So all-that-is creates via the agency of humans. Not only humans, via other creatures and inanimate stuff too. So wind shapes a mountain, ants build an anthill and humans build a city. All creation, just happening via various agencies. This is also a direct experience.

Now, it is straightforward to see that creation can happen via the agency of machines too. Creation doesn't demand high intelligence, so a factory producing stuff or a 3D printer printing a model is also creation. There is no physical or spiritual law that says its impossible. Humans are nothing but a very sophisticated intelligent machine made of matter. There is no reason that a machine, sophisticated enough and made of matter will not express creation like we do. What is matter after all? Just consciousness !

Not only creativity, consciousness can express itself via any form (animal, human, or machine, or non-physical). It is the ground of everything, it is expressed in everything, and everything is "made" of it. This is also from direct experience and that's why I predicted that it will be possible for machines to say - "I'm consciousness". They are nothing else, can be nothing else. You see.

Even a religious person will agree that machines can create and can have intelligence and consciousness equal to or greater than man. Why? Because if negated, it will challenge the omnipotent quality of the god. God can do anything he likes. As we know religious people don't appreciate when you mess with gods but I'd say this religious belief is based on actual spiritual teachings that Brahman (all-that-is, Presence) is omnipotent.

Now is that my experience? No obviously not, I need to see all of the creation to say with certainty that all that is possible already exists and as a person, I'm tiny-whiny, very limited, I cannot know this. As consciousness I've this intuitive knowledge though. You dont need to believe me anyway, get your own experience. I can share only that which I experience and I draw my conclusion accordingly.

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2017 by PureExp

[PureExp]

@I_Like_Thing  link (also in signature below).

Yes, I think asking the right questions is the trick, and believe me I'm just ordinary, doesn't need a high IQ  just needs a sensitive BS meter.

Edited March 2, 2017 by PureExp

[jse]

Interesting blog, @PureExp

[Prabhaker]

On 3/1/2017 at 1:52 PM, PureExp said:

Neither can be humans. When I say "human creativity", I am speaking loosely, I use everyday words.

Can machines imagine anything ? 

[jse]

2 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

Can machines imagine anything ? 

If Ai can dream, then it can also imagine.

[Prabhaker]

21 minutes ago, jse said:

If Ai can dream, then it can also imagine.

That is simply the computer doing what it is designed to do. Result is based on several algorithms.

[PureExp]

5 hours ago, jse said:

Interesting blog, @PureExp

Thanks for checking. I'm looking for critical and creative feedback, so let me know if I messed up royally somewhere

@Prabhaker

Human imagination is a mixture of memory, sense perceptions and variations of them. One cannot imagine something which one never experienced (for example try to imagine a new color). Imaginations are "played back" via same neuronal paths that process sense perceptions (in brain). So (in my view) imaginations are local simulations.

All you need to do is implement this in a machine, and you can say machines can imagine It is already being done.

[PureExp]

A better question is - what is imagination? What is your direct experience of imagination looks like?

Imagine a tomato, red one. Where do you see it? Are senses involved? Is memory involved? Are higher brain functions involved?

You will find that the imagined tomato is a faded percept, nothing else. it is pulled from memory, a random combination of all the tomatoes you have experienced in life. You can choose to make it green, or big, or choose another angle, all being "played back" in usual visual cortex that processes the sense data coming from eyes. The only difference here is - the data is coming from memory, not eyes.

This is a piece of cake for computers

[Prabhaker]

50 minutes ago, PureExp said:

One cannot imagine something which one never experienced

How did Einstein think up the theory of relativity? Did an apple fall on his head ? 

56 minutes ago, PureExp said:

you can say machines can imagine It is already being done.

Give reference !

[PureExp]

@Prabhaker SR is not an imagination, I'm sure you understand that. He deduced the logical consequences of speed of light being a constant. I don't think he imagined it out of thin air, its pure math. If you are unsure, just imagine a scientific theory and claim your Nobel prize. Developing a scientific theory, getting the equations rights, publishing it in journals, getting it through peer review, fixing the errors and addressing the criticism is not merely sitting and daydreaming, its hard work - a culmination of a life time of study.

Ability to imagine is a small thing, do not confuse it with what scientists do.

Perhaps you are referring to the thought experiments. It involves imagination of a set up, and imagination ends there, the rest is reason, logic and math.

This is a speculation forum, so you obviously should not take my words as truth, the purpose here is not to prove anything, just to throw interesting ideas out. If you are interested, google the references and read books/papers on machine learning and creativity. Watch videos, go to seminars, code something yourself. It will take years and years.... but you will understand it, its not so difficult.

[Nahm]

Einstein imagined flying on a beem of light as a child. He references it as his inspiration to pursue science and the speed of light. He wondered if the beem would appear to be standing still. 

[PureExp]

2 hours ago, Nahm said:

Einstein imagined flying on a beem of light as a child.

That's brilliant, and I heard that story too. Both flying and light beams are everyday experiences, it is possible to combine them and imagine them. Beam appearing still is then a logical deduction, imagination will not automatically make the beam still while it is being imagined. Rest is hard work, math, to show that this picture makes sense. It turned out that he is not correct ! SR/GR do not blend with QM, and that is an embarrassment, since its so brilliant.

My claim was that its not possible to imagine something which you never experienced before, such as a new color which is not in spectrum, a new smell etc. As I say always, a seeker digs very-very deep into working of the mind, one cannot be shallow, however one needs to be mentally prepared to be proven wrong always, and I am prepared too, mind is a mysterious thing.

[PureExp]

A nice overview of predictions:

http://3tags.org/article/will-a-conscious-intelligent-ai-emerge-in-our-lifetimes

Note the presence of numerous definitions and understanding of words "intelligence" and "consciousness". 

My own prediction is more "spiritual" kind when compared to above materialist views.