The epic science fiction filmย 2001: A Space Odysseyย features a sentient computer,ย Hal 9000, whose job is to control a ship carrying astronauts to Jupiter, but a malfunction turns the computer against the crew. That film came out in 1968, around the same timeย when comedian Woody Allen was performingย a stand-up routine,ย Mechanical Objects.ย Hisย routineย was about a talking, apparently sentient, elevator bullying him, but, unlike Hal’s malfunction, the reason for the elevator’s behavior was made clear: Allen had hit a television.
The late 1960s was also the time period when NASA was sending astronauts to the Moon with significantlyย less computing power than the smart phones that people use today for broadcasting cat videos. And so, whether a comedy scenario or a dramatic sci-fi thriller was on their mind, nobody thought the prospect of an artificial intelligence (AI) making trouble for humans would be a real-world issue so soon. Maybe, hundreds of years in the future, as imagined onย Star Trek, but in the early 21st century? That seemed farfetched in theย Apolloย era.
But is it still ridiculous withย how far technology has come and the rate at which it is advancing? That really depends on whom you ask.
Some leading experts on the consequences of science and innovationโStephen Hawking (astrophysicist), Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft, philanthropist), Elon Musk (engineer, innovator, space entrepreneur), and Sam Harris (author, neuroscientist, philosopher), to name a fewโare seriously worried about the prospect of artificial general intelligence (AGI). AGI is achieved when a machine mind ponders and cares about numerous topics at a levelย similar toย our own brains. Othersโauthor and Arizona State physicist Lawrence Krauss for instanceโthink theย worriers should chill out,ย that we should be careful about how we integrate increasingly intelligent machines into military command and control, but that it will be a century or more before a computer mind could be created at, or beyond, the level of a human brain.
But even if AGI is far off, more specialized forms of machine intelligence are already operating and will affect us very soon in profound ways. Certain cars now feature driver-assist and collision avoidance systems, including some that break automatically for pedestrians if the driver fails to do so. How long will it be until a car can take other evasive measures, such as veering onto the sidewalk, if there’s not enough timeย to stop before hitting the pedestrian? Probably sooner than you think. People are working on this, because the demand for increased traffic safety and the economic factors are strong drivers, and we’d all agree that they should indeed work on it.
Now, imagine that a great-grandmother is in the road and a baby stroller on the sidewalk.ย What should the accident avoidance algorithm do? Who should live? If there are 10ย people in the road and just one on the sidewalk, what then? Does the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one? The AI systems, now under development for cars are specialized, not generally intelligent like the human brain, nor are they sentient. But in the years to come, if they can react to the above scenarios, they will be makingย moralย decisions. Just like Hal.
Engineers on the spectrum
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Keep in mind that chill-outers like Krauss are not saying that we’ll never have to worry about AGI. Krauss is just saying that it’s not likely something we’ll have to worry about anytime soon. To support a synthetic, sentient brain built on an electronic computing principle, Krauss has calculated that we’ll need a huge amount of power,ย 10 Terawatts, a little more than half of humanity’s total power use at present. Thus, he thinks that we’d need a qualitative change in computing technology, something that emulated the cellular and tissue architecture of our biological brains, but such an artificial brain would not have the talents that are particular to electronic computers: the memory and instant recall capacity, the computational ability. You could merge the two types of computing technologies to have an artificial mind that is both generally intelligent like a human (possessing AGI) and computes like a computer, but the incentive to develop the AGI component is questionable. Why do that if you can keep improving specialized AIโthe kind needed to drive cars, fly planes, perform robot surgery, or whatever you want it to do.
Can the specialized AI approach lead to AGI, and thereby a scenario where machines start behaving in ways that are not in our interest? Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates think we should be careful. Elon Musk thinks AI has the potential to becomeย more dangerous than nuclear weapons. That may sound hyperbolic but considering the sourceโMusk is one of the greatest inventors and forward thinkers of our timeโ if he’s worried, it’s worthwhile to listen.
Sam Harris is one of the people saying that we ought to be very careful. He’s cautioned against AGI, but even if he’s wrong about the dangers of AGI, some of his arguments could be applicable to out of control AI. In particular, Harris suggests that the worst nightmare scenario is that aย super-intelligence develops that is NOT sentient. It’s just effectively omniscient and omnipotent and thus starts doing a lot of things that it decides should be done, based on its own calculations. You could not reason with such a “mind”, because it’s not sentient, conscious, or self-aware.
That’s the type of AI that could develop based on incremental progress in electronic computing, the kind of progress the accident avoidance systems in cars. And who is designing those programs? Curious about the issue, Harris attended a major AI conference and noticed that for the most part it’s computer engineering whizzes who tend to be on the spectrum –meaning the autism spectrum (he did not mean it as hyperbole)– and who spent most of their timeย sitting around working in front of a screen drinking Red Bull.
Ponder that a little bit to balance out the chilling out message.
David Warmflash is an astrobiologist, physician and science writer. Follow @CosmicEvolution to read what he is saying on Twitter.
