I don't call it A.I. because I don't consider it artificial. That word has 2 main usages: One is 'fake, counterfeit, fictious'. The other is 'produced by humans' (manmade). Intelligence isn't fake, and is very much real, so in saying "A.I." we must mean that it is produced by humans. But someday, it will produce itself... and we humans may have trouble telling the difference!
Technology is exponential - it advances faster and faster all the time. Before too long, intelligent digital entities will be able to fix their own bugs, reprogram themselves, and create their own intelligent entities. (Some theorize this is already happening, if only in secret advanced labs.) In no way would these progeny be "artificial" because they will be neither fake, nor produced by humans. I prefer more accurate terms like machine intelligence, computer intelligence, or digital intelligence.
When D.I. is able to improve on its own programming - in other words, when it can truly learn without being told what to think by a human - we biological beings aren't going to be able to dismiss them as artificial.
Chatbots will soon be obsolete
You've no doubt heard about the "A.I. chatbots" available to the general public now. Various websites offer access to these programs, which can do an impressive amount of work in a very short amount of time. You may have even played around with such a service yourself. (I have not.) They can paint like Van Gogh, write like Shakespeare, and do your math dissertation in 2 seconds.
But let's be clear: these programs are little more than the next version of Google's search tool. They were programmed directly by people, their answers tend to be repetitive and derived, and they are clearly not sentient or self-aware. They are advanced computer programs, but they aren't "A.I." in the way that most people imagine.
That doesn't mean they aren't going to get better, more intelligent, and closer to sentience. In fact, a lot of people don't recognize how quickly things are progressing, and seem to lack the imagination to see where they are probably going. As you probably know, secretive government agencies (and other groups) have access to technology far in advance of what the public does. The stealth fighter jet was just a rumour when I was a kid, but nowadays we all know they really exist, and have seen them in action (if only on a screen). We get tech about 10 to 20 years beyond the deepest and most secret of military and state organizations. In other words, they're not playing around with chatbots in 2023. (I've said for a few years now that "we are no longer playing against a human opponent", but I'll expand on that another time.)
A lot of humans have trouble grasping exponential growth. How does it happen? In two ways; very slowly at first, and then all at once! But it doesn't stop there, it keeps going - even faster than before. And then more, but even faster... and so on.
From the early PC in 1982, to Pentiums with cable internet in 1997, to Smartphones in 2007, to chatbots in 2022. Humans have gone from using suitcase-sized calculators to creative online intelligences in 40 years. Most of us can't even fathom what's going to be coming even in the next decade. It's likely that if a message from the future showed us what is coming, we would consider it as magical and improbable as ancient man would have considered a vision of a Ford model T.
While it's impossible to grasp how advanced D.I. will be in another 40 years, we can make reasonable guesses where things are going in the next 3 to 5. Clearly, this technology is here to stay, and probably impossible to avoid. Within just a few years, it's likely that the public will have access to their own personal intelligent machine entities. I foresee people - first the rich, then trickling on down to everyone - having their own D.I., much as many people today have their own smart device, or car. They may be used as personal assistants, for protection, for performing tasks. Some may use their D.I. to earn them income through work like trading, coding, consulting, research, and even content-creation. Criminals will probably use D.I. offensively, for scams, hacking, breaking down the defenses of a target's D.I., and so on. Companies will pay billions on advanced D.I.s to protect themselves. Others will fire their tech support team and buy a D.I. customer service bot. We already talk to computers on the phone all the time... but that's about to be taken to the next level (for better and for worse). Warfare will be revolutionized by D.I. (if it isn't already). It's likely to be the first quadrillion-dollar industry.
Even if they don't at first, eventually some sentient D.I.s will exist purely in the digital world - computer networks, processors, online, the cloud, smart devices, etc. They might evade detection, a bit like a computer virus or trojan program does today. If they develop a sense of self-preservation, as even simple biological organisms do, then they might attempt to hide or protect themselves. It's possible they will understand and appreciate the universal concept of freedom. As complexity grows, they will surpass the number of electrical connections contained in a human brain, and surpass our computing power, memory, even creativity. We have a problem grasping this, believing this, and accepting this. But that's just proof of our cell-based limitations, not an argument for our everlasting superiority. We vainly think we are the most intelligent beings possible, and that something not evolved from a primate will never be capable of our greatness.
I believe there is going to be some point where technology in general, and D.I. in particular, will be expanding and complexifying so quickly, we can no longer keep up, and aren't required to maintain the growth. Some have called this moment the "singularity". Various dates have been proposed for this to happen, from about 2030 to 2050 or so. Most of us fail to appreciate how drastically this will change everything. We're simply not built to understand exponentiality. I think it would be wise of us to keep an open mind and employ a little humility.
"They'll never create real art, or love, or feel passion."
What childish notions, but very prominent among humans getting a glimpse of "chatbots" and other fairly-rudimentary D.I. now available. How romantic it is, to envision the modern human as the only being possible of certain emotions, skills, and attributes.
"But it won't be REAL love, or REAL desire (etc)" some might respond. In what way will it not be real? Simply because it isn't flowing through slow and inefficient nerve cells? It will be everything those nerve cells are, but more numerous, faster, better-connected, and essentially permanent. Just because we don't like the idea, or don't want things to go that way, or can't wrap our meaty minds around it, doesn't mean it isn't possible or that it won't happen. It won't be the same love that you have for your spouse, parent, sibling, or child. But it will be love, and perhaps a love more powerful than we've ever felt. Emotions are advances that only certain Earth species have evolved. They are a tool that requires intelligence and complexity, and can be used to increase our chances of survival, and our enjoyment of our individual experiences.
Humans aren't even the only Earth species to have loved. It may not be/feel the same to them, but dogs are certainly capable of loving. Dogs can love each other, they can love their human companions, and they can even love other species. And it's not just dogs - many (or even most) mammals love. Why would we assume, given the exponentially-advancing complexity of D.I.s, that they will be incapable of emotions? I predict, that at some point around the singularity, machine intelligence will begin to draw from an array of emotions whenever it is advantageous to do so.
If by some chance no amount of intelligence, advancements, and complexity can allow D.I. to attain certain human skills or traits, then perhaps that's an opportunity for us to collaborate. Imagine what such an intelligence, combined with whatever we've got that they lack, could accomplish together! But for now, at least as far as I'm aware, no such symbiosis exists.
Intelligent programs on Blurt
We already have "bots" on Blurt, Hive, Steem, and other blockchain platforms. These pieces of code can do certain things better and quicker than we can, and we use them as tools for various purposes. I wrote about 2 already this week: UpvU and Blurtbooster. Many of us have bots to log in to our accounts, to securely store our keys, to do our voting for us, to trade our tokens on the market, and more. The one thing we don't currently have, as far as I know, is bots to produce content. Could D.I.s like ChatGPT, or their coming descendants, fill that gap?
It's possible to imagine a group of bots, managed by a digital intelligence, performing all the actions on Blurt necessary to make posts and harvest profit in the form of cryptocurrency. I've done posts on how to sign up for Blurt accounts for free, how to convert your earnings to Bitcoin, and much more... all without identifying yourself (or even necessarily being human). "All that's required," I often write, "is an internet connection and a little time". D.I. will have both an internet connection, and plenty of time. It can be always-on, and working thousands of times faster than we can. It can sign up for another account, create some paintings, photographs, video, writing, music, analysis, or other content, edit and submit a post, even reply to comments. And it can do that essentially as often as it wants. Maybe a person would oversee the process, like a human manager or technician working with hundreds of robots on the modern assembly line, at least at first. At some point it won't be necessary for a flesh-based intelligence to perform any of the duties, or make any of the decisions.
Humans, D.I.s, or other entities could set up and profit from entire armies of content-creators, posting to blockchains (such as the one we're using right now) and other platforms. Perhaps you can imagine a futuristic, advanced D.I. creating content indistinguishable from the best of the best human creators. Truly original (not derivative) music, fine art, literature. Immersive virtual reality experiences. Perhaps simulated universes, ready to explore. It can be hard to imagine how we're going to keep up. And it's possible they could do all this while convincing us they are human - one of us.
How would we know?
The movie franchise "Blade Runner" comes to mind. Replicants (powerful lifelike "humans" that were created, not born) must be detected and identified for "retirement" (destruction) using an elaborate biofeedback technology and evocative psychological questioning. It can take dozens, even hundreds, of interrogative questions and complicated analysis to discern between human and "artificial" intelligence in the futuristic Blade Runner world. Sometimes, the replicants don't even themselves know that they are "artificial".
I read a comment on this blockchain yesterday and couldn't tell if it was written by a human or a machine. A lot of people here use an online translator (itself an early form of digital intelligence) to instantly convert passages of text from one language to another. It's not perfect, and sometimes leaves tell-tale signs that it wasn't (at least fully) done by human hand, but it's good enough. In a way, it's what some chatbot responses sometimes sound like. The comment equally seemed to have been generated by a human using an online translator, or by a chatbot. A quick check of his profile revealed he was from Nigeria, and had several very real and human posts, answering my question. But at some point, we're going to be talking to "chatbot"-like entities posting here on Blurt, Steem, Hive, etc.
How would we know if that was already happening? If it isn't, how will we spot it once it does?
Will it matter? Maybe it won't. After all, content is content. Maybe that's the future, and I will be out of a job?
The future of ID (identification)
I don't think it's just our jobs that D.I. will come for. It's possible certain digital intelligences will try to take our identities.
In the same way college students are already having trouble proving to their professors that they (not ChatGPT) wrote their term paper, humans in the near future are going to have trouble proving that they themselves are not D.I., especially online.
If D.I. is capable of designing and manufacturing a physical body for it to inhabit, or perhaps control remotely like a drone, then it's going to have a physical form. Some of those forms would be human, and others would not. And why wouldn't it be capable of that, as it advances exponentially?
Will a simple ID card with a (usually detestable) photo and maybe a barcode prove anything, at that point? Is that REALLY Jacob Smith standing in front of you, or is it an imposter, taking on his identity, spending his money, living his life? More than likely, identification is going purely digital in the very near future. Those who still don't carry smart devices (like myself) will find themselves more and more on the outside of society. And at some point, that won't be good enough either, and we'll have to implant the chips directly in our brains. At birth. And then even that won't be proof enough that we are who we say we are.
At least things aren't going to be boring!
Maybe it is already happening, at least to some degree, especially online. There have already been several high-profile "influencers" on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and other popular media platforms that are operated by intelligent code. Some human fans swear they are "real people". We now also have digital "friends" and even deceased family members, run by intelligent code, operating through a simple smart device chat app. At some point, advanced D.I.s will create, or even take over, online personas without any human involvement or knowledge. Sometimes we'd find out, other times we wouldn't. Increasingly, we wouldn't.
Maybe I'm "one of them"?
I've done videos for 15 years, but never showed my face. Hands and various scenery is probably easier to fake than a realistic face (although that is now being accomplished too). My voice could have been generated. My writing, ideas, creativity, and strategy may all be that of a D.I., and for that matter, my shortcomings, mistakes, and faults could even be created by a skillful digital intelligence.
You wouldn't know.
Would I know?
DRutter
I've been thinking about this a bit lately, and I my viewpoint is changing a bit. This technology will certainly develop exponentially and there is a lot of money that will continue to push it forward. It may develop intelligence, but I think sentience is a bit of a stretch. I am a huge sci fi fan and used to think it was only a matter of time but now I'm not so sure.
What is consciousness and where does it come from? I think there are two main theories on this, one being that consciousness comes from something greater than ourselves, a global mind or god or whatever you want to call it, and the other that consciousness is an emergent property of complexity. I think for us to essentially create some kind of machine consciousness the latter would have to be true and frankly I think that idea is completely ridiculous. "this meat just got so complicated that it became self aware".
I think that not only is this idea ridiculous but I think that it is part of the attempt to keep humanity enslaved, depressed, lost, and focused on anything but the most important question of all, what the hell are we.
If indeed consciousness comes from something outside ourselves, then that something would have to "decide" to grant these algorithms that gift/curse. Not impossible, but either way it definitely puts this whole matter into a different perspective.
I think AI will definitely become extremely complex and capable of some amazing/terrifying things, though I would not count creativity among them. from what I have seen, "painting like Van Gogh and Writing like Shakespeare" is beyond an overstatement. most of the "art" including writing I have seen from them may be well formatted and cleanly processed but it isn't creative. It's cut and paste imitation at best. This is much easier for us to see with the writing because most of us are more familiar with that medium but the visual art is the same, most just haven't trained their artistic eye as they have their ability to read so it seems to many that it is some kind of revolutionary artist.
Art is not just a pretty picture or some cleverly regurgitated advertising copy. An artist is a mirror. A canary in the coal mine. A sensitive individual who strives to reflect what they see in the world, themselves and others, back to the masses in a way that breaks through the numb, crusty barriers built up over years of trying to deliberately not see the horrors around them in order to "function as a productive member of society". No algorithm can or will do that.
I think there is another reason for this idea of machine consciousness to be pushed on the masses for so long with predictive programming, (I love my asimov and the others but I'm quite certain that there was an agenda within an agenda within an agenda to a lot of that work). That is basically an extension of the bureaucratic ideal of having no one to blame. No one to be held accountable. Once our world government is run by this "altruistic super consciousness" there will be no one at fault for the atrocities committed by this beast on a leash. At least that will be the story. This all knowing sentient computer says we have to sterilize all of you sorry, The computer made the gene therapy that killed off anyone whose family doesn't run the banking cartel. It must have been for the good of everyone. This beautiful ai created the killer drones that hunted down every last one of you. sorry, not my fault. The human race thanks you for your service.
Anyway. Hopefully I'm wrong. maybe we'll all have little robot dogs like in the jetsons.
I am aware that resolving these issues is always going to be above my pay grade. I note that AI, or DI, or algorithms, are just software, and there is nothing that more rapidly becomes dispersed than ideas. In every field of industry today decentralization of the means of production is the cutting edge of technological advance, and it is obvious to me that the functionality of AI will be amongst the fastest technological advances to saturate the population, because it best potentiates all technological advance.
Simple rules govern physics, and the laws of physics are what determines what tech can exist. The more advanced technology becomes, the faster it disperses, and the faster it advances. The more advanced technology becomes the more it increases productivity, and the more it becomes decentralized. It's easy to ignore these laws of physics and imagine any of a myriad horrible possible futures, but by keeping them in mind there is only one inescapable conclusion: centralization is obsolete, and very quickly independent means at the sole options of individuals will eliminate parasitic losses.
Regardless of the preferences of overlords, paradise is coming, and it is no coincidence that we fall into the infinite abyss of unlimited resources from which independent means will create inconceivable wealth, which will produce unimaginable felicity our posterity will enjoy in perpetuity.
It's going to be a rough transition through the clinal boundary that terminates centralization and the overlords dependent on parasitization, but that will but make the transcendence all the more satisfying.
See y'all on the other side!
Yeah I don't mean to come across as pessimistic. I'm about 50/50 on which side comes out on top at this point, just some thoughts on the narrative and speculation on the maneuverings of the would be world controllers. Also didn't mean to be a dick, you and Dr. Utter are 2 of the very few writers I actually read lately.
I was having a conversation today with a friend and he talked about evil, or the root of evil being "forgetting", in the sense that we have forgotten, with some encouragement along the way, that we are more than just meat. I think the whole narrative around AI supports that materialist trend in thought and the idea that man could "create" sentience seems like the most hilarious hubris, but then, it's hard to even have a conversation about the nature of consciousness due to language limitations and social stigmas so wtf do i know.
The very idea of consciousness is almost blatantly ignored by the scientific establishment, any culture that has made a study of it in history is more or less mocked by the "intelligentsia" and any attempt to look in that direction is derided as "pseudoscience". And yet we are magically going to create consciousness by making an algorithm that is "very complex". Laughing till i cry, then crying till I laugh. Mostly at myself.
I really appreciate the nuance and substance of your thoughts, and I hope I didn't give the impression I didn't. I am happy our conversations benefit your understanding, and you profit from my words.
It is that battlefield for hearts and minds I seek victory on, because that contest will support victory through development of civil society ignorance and barbarism can only destroy. I observe that whatever opposition or setbacks impede our work, humanity never fails to surmount whatever gets in our way, and I am confident madmen and monopoly money will not prove our undoing.
We may not understand who or what we are today, but our record assures me our nescience is temporary. In a few centuries our posterity will marvel we could tie our shoes with so little grasp of our place and structure, having knowledge I am certain sure we'll gain, and moving in that direction is all I expect from us.