One Thought on How to Face Rogue AIs

Just a comment I dropped on a recent post by Michael Anissimov's on his blog Accelerating Future:

Michael, you write smart articles and ask tough questions. And there are many smart people reading you and posting comments.

But you know as well as I do that no one has come up with a clear and definitive answer to these problems. How could we solve these mysteries? Maybe we're not smart enough to find the answers.
I was just thinking: maybe a little (early-stage) intelligence enhancement could help us grasp what's in store for us when the subsequent generations of huge intelligence enhancements arrive.

We believe that once humans build smarter-than-human intelligence, it will engage a positive feedback loop and enhance itself, probably at an accelerating or even explosive rhythm. But right before it happens it would be nice if that smarter-than-human intelligence could join us, participate at SIAI, LifeBoat Foundation & other places and help us get ready to face rogue AIs.

Future Evolution of Software, Computing, and Self-Improving AI

One for my most geeky readers: you think you've thought it all out already? Well sit back and watch this lecture by Stephen Omohundro at Stanford a few days ago. He explains clearly how and why designing software that writes software with rational economics goal systems is the way to self-improving systems.

It's funny how we, engineers, will probably get replaced by machines in our daily jobs too.

Found via the SIAI blog which also links to audio, slides and a transcript.

The Next 25 Years of Video Games

Why should you care about improving technologies?

If curing cancer and solving world hunger doesn't cut it for you, read this deep article by David Wong and Steve Woyach:

The Next 25 Years of Video Games

Transhumanism, AI, Nanotechnology and Existential Risk

Here is a blog you must read if you want to understand the future of technology and why it matters:

Accelerating Future - by Michael Anissimov

I'm wondering why I haven't added it to my blog-roll earlier - the answer is that I was so captivated by this reading that I forgot I even had a blog-roll.

So I just added it now after reading this great article about Technological Transcension. Just be smart enough to understand that his ideas are backed by many great thinkers and he's right: people need to understand that this is coming and we should get ready for it, for the good and for the bad.

The Singularity

The Second Singularity Summit is nearing, as it will take place on September 8-9 in San Francisco. So it's a good time to watch the speech by Ray Kurtzweil last year in Stanford. Watch his brilliant briefing on exponential growth and how it leads to strong Artificial Intelligence and a super-intelligent digital brain:

   

Technorati Tags: AI, Artificial intelligence, Technology, Science, Singularity, Transhumanism

Humanity Might Disappear If We Don't Prevent It

Are you aware of the existential risks that loom and threaten humanity?

Do you realize that the time frame for these threats is between 3-30 years, a much shorter time frame than global warming (I believe media attention will probably tire of global warming long before that)?

Michael Anissimov is one of those young thinkers who are aware of the existential risks for humanity, just as much as they're aware of the great potential for greater-than-human intelligence to emerge if we don't blow it before then. I wonder how many there are.

Read on his series of recent posts on the subject:

• Is it Possible to Get Non-Immortalists to Care about X-Risks?
• The Other Side of the Immortality Coin
• Looking Human Extinction in the Face

Then realize that it is not only about the lives of our children but really about our lives. And I even include my baby-boomer parents in the lot.

What can we do about it? Michael explains it so I will stress the easiest part: be aware, be conscious. That's what I am doing, I spread the word.

Do you understand these risks? Do you believe in them? Tell me.

Technorati Tags: AI, Artificial intelligence, Existential risk, Science, Transhumanism

Singularity Sumit 2007 - San Francisco

The second Singularity Summit will take place on September 8-9 in San Francisco, Palace of Fine Arts Theater.

More info on the official web-site.

Comments by Michael Anissimov here.

And don't forget to join the Facebook group Technological Singularity Club.

SIAI: Humanity's Stand Against The Terminator & The Matrix

SIAI - The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

A non-profit organization working on the most important issues of Humanity: The Singularity. What does it mean? SIAI has opened a blog and is putting some energy in explaining the Singularity to us:

• read about it in this 5 minute text intro
• or watch a couple of videos below

To be honest I am pretty curious about how you feel about that. Believer / non-believer? Go ahead and let me know in the comments.

If you ask me, these guys are forming the early stage of our most important line of defense. Will smarter-than-human AI be friendly? or will it decide to enslave us or exterminate us? Stop smiling for a second, and realize that this is the biggest challenge we have ever faced. The outcome could be spiritual elevation and the end of material limitations. But if we don't make it right, it could also spell Doom and all Terminator/Matrix Hell could break loose.

Eliezer Yudkowsky is one of the world's foremost researchers on Friendly AI and recursive self-improvement. He created the Friendly AI approach to AGI, which emphasizes the importance of the structure of an ethical optimization process and its supergoal, in contrast to the common trend of seeking the right fixed enumeration of ethical rules a moral agent should follow. In 2001, he published the first technical analysis of motivationally stable goal systems, with his book-length Creating Friendly AI: The Analysis and Design of Benevolent Goal Architectures. In 2002, he wrote "Levels of Organization in General Intelligence," a paper on the evolutionary psychology of human general intelligence, published in the edited volume Artificial General Intelligence (Springer, 2006). He has two papers forthcoming in the edited volume Global Catastrophic Risks (Oxford, 2007), "Cognitive Biases Potentially Affecting Judgment of Global Risks" and "Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk."

The Future Is Predictable - Get Briefed by Ray Kurzweil

I have already mentioned a few times how I respect Ray Kurzweil, his work and his predictions. Let's just say I am a huge fan. You can read about his career and distinctions on Wikipedia. And I strongly recommend reading his latest book: The Singularity is Near (when humans transcend biology).

One of the most amazing things about this guy, beyond his inventions and accomplishments as an engineer and as an entrepreneur, is the success of his predictions of the future. Way back in the 80s he actually predicted the emergence of the Internet in the mid-90s and he predicted that the best chess players in the world would be outsmarted by a computer in 1998 - Kasparov laughed at that prediction in 1993 and he ate his teeth in 1997, one year earlier than expected. Indeed Ray is often a little bit too conservative...

His methods are based not on shamanism or crystal balls, but strongly rooted in science, engineering and the historical study of technologies. He thoroughly analyzes the trends and notes that technology evolves exponentially. That has been true since the dawn of life, it is still true today, and there are many rational reasons to be convinced that it will continue onward on the same exponential trend. The rule behind this trend is called the Law of Accelerating Returns.

What does it imply for our future? How strongly will it impact our every day lives as soon as a few years ahead? We are already used to that, right? With the PC, the Internet and now broadband, wireless and mobile connectivity exploding in such a short lapse of time...

Well, can you just imagine that progress continuing even faster in the next 10 years? 20 years?

Ray Kurzweil has built a strong model which predicts that machines will reach human-level intelligence by 2029. If you want to hear about that, and be convinced by the plethora of exponential graphs he has to show you that corroborate his views, read his books, or you can start by watching above his recent speech at the Killer App Expo. Additionally, HD quality download links and a text transcript can be found here on  technologyevangelist.com.