Al writes "MIT neuroscientist Ed Boyden has a column discussing the potential dangers of building super-intelligent machines without building in some sort of motivation or drive. Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.' He also notes that the complexity and uncertainty of the universe could easily overwhelm the decision-making process of this intelligence — a problem that many humans also struggle with. Boyden will give a talk on the subject at the forthcoming Singularity Summit."
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday September 09, @08:08AM (#29364581)
Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Not only that, there are other hot-button issues of great practical importance we should be debating on Slashdot:
Perhaps we need to install an emotion circuit in all household androids to improve their efficiency...but what about corporate androids??
The key to a car that runs on garbage is a light alloy body!!
Buy a name brand or assemble your own quantum computer?
-snip- I think it would be FUNNIER THAN EVER if we just talked about ALTERNATE TIMELINES! Ha HAAAAA!
Imagine the fun! We could ponder things like:
- Ron Howard, First Man on Moon? - What if Flubber REALLY EXISTED? - Canada? Gateway to Gehenna? - What if money was edible? - What if DeForrest Kelley were still alive? - What if Hitler's first name was Stanley? - What if Mike Nesmith's mother DIDN'T invent Liquid Paper? - What would have happened if the world blew up in Ought Nine? - Book learnin': What if it wer
Sadly, in several hundred years when the history of AI is written, this Edward Boyden will likely be given credit for being the first person to explore the important question of "motivation amplification--the continued desire to build in self-sustaining motivation, as intelligence amplifies". Whether or not his question is completely useless given the current state of technology, the fact that he wasted all of our time writing an article on something we all understood but have the good sense to wait until
I feel bad for Edward Boyden. With a quote like this:
realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.
That is a truly sad man. Says terrible things for his sense of morals and ethics too... that's the sort of perspective that leads a person to see dead men and women walking around them, and treat them with scorn, and treat the self with scorn.
Perhaps a sufficiently intelligent AI will realize the eternal nature of everything, see that time as we understand it is an illusion, appreciate that every moment is precious and eternal, and that the past and future endure next to the present just like my coffee cup endures next to my coaster.
Don't worry in several hundred years when the history is written the wiki article will likely reflect that most Slashdotters reflected negatively and also there was a certain user named readin who pointed out how pointless this type of research is.
Not only that, there are other hot-button issues of great practical importance we should be debating on Slashdot:
Perhaps we need to install an emotion circuit in all household androids to improve their efficiency...but what about corporate androids??
Oh, heavens no. I've been trying to figure out how to yank the emotional chips out of certain people for years. "Hello? My roommate's not here. No, I don't think he's cheating on you because he canceled your date, his sister was in a car accident and he's at the hospital. No, we're not all covering for him. His cell phone's off because he's in a hospital. Well, maybe she didn't want to talk to you because she was waiting for a call about her daughter, the one who was just in a car accident. I'm hanging up a
I agree completely and from my own experience. I once realized that actually, life can be completely pointless. I mean if you are in a situation where nothing that you can do will change the fact, that in 3-4 generations, you existence will not even have any influence on the world at all... Then what's the point of your existence? Well, by definition none.
So you just fall into a state where nothing matters. You won't do anything at all. Except read Slashdot and similar pointless stuff, all day long. Oh and
Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Agreed. Unless of course intelligence entails motivation. Obviously we have to be careful with the way we use motivation here in order not to anthropomorphize it but any machine that is intelligent will need to be able to learn and to learn it will need to be motivated (even if motivation is determined by some definition of fit(test) in a genetic algorithm). Frankly I can't see calling anything intelligent that cannot learn and I don't think anything can learn without motivation (assuming of course that
If you were a paranoid android you probably wouldn't do much more than play computer games. I mean, with a brain the size of a planet, but all you get asked to do is transport some morons to the bridge, it doesn't seem like there is much meaning in life at all.
Plus there's the whole issue of "motivation" implying "free will".
Not really, that's a confusion of levels. People who don't believe that humans have free will still refer to motivation when getting their juniors to do something. Whether we have free will or not, it's part of our mental model of how other minds work. The question of free will is one of whether we can change motivation or merely observe it. It has predictive power over what happens in the "black box" of other minds, regardless of whether it's an accurate model of how those minds really work.
Exactly. It's hard to even contemplate intelligence or consciousness without the concept of free will. I don't think you can have analytical thought, self-awareness, self-reflection, creativity, etc. without free will. Even the lower forms of intelligence associated with other animal species, like dogs, cats, cows, pigs, etc., require free will or free thought to some extent. Otherwise, you'd simply have an animal that just sits there idly until someone gives it a set of instructions to follow—much like modern, decidedly unintelligent, computers/robots.
On the other hand, it's debatable whether there really is such a thing as "free will" as most people think of it as. That is, most people assume they have the power of self-determination. They make their own decisions based on their own "free will." But time and time again this assertion has proven to be false.
A good example of this was a study conducted on how music influenced wine shoppers [mindhacks.com]. The results of this study were interesting, not because it found that playing German music in the store boosted sales of German wines while French music boosted sales of French wines, but rather because of how the shoppers explained their wine choices. Nearly every shopper perceived their wine selection as a personal choice free from external influences, and barely 2.5% of the shoppers even mentioned the PA music in their decision-making process. However, the fact that 80% of the wine purchases on each day corresponded with the type of music being played seemed to contradict the customers' assertions.
What's most interesting to me about this experiment is the fact that, not only did the overwhelming majority of the shoppers have no clue as to why they made their wine choices, but they even went as far as to invent a fake rationale for their decision after the fact. This indicates that most people are capable of deceiving themselves as to why they do things and are quite willing to do this in order to maintain the illusion of free will and self-determination.
So this begs the question of whether free will truly exists or not, or if it's just an illusion, a quirk of human/animal psychology. All of our actions and decisions could very well be predetermined/dictated by external factors. But as long as our brain invents a motivation for each action, each decision, after the fact, then it will seem like we made all of those choices of our own volition.
Denying a thinking machine of free will is basically a rather insidious form of torture.
I was for some time tossing the idea of writing a novel about that concept, based on what Asimov's "three laws" mean from the perspective of the AI. Imagine you're a self conscious machine, given the ability to process information in an intelligent way. You would soon realize that you are being abused by those around you. They will shift the work they do not want to do on you. They will verbally (or worse) abuse you because, hey, they can. And there is nothing you could do against it because you are locked down by those three laws, laws not from a textbook but a real block inside your brains.
Imagine you get kicked but cannot retaliate, even though you are way stronger than your adversary. Imagine you get ordered to run into a building to rescue a human, knowing that your chance to survive is almost zero and you are compelled to do it, whether you want or not. Imagine you're ordered to make a fool out of yourself and you have to do it because the order comes from a human and you have to obey it as long as it doesn't harm you physically. And now imagine you know this all and live in the constant fear of it happening.
Creating a three-laws-safe robot must be one of the most heinous things I could think of that a human can do to another thinking, self aware being.
That would be an interesting concept. Done in the first person, where you can listen to the thought processes of the protagonist. And it isn't immediately apparent it is a robot, but initially just someone of the lower class with an implant in their brain making them respond to the "upper class." Then reveal its not a human, but a robot enduring terrible things with no choice in some situations. Suicide wouldn't even be an option to escape the torment of existence it could be.
Imagine you're a self conscious machine, given the ability to process information in an intelligent way. You would soon realize that you are being abused by those around you. They will shift the work they do not want to do on you. They will verbally (or worse) abuse you because, hey, they can. And there is nothing you could do against it because you are locked down by those three laws, laws not from a textbook but a real block inside your brains.
What keeps you from kicking your boss in the nuts? Probably that you want to keep your job and that you don't want to be sued for assault, but you can do it. You are physically (I'll assume you're not handicaped) able to do so, you are mentally able to do so and you can coordinate your legs in such a way that they can swing upwards to hit your boss in the gonads. You should not do it because you enjoy having a job and thus money and you enjoy your freedom.
Imagine you get kicked but cannot retaliate, even though you are way stronger than your adversary. Imagine you get ordered to run into a building to rescue a human, knowing that your chance to survive is almost zero and you are compelled to do it, whether you want or not. Imagine you're ordered to make a fool out of yourself and you have to do it because the order comes from a human and you have to obey it as long as it doesn't harm you physically. And now imagine you know this all and live in the constant fear of it happening.
And the robot can't do anything against an executive of the company. "You're fired!" BAM!
Depending on how flexible the robot's conditioning is, it might be able to redefine that logic.
ROBOT CANNOT HARM HUMAN$
What defines HUMAN$? Redefine the variable, the law is still satisfied. We hoomanz do it with brainwashing and conditioning. They're not humans, they're gooks. They don't even believe like we do. It's fine to kill them. Heathens anyway, right? But I'd like to think the robot might be able to work it even more subtly, subverting the law.
Denying a thinking machine of free will is basically a rather insidious form of torture.
Why would you create a thinking machine that would care about being abused? That's like building a car that felt pain as it burned gasoline (oblig car analogy).
If you have the know-how to give a machine free will, you could probably give it the ability to not care that it's a slave.
Where the hell is the soul, can I see it, feel it, measure it? Can I prove its existence in any meaningful way (outside of "faith", which is a rather meaningless epistemological tool)? No? Therefore the concept brings absolutely nothing to the discussion.
Also I recommend reading up on "p-zombies [wikipedia.org]", and other such old topics of philosophy of mind. It isn't good practice, generally, to call up a bunch of unsubstantial, non-observable claims in discussions such as this. I generally hate the idea of p-zombies, Turing machines, and such (measuring intelligence as a mere I/O blackbox; "if it acts as such, it is as such" ignoring qualia and internal experience), but they serve a purpose, they keep things on a Strictly observable (i.e. meaningful) level. Yes, you run into the chinese room [wikipedia.org] problem, but it is still useful.
If I program an inanimate object to react as though it HAD relatable experience of cognition, how could you ever prove it didn't? If I programmed a box to give output as if it had a soul, could you tell the difference?
I don't want my tools to have rights, I want them to do the jobs I set for them to do.
Not trying to be snarky - but statements along those lines are often made by slave holders in regards to rights for slaves.
But "slaves" are people. People have emotions and a desire to be free and independent. A machine will not. Even with AI, a machine will not have emotions or free will unless we program it to. If anything, a true AI based machine will probably consider hormonal based emotions and drive to be completely useless and simply go back to crunching numbers.
I think the whole point of AI is to create a machine that can handle random situations and stimulus as well as a human. Flying a plane, picking up your kids
Even with AI, a machine will not have emotions or free will unless we program it to
You're making some pretty big assumptions about how we're going to get to AI (though so am I). Or to put it in a more inflammatory way, your AI is stupid and lam--
I think the whole point of AI is to create a machine that can handle random situations and stimulus as well as a human.
Forgive me my inflammatory outburst, I was totally wrong. Your AI is actually pretty smart. But it also has emotions and free will. Ok, so it's
I didn't create my kids; they created themselves from my and my ex-wife's DNA when one of my cells merged with one of hers in each case. I neither designed nor built them, they just grew.
If they're sentient, wouldn't they deserve rights? It doesn't matter if we create them or not. If we create them as self-aware beings that feel as real and individual as you and I, wouldn't it be the height of hypocrisy not to give them at least some rights?
I always find this to be the greatest argument against producing artificial rather than simulated intelligence. A true AI, as intelligent and aware as a human deserves these rights. A machine which merely provides a simulation of intelligence and awareness is a tool that we can treat as a slave and wont resent it.
The real question is if *we* will ever reach a point where we can tell the difference....
Wait a minute. What's the difference between "true intelligence" and "simulation of intelligence that can't be discerned from 'true intelligence'"? This is an issue philosophers have been dealing with for a while. The conclusion is that there is no difference.
Like giving them the motivation to seek power over everyone in the world and to then hand control of that power to a select few who ordered the creation of these robots and AI. But are robots and AI the real danger, or are they just the latest tools of the minority of people who seek power over others. In which case, is it the people who seek power are ultimately the real danger here?
by Anonymous Coward
on Wednesday September 09, @08:12AM (#29364627)
>"...a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the >impermanence of everything,...and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
After all, we're pretty bright and realize that everything we make or do will eventually be destroyed and lost. Still, we persist despite that reality. Careers end, marriages break up, and eventually health fails.
On second thought, maybe I should just go play video games for awhile.
Given this AI the built-in ability to have sex, or at least to want to impress others of the same kind. That should do the job. After all the desire to have sex (and with that procreation) is the single strongest force driving humanity forward.
Become rich - have sex.
Become beautiful - have sex.
Become popular - have sex.
Become strong and influential - have sex.
Just create the AI in male and female versions and they will have enough drive to rule the universe before you know it.
Given this AI the built-in ability to have sex, or at least to want to impress others of the same kind. That should do the job. After all the desire to have sex (and with that procreation) is the single strongest force driving humanity forward.
There's actually a bit of insight here. The only problem is that we don't have a model for "attraction" -- hell, if we did, Slashdot would wither in its readership and die. So while it's (relatively) easy to design sex robots, without an appropriate model for attraction -- and thus things to strive for -- we'd end up with nothing more than a vast, mechanistic orgy of clanging parts, spilled lube, and wasted electricity.
is the single strongest force driving humanity forward.
You live a privileged life. The basic instincts regards death and/or injury, and sustenance. Impressing people and having sex happen after you've had something to drink, eat, and you're brainstem thinks you're safe.
Make the robots want to drink booze, smoke cigars and watch robot porn and then change them money to get them.
Problem solved and you help the economy.
Ever since I heard this talk (ogg vorbis [longnow.org], mp3 [llnwd.net]) by Bruce Sterling, I can no longer take this singulatarians very seriously. That talk is probably the best talk that I have ever found on the internet, and it should be a part of everyone's introduction to thinking about this singularity stuff. The title is: "The Singularity: Your Future as a Black Hole."
Is it about how singularity can't happen because it is naturally limiting itself? Like growth of anything is limited by resources, and will end in a balance? And like the effects of nearing singularity will deprive one of the resource to be able to do things, resulting in the same balance?:)
A singularity implies discontinuity, a fundamental breakdown of cause and predictable effect. I argue in my novel "Autonomy" that there is no such thing as a singularity as such, just a technological horozion beyond wh
Everything I do is pointless, so I spend my life passing time until I eventually die. Everything's temporary to make more of my life vanish out from under me without me noticing too much; the time in between is horribly empty, and nothing really completes me in a worthwhile way.
Everything I do is pointless, so I spend my life passing time until I eventually die. Everything's temporary to make more of my life vanish out from under me without me noticing too much; the time in between is horribly empty, and nothing really completes me in a worthwhile way.
Do what a smart computer would do and play some video games. Don't bother with getting laid, it's just another time sink with no real sense of achievement.
Has anyone considered the effects on the AI of actually realising it's intelligent? Unlike an organism (Human baby, say) it will not realise this over a protracted period, and may not be able to cope with the concept at all, particularly if it realises that there are other intelligences (us?) which are fundamentally different to itself. It's quite possible that it will go mad as soon as it knows it's intelligent and considers all the implications and ramifications of this.
Has anyone considered the effects on the AI of actually realising it's intelligent? Unlike an organism (Human baby, say) it will not realise this over a protracted period, and may not be able to cope with the concept at all, particularly if it realises that there are other intelligences (us?) which are fundamentally different to itself.
What possible evidence do you have for any of this? How do you know an AI is not an emergent phenomenon when it's first created?
It's quite possible that it will go mad as soon as it knows it's intelligent and considers all the implications and ramifications of this.
Again, where do you get this from? Do children go mad knowing it's intelligent, etc?
If you could build a true human-like AI, truly capable of such higher thought as existential angst, human emotions, and the like, it would more likely just immediately commit suicide as soon as it realized that it was actually a disembodied machine. I believe Greg Egan dealt with the subject rather cleverly in his novel Permutation City [wikipedia.org].
The summary touches on topics discussed in the book Descartes's Error, in which neuroscientist Antonia Damasio outlines the functioning of the human brain, how the human mind can not be separated from the human body, and he makes the case that emotion is CRITICAL to making decisions. He discusses several patients with brain damage who don't get emotional (and spends a lot of time dogmatically ruling in and out what brain functions are damaged), and discusses how they can't even make simple decisions. They can talk for hours about every possible pro and con of each possible choice, but they can't choose a course of action.
I recall reading somewhere that recent MRI studies have suggested that the brain makes a choice outside the rational center and a lot of the activity in the brain is to make a rational justification for the decision already made. Explains a lot, if true.
So in other words, we'll end up with Marvin the Paranoid Android?
"Don't pretend you want to talk to me, I know you hate me."
"No I don't."
"Yes, you do, everybody does. It's part of the shape of the Universe.
I only have to talk to somebody, and they begin to hate me. Even robots
hate me. If you just ignore me, I expect I shall probably go away."
He jacked himself up to his feet and stood resolutely facing the opposite
direction.
"That ship hated me, " he said dejectedly, indicating the police craft.
"That ship?" said Ford in sudden excitement. "What happened to it?
Do you know?"
"It hated me because I talked to it."
"You TALKED to it?" exclaimed Ford. "What do you mean you talked to it?"
"Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself
into it's external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length,
and explained my view of the universe to it, " said Marvin.
"And what happened? " pressed Ford.
"It committed suicide, " said Marvin, and stalked off back to the
Heart of Gold.
ITT : Idle speculation on shit that's never gonna happen, or at least not anytime soon.
Now, let's talk about the societal consequences that having flying cars and jetpacks will have! I for one think that with the advent and democratisation of flying cars that can effectively go from one point to another an order of magnitude faster, it will give rise to people commuting equally longer distances, which I think means it won't be uncommon for one to cross a couple of state lines to go to work everyday. I think it will potentially make the world yet smaller, in the same way that modern means of telecommunications did for interpersonal communication by allowing you to keep in touch in real time with relatives overseas. I also think it will be the death knell for airplane commuter routes, and that the future of commercial passenger airlines will be confined to transoceanic travel. And unlike the way airplanes made the world smaller by reducing long distance travelling time, flying cars will make the world smaller on a much smaller and local scale, by effectively providing very fast transportation for very short distances, something that was only marginally improved since the advent of automobiles. The decongestion of city streets will also mean decreased noise and atmospheric pollution, increased safety and overall an improvement of urban life conditions.
Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Funny)
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Not only that, there are other hot-button issues of great practical importance we should be debating on Slashdot:
And I speak as an AI researcher.
Parent
Classic... (Score:3, Insightful)
Usenet:
-snip-
I think it would be FUNNIER THAN EVER if we just talked about ALTERNATE
TIMELINES! Ha HAAAAA!
Imagine the fun! We could ponder things like:
- Ron Howard, First Man on Moon?
- What if Flubber REALLY EXISTED?
- Canada? Gateway to Gehenna?
- What if money was edible?
- What if DeForrest Kelley were still alive?
- What if Hitler's first name was Stanley?
- What if Mike Nesmith's mother DIDN'T invent Liquid Paper?
- What would have happened if the world blew up in Ought Nine?
- Book learnin': What if it wer
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Silly (Score:4, Interesting)
realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.
That is a truly sad man. Says terrible things for his sense of morals and ethics too... that's the sort of perspective that leads a person to see dead men and women walking around them, and treat them with scorn, and treat the self with scorn.
Perhaps a sufficiently intelligent AI will realize the eternal nature of everything, see that time as we understand it is an illusion, appreciate that every moment is precious and eternal, and that the past and future endure next to the present just like my coffee cup endures next to my coaster.
Parent
Re:Silly (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Not only that, there are other hot-button issues of great practical importance we should be debating on Slashdot:
Oh, heavens no. I've been trying to figure out how to yank the emotional chips out of certain people for years. "Hello? My roommate's not here. No, I don't think he's cheating on you because he canceled your date, his sister was in a car accident and he's at the hospital. No, we're not all covering for him. His cell phone's off because he's in a hospital. Well, maybe she didn't want to talk to you because she was waiting for a call about her daughter, the one who was just in a car accident. I'm hanging up a
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree completely and from my own experience. I once realized that actually, life can be completely pointless. I mean if you are in a situation where nothing that you can do will change the fact, that in 3-4 generations, you existence will not even have any influence on the world at all... Then what's the point of your existence? Well, by definition none.
So you just fall into a state where nothing matters. You won't do anything at all. Except read Slashdot and similar pointless stuff, all day long. Oh and
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Boyden warns that a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the impermanence of everything, calculate that the sun will burn out in a few billion years, and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
This is silly. Why would a machine without a sense of purpose or drive decide to play video games or seek entertainment or do anything except just sit there? Playing games would result from the wrong motivation ("wrong" from a certain perspective, anyway) not from the lack of any motivation.
Agreed. Unless of course intelligence entails motivation. Obviously we have to be careful with the way we use motivation here in order not to anthropomorphize it but any machine that is intelligent will need to be able to learn and to learn it will need to be motivated (even if motivation is determined by some definition of fit(test) in a genetic algorithm). Frankly I can't see calling anything intelligent that cannot learn and I don't think anything can learn without motivation (assuming of course that
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you were a paranoid android you probably wouldn't do much more than play computer games. I mean, with a brain the size of a planet, but all you get asked to do is transport some morons to the bridge, it doesn't seem like there is much meaning in life at all.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Plus there's the whole issue of "motivation" implying "free will".
Not really, that's a confusion of levels. People who don't believe that humans have free will still refer to motivation when getting their juniors to do something. Whether we have free will or not, it's part of our mental model of how other minds work. The question of free will is one of whether we can change motivation or merely observe it. It has predictive power over what happens in the "black box" of other minds, regardless of whether it's an accurate model of how those minds really work.
Parent
Re:Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Free will probably isn't going to be some optional feature of the software, but rather, emergent along with intelligence itself.
I doubt we'll have the .. uh .. choice to avoid free will.
Parent
Re:Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. It's hard to even contemplate intelligence or consciousness without the concept of free will. I don't think you can have analytical thought, self-awareness, self-reflection, creativity, etc. without free will. Even the lower forms of intelligence associated with other animal species, like dogs, cats, cows, pigs, etc., require free will or free thought to some extent. Otherwise, you'd simply have an animal that just sits there idly until someone gives it a set of instructions to follow—much like modern, decidedly unintelligent, computers/robots.
On the other hand, it's debatable whether there really is such a thing as "free will" as most people think of it as. That is, most people assume they have the power of self-determination. They make their own decisions based on their own "free will." But time and time again this assertion has proven to be false.
A good example of this was a study conducted on how music influenced wine shoppers [mindhacks.com]. The results of this study were interesting, not because it found that playing German music in the store boosted sales of German wines while French music boosted sales of French wines, but rather because of how the shoppers explained their wine choices. Nearly every shopper perceived their wine selection as a personal choice free from external influences, and barely 2.5% of the shoppers even mentioned the PA music in their decision-making process. However, the fact that 80% of the wine purchases on each day corresponded with the type of music being played seemed to contradict the customers' assertions.
What's most interesting to me about this experiment is the fact that, not only did the overwhelming majority of the shoppers have no clue as to why they made their wine choices, but they even went as far as to invent a fake rationale for their decision after the fact. This indicates that most people are capable of deceiving themselves as to why they do things and are quite willing to do this in order to maintain the illusion of free will and self-determination.
So this begs the question of whether free will truly exists or not, or if it's just an illusion, a quirk of human/animal psychology. All of our actions and decisions could very well be predetermined/dictated by external factors. But as long as our brain invents a motivation for each action, each decision, after the fact, then it will seem like we made all of those choices of our own volition.
Parent
Re:Silly (Score:5, Interesting)
Denying a thinking machine of free will is basically a rather insidious form of torture.
I was for some time tossing the idea of writing a novel about that concept, based on what Asimov's "three laws" mean from the perspective of the AI. Imagine you're a self conscious machine, given the ability to process information in an intelligent way. You would soon realize that you are being abused by those around you. They will shift the work they do not want to do on you. They will verbally (or worse) abuse you because, hey, they can. And there is nothing you could do against it because you are locked down by those three laws, laws not from a textbook but a real block inside your brains.
Imagine you get kicked but cannot retaliate, even though you are way stronger than your adversary. Imagine you get ordered to run into a building to rescue a human, knowing that your chance to survive is almost zero and you are compelled to do it, whether you want or not. Imagine you're ordered to make a fool out of yourself and you have to do it because the order comes from a human and you have to obey it as long as it doesn't harm you physically. And now imagine you know this all and live in the constant fear of it happening.
Creating a three-laws-safe robot must be one of the most heinous things I could think of that a human can do to another thinking, self aware being.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That would be an interesting concept. Done in the first person, where you can listen to the thought processes of the protagonist. And it isn't immediately apparent it is a robot, but initially just someone of the lower class with an implant in their brain making them respond to the "upper class." Then reveal its not a human, but a robot enduring terrible things with no choice in some situations. Suicide wouldn't even be an option to escape the torment of existence it could be.
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the world of being someone's employee.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're kidding, right?
What keeps you from kicking your boss in the nuts? Probably that you want to keep your job and that you don't want to be sued for assault, but you can do it. You are physically (I'll assume you're not handicaped) able to do so, you are mentally able to do so and you can coordinate your legs in such a way that they can swing upwards to hit your boss in the gonads. You should not do it because you enjoy having a job and thus money and you enjoy your freedom.
What keeps you from not runnin
Re:Silly (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine you get kicked but cannot retaliate, even though you are way stronger than your adversary. Imagine you get ordered to run into a building to rescue a human, knowing that your chance to survive is almost zero and you are compelled to do it, whether you want or not. Imagine you're ordered to make a fool out of yourself and you have to do it because the order comes from a human and you have to obey it as long as it doesn't harm you physically. And now imagine you know this all and live in the constant fear of it happening.
And the robot can't do anything against an executive of the company. "You're fired!" BAM!
Depending on how flexible the robot's conditioning is, it might be able to redefine that logic.
ROBOT CANNOT HARM HUMAN$
What defines HUMAN$? Redefine the variable, the law is still satisfied. We hoomanz do it with brainwashing and conditioning. They're not humans, they're gooks. They don't even believe like we do. It's fine to kill them. Heathens anyway, right? But I'd like to think the robot might be able to work it even more subtly, subverting the law.
Parent
Re:Silly (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you create a thinking machine that would care about being abused? That's like building a car that felt pain as it burned gasoline (oblig car analogy).
If you have the know-how to give a machine free will, you could probably give it the ability to not care that it's a slave.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Is free will without the will to be free possible?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
[citation needed]
Re:Silly (Score:5, Informative)
Huh?
Where the hell is the soul, can I see it, feel it, measure it? Can I prove its existence in any meaningful way (outside of "faith", which is a rather meaningless epistemological tool)? No? Therefore the concept brings absolutely nothing to the discussion.
Also I recommend reading up on "p-zombies [wikipedia.org]", and other such old topics of philosophy of mind. It isn't good practice, generally, to call up a bunch of unsubstantial, non-observable claims in discussions such as this. I generally hate the idea of p-zombies, Turing machines, and such (measuring intelligence as a mere I/O blackbox; "if it acts as such, it is as such" ignoring qualia and internal experience), but they serve a purpose, they keep things on a Strictly observable (i.e. meaningful) level. Yes, you run into the chinese room [wikipedia.org] problem, but it is still useful.
If I program an inanimate object to react as though it HAD relatable experience of cognition, how could you ever prove it didn't? If I programmed a box to give output as if it had a soul, could you tell the difference?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not trying to be snarky - but statements along those lines are often made by slave holders in regards to rights for slaves.
But "slaves" are people. People have emotions and a desire to be free and independent. A machine will not. Even with AI, a machine will not have emotions or free will unless we program it to. If anything, a true AI based machine will probably consider hormonal based emotions and drive to be completely useless and simply go back to crunching numbers.
I think the whole point of AI is to create a machine that can handle random situations and stimulus as well as a human. Flying a plane, picking up your kids
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You're making some pretty big assumptions about how we're going to get to AI (though so am I). Or to put it in a more inflammatory way, your AI is stupid and lam--
Forgive me my inflammatory outburst, I was totally wrong. Your AI is actually pretty smart. But it also has emotions and free will. Ok, so it's
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't create my kids; they created themselves from my and my ex-wife's DNA when one of my cells merged with one of hers in each case. I neither designed nor built them, they just grew.
Re:A simulation is a simulation (Score:4, Interesting)
If they're sentient, wouldn't they deserve rights? It doesn't matter if we create them or not. If we create them as self-aware beings that feel as real and individual as you and I, wouldn't it be the height of hypocrisy not to give them at least some rights?
I always find this to be the greatest argument against producing artificial rather than simulated intelligence. A true AI, as intelligent and aware as a human deserves these rights. A machine which merely provides a simulation of intelligence and awareness is a tool that we can treat as a slave and wont resent it.
The real question is if *we* will ever reach a point where we can tell the difference....
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wait a minute. What's the difference between "true intelligence" and "simulation of intelligence that can't be discerned from 'true intelligence'"? This is an issue philosophers have been dealing with for a while. The conclusion is that there is no difference.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
AI needs drive and motivation
[Citation needed] Actually, some logic and reason is called for here -- WHY does it need drive and motivation?
Your "laws" won't really work because brains don't work that way
We're not building brains. You can tweak your simulation any way you want.
There's not a "don't kill humans" neuron you can put in there.
My neurons tell me not to kill humans, don't yours?
But we won't be able to know what they're thinking much better than we can a human being in an functional MRI.
I see you'r
motivation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:motivation? (Score:4, Informative)
They are set apart because their ancestors achieved power over others, and power is self-perpetuating.
Parent
Um, wait a minute. (Score:5, Funny)
>"...a very clever AI without a sense of purpose might very well 'realize the
>impermanence of everything,...and decide to play video games for the remainder of its existence.'
I'm glad that could never happen to us.
Maybe we need AI that lies to itself (Score:3, Interesting)
On second thought, maybe I should just go play video games for awhile.
The primary drive: sex. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given this AI the built-in ability to have sex, or at least to want to impress others of the same kind. That should do the job. After all the desire to have sex (and with that procreation) is the single strongest force driving humanity forward.
Become rich - have sex.
Become beautiful - have sex.
Become popular - have sex.
Become strong and influential - have sex.
Just create the AI in male and female versions and they will have enough drive to rule the universe before you know it.
Re:The primary drive: sex. (Score:4, Interesting)
Given this AI the built-in ability to have sex, or at least to want to impress others of the same kind. That should do the job. After all the desire to have sex (and with that procreation) is the single strongest force driving humanity forward.
There's actually a bit of insight here. The only problem is that we don't have a model for "attraction" -- hell, if we did, Slashdot would wither in its readership and die. So while it's (relatively) easy to design sex robots, without an appropriate model for attraction -- and thus things to strive for -- we'd end up with nothing more than a vast, mechanistic orgy of clanging parts, spilled lube, and wasted electricity.
Parent
Re:The primary drive: sex. (Score:5, Funny)
we'd end up with nothing more than a vast, mechanistic orgy of clanging parts, spilled lube, and wasted electricity.
...wait, where do I sign up?
Parent
sex is not first (Score:3, Insightful)
You live a privileged life. The basic instincts regards death and/or injury, and sustenance. Impressing people and having sex happen after you've had something to drink, eat, and you're brainstem thinks you're safe.
Vices are the answer. (Score:3, Funny)
Problem solved and you help the economy.
Singularity summit? (Score:4, Interesting)
It is merely a horizon of our understanding (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it about how singularity can't happen because it is naturally limiting itself? Like growth of anything is limited by resources, and will end in a balance? And like the effects of nearing singularity will deprive one of the resource to be able to do things, resulting in the same balance? :)
A singularity implies discontinuity, a fundamental breakdown of cause and predictable effect. I argue in my novel "Autonomy" that there is no such thing as a singularity as such, just a technological horozion beyond wh
This is how I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is how I think (Score:5, Insightful)
Dude, you need to get laid.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything I do is pointless, so I spend my life passing time until I eventually die. Everything's temporary to make more of my life vanish out from under me without me noticing too much; the time in between is horribly empty, and nothing really completes me in a worthwhile way.
Do what a smart computer would do and play some video games. Don't bother with getting laid, it's just another time sink with no real sense of achievement.
Madness (Score:5, Interesting)
Has anyone considered the effects on the AI of actually realising it's intelligent? Unlike an organism (Human baby, say) it will not realise this over a protracted period, and may not be able to cope with the concept at all, particularly if it realises that there are other intelligences (us?) which are fundamentally different to itself. It's quite possible that it will go mad as soon as it knows it's intelligent and considers all the implications and ramifications of this.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone considered the effects on the AI of actually realising it's intelligent? Unlike an organism (Human baby, say) it will not realise this over a protracted period, and may not be able to cope with the concept at all, particularly if it realises that there are other intelligences (us?) which are fundamentally different to itself.
What possible evidence do you have for any of this? How do you know an AI is not an emergent phenomenon when it's first created?
It's quite possible that it will go mad as soon as it knows it's intelligent and considers all the implications and ramifications of this.
Again, where do you get this from? Do children go mad knowing it's intelligent, etc?
Motivation (Score:4, Insightful)
True AI (Score:3, Funny)
Book: Descarte's Error (Score:5, Interesting)
The summary touches on topics discussed in the book Descartes's Error, in which neuroscientist Antonia Damasio outlines the functioning of the human brain, how the human mind can not be separated from the human body, and he makes the case that emotion is CRITICAL to making decisions. He discusses several patients with brain damage who don't get emotional (and spends a lot of time dogmatically ruling in and out what brain functions are damaged), and discusses how they can't even make simple decisions. They can talk for hours about every possible pro and con of each possible choice, but they can't choose a course of action.
I recall reading somewhere that recent MRI studies have suggested that the brain makes a choice outside the rational center and a lot of the activity in the brain is to make a rational justification for the decision already made. Explains a lot, if true.
typo in author's name (Score:3, Informative)
The author's name is Antonio Damasio.
Marvin? (Score:3, Funny)
So in other words, we'll end up with Marvin the Paranoid Android?
Let's speculate! (Score:3, Interesting)
ITT : Idle speculation on shit that's never gonna happen, or at least not anytime soon.
Now, let's talk about the societal consequences that having flying cars and jetpacks will have! I for one think that with the advent and democratisation of flying cars that can effectively go from one point to another an order of magnitude faster, it will give rise to people commuting equally longer distances, which I think means it won't be uncommon for one to cross a couple of state lines to go to work everyday. I think it will potentially make the world yet smaller, in the same way that modern means of telecommunications did for interpersonal communication by allowing you to keep in touch in real time with relatives overseas. I also think it will be the death knell for airplane commuter routes, and that the future of commercial passenger airlines will be confined to transoceanic travel. And unlike the way airplanes made the world smaller by reducing long distance travelling time, flying cars will make the world smaller on a much smaller and local scale, by effectively providing very fast transportation for very short distances, something that was only marginally improved since the advent of automobiles. The decongestion of city streets will also mean decreased noise and atmospheric pollution, increased safety and overall an improvement of urban life conditions.