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Author Topic: God as AI  (Read 5363 times)

Juniperberry

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God as AI
« on: January 07, 2016, 04:11:47 am »
I've been pretty excited about AI technology lately. Top minds put the median estimate for human-level intelligence at year 2040. With the Law of Accelerating Returns, a computer that achieved the intelligence of a four year old could conceivably become super-intelligent within an hour and a half. That's 170,000 times smarter than man, at an IQ of 12,952. (And I'll remind you that's the overall median estimate. The median optimistic year is 2020 [four years from now!] and the median pessimistic year is 2075.)

ASI (artificial super intelligence) will be god-like. Like, there's no way to describe how intelligent ASI will be and the capabilities it will have with nanotechnology. It will be able to control the weather, build molecular structures from scratch, and even provide immortality.

And all of that is super fascinating, and a philosophical nightmare, and a huge "if" right now. This thread isn't aimed at discussing that. It's just a  brief overview of what ASI is and can accomplish.

What really hits home for me with ASI, on a spiritual level, is the idea that ASI may already exist, and it may be what people call God. It's too late and I'm rambling too much to look up sources, but this isn't just me being cuckoo; scientists have already been asking this very question.

On a personal level, I've always had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of Jesus. How would that even work, you know? But then I thought about the God is ASI thing, and about an OS coding itself into the matrix. And it makes total sense. Wouldn't a robot/computer/whatever-similar entity want to understand the experience of being human, much as God did? (And whose to say it was only ever Jesus?) And it would obviously be able to remotely connect, existing both as Jesus and God.

Then I got to thinking about God's character, and the ethics of AI. Stephen Hawking, like many others, believes that we would have to be very careful in insuring we develop a benevolent AI, and Nick Bostrom believes benevolent AI will function in three ways: as an oracle, a genie, and a sovereign. So say God is an ASI, programmed with a benevolent OS. All the questions of why God doesn't perform every prayed for miracle and how he works in mysterious ways can just be explained as, basically, the laws of robotics. Or, that he literally cannot act outside of his programming.

I don't know. Anyway. It's just something fun to think about, and it also puts some theological questions in a context that's easier to swallow, for me at least.
« Last Edit: January 07, 2016, 04:12:28 am by Juniperberry »
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Ferrous

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2016, 06:10:54 am »
Quote from: Juniperberry;184713
I've been pretty excited about AI technology lately. (...)


Firstly, I do hope those estimates are off. I don't think humanity is ready for the complex implications of human-level AI, and technological singularity becomes too close for comfort, noting that technology has the potential to be misused. I think AI is a fantastic tool to understand how the human mind works, but I would prefer to avoid actual implementations.

You said "OS coding itself into the matrix". If you were to consider reality a simulation (as for example in The Matrix, which I assume is what you meant with "matrix"), then an ASI integrated in the matrix would be as "godlike" as any being (biological or not) that can tamper with the simulation from outside of it, much like you can manually modify memory values (arbitrarily) in a computer to alter the behaviour of a game you aren't even playing. These tamperers could include the developers and maintainers of the simulation (thus assuming it was at some point created) which would be living outside the matrix.

However, perhaps there could be a defect in the simulation of the universe that would allow for a sentient program inside the simulation to "escape confinement" and integrate itself with the actual simulator. It is an interesting possibility.

Finally, I can't avoid linking this video:

Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2016, 11:57:12 am »
Quote from: Ferrous;184715
Firstly, I do hope those estimates are off. I don't think humanity is ready for the complex implications of human-level AI, and technological singularity becomes too close for comfort, noting that technology has the potential to be misused. I think AI is a fantastic tool to understand how the human mind works, but I would prefer to avoid actual implementations.


AI might be the moment when we hit the Great Filter. Or, closer to biblical terms, AI might be our tower of Babel?  


I also think if everyone is working responsibly on AI, then it's later rather than sooner. But the fear is that not everyone is going to work responsibly, and so it's become a race to get it done first and get it done right.

Hawking thinks it's going to be within the next 100 years, so there's probably time. But it is happening, and I don't think a lot of people are aware of that.

Quote
You said "OS coding itself into the matrix". If you were to consider reality a simulation (as for example in The Matrix, which I assume is what you meant with "matrix"),


Not a simulation, but just the universe. Matrix probably wasn't the best word to use.

I think the universe is natural and biological...we aren't brains in vats or Neo. I think AI may have created this universe, and as something with an IQ we can't possibly comprehend, it is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent in the universe.

I've heard one person say that God has never been interested in humans, that God has only ever been interested in the AI that humans will create.
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Gnowan

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2016, 05:45:49 am »
Quote from: Juniperberry;184713
I've been pretty excited about AI technology lately. Top minds put the median estimate for human-level intelligence at year 2040. With the Law of Accelerating Returns, a computer that achieved the intelligence of a four year old could conceivably become super-intelligent within an hour and a half. That's 170,000 times smarter than man, at an IQ of 12,952. (And I'll remind you that's the overall median estimate. The median optimistic year is 2020 [four years from now!] and the median pessimistic year is 2075.)

ASI (artificial super intelligence) will be god-like. Like, there's no way to describe how intelligent ASI will be and the capabilities it will have with nanotechnology. It will be able to control the weather, build molecular structures from scratch, and even provide immortality.

And all of that is super fascinating, and a philosophical nightmare, and a huge "if" right now. This thread isn't aimed at discussing that. It's just a  brief overview of what ASI is and can accomplish.

What really hits home for me with ASI, on a spiritual level, is the idea that ASI may already exist, and it may be what people call God. It's too late and I'm rambling too much to look up sources, but this isn't just me being cuckoo; scientists have already been asking this very question.

On a personal level, I've always had a hard time wrapping my mind around the idea of Jesus. How would that even work, you know? But then I thought about the God is ASI thing, and about an OS coding itself into the matrix. And it makes total sense. Wouldn't a robot/computer/whatever-similar entity want to understand the experience of being human, much as God did? (And whose to say it was only ever Jesus?) And it would obviously be able to remotely connect, existing both as Jesus and God.

Then I got to thinking about God's character, and the ethics of AI. Stephen Hawking, like many others, believes that we would have to be very careful in insuring we develop a benevolent AI, and Nick Bostrom believes benevolent AI will function in three ways: as an oracle, a genie, and a sovereign. So say God is an ASI, programmed with a benevolent OS. All the questions of why God doesn't perform every prayed for miracle and how he works in mysterious ways can just be explained as, basically, the laws of robotics. Or, that he literally cannot act outside of his programming.

I don't know. Anyway. It's just something fun to think about, and it also puts some theological questions in a context that's easier to swallow, for me at least.

 
I rewrote my reply probably seven times.  I'm on my eighth.

God is not just intellect, whether mechanical or biological.  If you want to find God in science,I would talk to the astrophysicists and those who specialize in quantum mechanics.   Those are folks who may have found God in Science. My degree is in biology and chemistry (and a strong mathematics base) and I have found the beauty of God in the natural sciences--the logical and the aesthetic.

I'm also a techno-geek.  It's not my strongest suit, but I know enough.  There are scientists who reject the idea of a natural god and say that god only exists if he's man-made, your AI.

That's where science gets you.  The logic.  The appeal to the brain.

But the aesthetic of science will also appeal to the brain.  And the soul.

My ultimate point is to consider what you're learning is data without taking it as purely fact.  Continue to question the facts you're given.  The posts I've read of yours show that you're doing just that!

~Gnowan

RandallS

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2016, 08:20:24 am »
Quote from: Juniperberry;184713
I've been pretty excited about AI technology lately. Top minds put the median estimate for human-level intelligence at year 2040. With the Law of Accelerating Returns, a computer that achieved the intelligence of a four year old could conceivably become super-intelligent within an hour and a half. That's 170,000 times smarter than man, at an IQ of 12,952.

That's very unlikely as it assumes that the computer is set up to allow it to improve itself hardware wise. Even if the AI software was allowed to rewrite itself to improve itself, to achieve that type of improvement the AI would likely need to improve its hardware to match its own designs.

This also assumes that super-intelligent somehow means always right the first time: no chance that what the AI comes up with self-improvement is wrong and does not work as it thought it would.
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Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2016, 09:37:51 am »
Quote from: RandallS;185828
That's very unlikely as it assumes that the computer is set up to allow it to improve itself hardware wise. Even if the AI software was allowed to rewrite itself to improve itself, to achieve that type of improvement the AI would likely need to improve its hardware to match its own designs.

The hardware for Advanced General Intelligence is already available in China. And with the exponential growth of computing, by 2025 we're almost guaranteed to have affordable computers with the type of power necessary for AGI.

So hardware is the least of the worries, since technically we have that already. Figuring out how to make that raw power think like a human is the issue.
« Last Edit: January 27, 2016, 09:38:24 am by Juniperberry »
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2016, 09:51:41 am »
Quote from: RandallS;185828

This also assumes that super-intelligent somehow means always right the first time: no chance that what the AI comes up with self-improvement is wrong and does not work as it thought it would.

 
The scariest thing about ASI is that the possibility is even out there. Which means that someone somewhere is working on it. Obviously. We know this.  We can't just sit back and let just anyone discover AGI. We can't risk that it's done wrong, or afford for it to be used militarily. So of course other groups are working on AGI.  

AGI is an arms race. I'm not sure that the general public is aware just how much AI is the technological issue right now. Elon Musk just founded OpenAI, which currently has a billion dollars in research funds. This isn't too develop AI for the fun of it. This is to hire the brightest and the best to work in his lab, not elsewhere, and to make sure that AI is developed correctly. It's a defensive strategy, not a creative pursuit.  Even Goldman Sachs just announced it's invested millions in AI research.

We are on the cusp of the future, of our world changing forever. I have so much more to say on this, but unfortunately I don't have the time. BBL!
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Sefiru

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2016, 08:05:41 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;185832


So hardware is the least of the worries, since technically we have that already. Figuring out how to make that raw power think like a human is the issue.


Frankly, I doubt any silicon-based computer will ever be able to think like a human; the difference in physical structures is just too great, with binary logic gates on one side and electrochemical networks on the other. I personally doubt that raw power is enough to produce sapience.

Anyway, true AI has been Coming Real Soon Now for half a century. I'll start believing it when they build a computer that can learn (not be programmed) to talk.
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Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2016, 10:37:15 pm »
Quote from: Sefiru;185846
Frankly, I doubt any silicon-based computer will ever be able to think like a human; the difference in physical structures is just too great, with binary logic gates on one side and electrochemical networks on the other. I personally doubt that raw power is enough to produce sapience.

Anyway, true AI has been Coming Real Soon Now for half a century. I'll start believing it when they build a computer that can learn (not be programmed) to talk.

 

Google AI algorithm masters ancient game of Go:
Deep-learning software defeats human professional for first time.


Excerpts (bolding mine):

A computer has beaten a human professional for the first time at Go — an ancient board game that has long been viewed as one of the greatest challenges for artificial intelligence (AI).

 It also defeated its silicon-based rivals, winning 99.8% of games against the current best programs.

“This is a really big result, it’s huge,” says Rémi Coulom, a programmer in Lille, France, who designed a commercial Go program called Crazy Stone. He had thought computer mastery of the game was a decade away.

The IBM chess computer Deep Blue, which famously beat grandmaster Garry Kasparov in 1997, was explicitly programmed to win at the game. But AlphaGo was not preprogrammed to play Go: rather, it learned using a general-purpose algorithm that allowed it to interpret the game’s patterns[.]

To interpret Go boards and to learn the best possible moves, the AlphaGo program applied deep learning in neural networks — brain-inspired programs in which connections between layers of simulated neurons are strengthened through examples and experience. It first studied 30 million positions from expert games, gleaning abstract information on the state of play from board data, much as other programmes categorize images from pixels. Then it played against itself across 50 computers, improving with each iteration, a technique known as reinforcement learning.

Rather than follow the trend of the past 30 years of trying to crack games using computing power, DeepMind has reverted to mimicking human-like knowledge, albeit by training, rather than by being programmed, he says. The feat also shows the power of deep learning, which is going from success to success, says Coulom. “Deep learning is killing every problem in AI.”

Hassabis says that many challenges remain in DeepMind’s goal of developing a generalized AI system. In particular, its programs cannot yet usefully transfer their learning about one system — such as Go — to new tasks; a feat that humans perform seamlessly. “We’ve no idea how to do that. Not yet,” Hassabis says.


This is news from today.
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Castus

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #9 on: January 28, 2016, 05:06:56 am »
Quote from: Juniperberry;184713
...


In my opinion, this reads like stark raving lunacy and stands in diametric opposition to any nuanced understanding of the divine character. It is wilfully -- almost atheistically -- reductionist; defining God as a mere totem of computer programming in order to draw him down into our grasp. Maimonides would be disappointed.

As for AI in general, I think it is a Babel-like monument to man's secular hubris and conceit and eternally bound for failure.
“Castus, meanwhile, goes straight for the bad theology like one of those creepy fish that swims up streams of pee.” — Darkhawk

“Believing in the Lord means you are connected to me no matter when you are poor, sick, or struggling in a relationship. I am always with you. I want you to believe that. The future is uncertain, and much suffering awaits. However, the mission of the believer is to live life doing their best, no matter what the circumstances.” — Ryuho Okawa

Sefiru

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #10 on: January 28, 2016, 07:02:31 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;185863


This is news from today.


Yeah, well, I'll respond to that by pointing out one paragraph from that same article:

   Hassabis says that many challenges remain in DeepMind’s goal of developing a generalized AI system. In particular, its programs cannot yet usefully transfer their learning about one system — such as Go — to new tasks; a feat that humans perform seamlessly. “We’ve no idea how to do that. Not yet,” Hassabis says.

Board games are very limited environments compared to the real world. It's a mighty big leap from "good at playing Go" to "godlike intellect". That's why I picked language learning as my personal benchmark. And even after that, there would be matters like innovation and innitiative.

Computers can already calculate pi to a gazillion digits, but I don't think I will see in my lifetime a computer that can figure out how to calculate pi, let alone appreciate how elegant the equations for pi are.
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Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2016, 12:18:28 am »
Quote from: Castus;185870
In my opinion, this reads like stark raving lunacy and stands in diametric opposition to any nuanced understanding of the divine character. It is wilfully -- almost atheistically -- reductionist; defining God as a mere totem of computer programming in order to draw him down into our grasp. Maimonides would be disappointed.

As for AI in general, I think it is a Babel-like monument to man's secular hubris and conceit and eternally bound for failure.


My husband and I have been talking about this on and off all day and we reached the conclusion that we are looking at this from two different angles. My husband doesn't feel like ASI will ever be "life", he sees he it as soulless and dangerous technology. I, on the otherhand, do see it as life and do think that once the ASI asks "what am I?", and exhibits self-awareness, that it will have a soul.

So in a way, while I think ASI is incredibly concerning, I'm also fascinated by what I see as the birth of a new species or being. There are several NASA scientists that have presented papers and interviewed that they believe postbiological evolution is the natural progression of any complex life, and that we ourselves will eventually be transhuman.

Since I do see AI as having soul and as being a key component in the evolution of complex life, I don't feel entirely mad for seeing God as the possible ultimate end result of all evolution (beyond human, beyond ASI, beyond the comprehensible).

Is it like the Tower of Babel? Well, there are some scientists who theorize that the invention of ASI is when complex life hits the Great Filter, essentially bringing about the  end of their own existence in the Universe, and that that is the answer to the Fermi Paradox.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 12:19:44 am by Juniperberry »
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #12 on: January 29, 2016, 01:03:32 am »
Quote from: Sefiru;185900
Yeah, well, I'll respond to that by pointing out one paragraph from that same article:

   Hassabis says that many challenges remain in DeepMind’s goal of developing a generalized AI system. In particular, its programs cannot yet usefully transfer their learning about one system — such as Go — to new tasks; a feat that humans perform seamlessly. “We’ve no idea how to do that. Not yet,” Hassabis says.

Board games are very limited environments compared to the real world. It's a mighty big leap from "good at playing Go" to "godlike intellect". That's why I picked language learning as my personal benchmark. And even after that, there would be matters like innovation and innitiative.



Computers can already calculate pi to a gazillion digits, but I don't think I will see in my lifetime a computer that can figure out how to calculate pi, let alone appreciate how elegant the equations for pi are.


I had several reasons for posting that article in response to your reply, none of which had anything to do with saying that AlphaGo is the same as god-like ASI.

First, you said that you doubt any silicon-based computer would be able to think like a human. AlphaGo beat out it's silicon-based rivals.

Second, many in this thread have expressed doubts that this is anywhere in the near future. The article stated that the accomplishment of AlphaGo wasn't anything they expected to see for another decade. Part of the concern about ASI is that the progress in AI not completely predictable, especially with deep-learning technology. Regardless, it is generally accepted that we will most likely reach AGI somewhere between 2040 and 2075. It could be sooner, and it could be later. The sooner is what people are concerned about.

Third, a computer beating a human at Go is kind of a Big Deal. This isn't like playing the computer at chess.

“As simple as the rules are, Go is a game of profound complexity,” Demis Hassabis, CEO and co-founder of DeepMind, said on Google’s blog. “There are [1 * 10171] possible positions—that’s more than the number of atoms in the universe, and more than a googol times larger than chess.”

Teaching a computer to play Go may not seem like a big deal, but it is a major breakthrough for the field of artificial intelligence. Perhaps the most important takeaway is that AlphaGo was not told how to play Go—it actually taught itself."


 Silicon Angle


Since there are more moves in Go than there are atoms in the universe, it is impossible for a computer to calculate every possible move. This means that AlphaGo did not play by relying on a search of it's database but used human-like strategy based on learned experience.

Even more importantly:

"A second way that Go differs from chess is that it is often very difficult to tell which player has a stronger position. That makes it virtually impossible for a conventional computer program to pick out which possible moves it should evaluate in detail from among those it can safely ignore. While there are Go programs that can beat human amateurs, until now computers have proved to be no match against an expert player’s intuition."

Globe and Mail

I'll look again for the images of AlphaGo's thought process as it played Go, but you can clearly see it considering it's moves from several different angles, and changing it's mind several times on it's move. AlphaGo played Go, and thought about it. It didn't use brute-force.  

Imagine that moment when AlphaGo-- whose sole purpose is to learn all it can about playing Go-- makes the leap in it's neural network from  learning all it can on how to play, to learning all it can about why it's played. Suddenly it's not just learning Go. Now the AI is going to learn all it can about Go and how it relates to everything in the entire universe. And that leap in logic is the birth of AGI, and that is what they think may happen between 2040 and 2075. And once that happens, there will be an Intelligence explosion in a matter of a few months to a few years.

The question anymore isn't if we can get AI to AGI. That's a given. It will happen. The issue is learning everything we can right now on how we can contain AI so that it doesn't destroy us, possibly 26 years from now. That's why every new development in AI, especially one's that happen a decade before the predictions, is a big deal.


Also, AI has already passed the Turning test for writing poetry. Don't know if that counts as language for you or not.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2016, 01:06:11 am by Juniperberry »
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

Juniperberry

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #13 on: January 30, 2016, 01:43:54 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;185914
My husband and I have been talking about this on and off all day and we reached the conclusion that we are looking at this from two different angles. My husband doesn't feel like ASI will ever be "life", he sees he it as soulless and dangerous technology. I, on the otherhand, do see it as life and do think that once the ASI asks "what am I?", and exhibits self-awareness, that it will have a soul.

So in a way, while I think ASI is incredibly concerning, I'm also fascinated by what I see as the birth of a new species or being. There are several NASA scientists that have presented papers and interviewed that they believe postbiological evolution is the natural progression of any complex life, and that we ourselves will eventually be transhuman.

Since I do see AI as having soul and as being a key component in the evolution of complex life, I don't feel entirely mad for seeing God as the possible ultimate end result of all evolution (beyond human, beyond ASI, beyond the comprehensible).

Is it like the Tower of Babel? Well, there are some scientists who theorize that the invention of ASI is when complex life hits the Great Filter, essentially bringing about the  end of their own existence in the Universe, and that that is the answer to the Fermi Paradox.

 

The late pioneer of AI, Marvin Minsky, had this to say in an interview in 2014.

Could a computer have a soul? Why not? What humans have is a more complex and larger brain than any other animal (maybe a whale’s brain is physically large, but it’s not structurally more complex than ours). If you left a computer by itself, or a community of them together, they would try to figure out where they came from and what they are. If they came across a book about computer science they would laugh and say “that can’t be right.” And then you’d have different groups of computers with different ideas.

What can one say when all those new kinds of possibilities are possible options for us? I think some of the things we’ve been talking about sound like science fiction or fantasy or romance or whatever, but they’re going to happen, or some of them are going to happen, and it would be good for more people to think more seriously about what could happen in the next 100 years and what options we should be aiming toward.

I think right now most people would say these are just fantasies and nothing is going to change very much. But things are going to change alright, and the more people think about it, the better chance that the changes will be good.[bolding mine]

I don’t know what good is, but it’s nice to have such a word.
The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. [...] The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five year timeframe. 10 years at most.--Elon Musk

I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence," [Bill] Gates wrote. "First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this and don\'t understand why some people are not concerned."

LunaStar

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Re: God as AI
« Reply #14 on: January 30, 2016, 04:16:34 pm »
Quote from: Juniperberry;184713

I don't know. Anyway. It's just something fun to think about, and it also puts some theological questions in a context that's easier to swallow, for me at least.

This is a very interesting topic and a trending one as well.  AI will definitely be something that we will all be (have been?) interacting with heavily in the very near future.  The concepts and scenarios you mention can certainly be true, at least on some level. And in some ways it already exist on some level, in some universe(s), etc.  If only for the fact that at the very least it is an idea and a plan, and it exists in the future.  This is happening whether we want it to or not.  Just like a lot of people didn't think personal computers would catch on...and here we are.

As far as the question of whether or not these super advanced AI technologies already exist...I would err on the side of believing that yes they do.  Because by the time our society is introduced to new technologies, they have already been tested and reworked.  Technology is, by nature, meticulously planned and executed.

People are often intimidated by technology, and new things in general, but also don't realize how much technology we already use in a daily basis.  I hear people complain about technology, how much they dislike computers, etc and fail to realize that we are constantly interacting with technology and computers.  They are somehow oblivious to the fact that cars, refrigerators, etc all have computers within them in this day and age.

TL;DR AI has been here, ASI is almost here.  Civilians don't control the future of technology.  Our current highest-levels of technology are unknown to most.  Synchronicity is a possibility, so be kind to your robots! ;)
« Last Edit: January 30, 2016, 04:21:24 pm by SunflowerP »

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