Accelerating Future

Around the world, thinkers in roboethics have realized the obvious — Asimov’s Laws are useless for creating friendly robots or AIs. A recent PhysOrg press release, “Living Safely with Robots, Beyond Asimov’s Laws”, describes the conclusions of a study published in International Journal of Social Robotics on roboethics. The study was a collaboration between Taiwanese and Japanese scientists.

The points made in the press release are similar to those made by the Singularity Institute’s 2004 publicity project, Three Laws Unsafe, which was released in conjunction with I, Robot, starring Will Smith.

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Singularity University, which had its first day yesterday, got an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I am especially happy to see a mention of the risk of bioengineered viruses in that article, showing that Kurzweil really does care about some risks of technological progress and not just the benefits. I do concur with Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen however, when they claim in Moral Machines that Kurzweil underestimates the risk of Artificial General Intelligence.

The article makes an error in that it says Kurzweil predicts a “singularity” in 2029 rather than 2045. Kurzweil predicts Turing Test-passing AI in 2029, but not a “singularity” (“rupture in the fabric of our understanding) until 2045.

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Apparently Michael Jackson was interested in cryonics, but never signed up.

This is sort of sad, because the structure of the brain holds one’s personality and a lifetime of memories. Even if you don’t believe in the potential of future revival, preserving the structure of the brain would still be incredibly interesting, because future analysis could allow us to read memories and other cognitive features. Already, neuroscientists can read basic thoughts via brain scanning.

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My work was recently cited by Rémi Sussan at the Greek online journal Re-public, in an article “Transhumanism and Hermetism”. The relevant passage says:

Are there any cybermarcionists? We watch them being erased in various currents about “singularity” who suspect that the real birth of transhumanity will occur with the creation of an intelligence, superior to the human being. This superior intelligence could be a mutant human being but for some,[10] the human brain is structurally too defective to allow the passage to a superior level. Only an artificial intelligence, maximized from the beginning, can allow this “singularity”.

The citation, [10], refers to a footnote that says, “See, for example, Michael Anissimov, ”Forecasting Superintelligence: the Technological Singularity”. I want to point out that nowhere in my article do I say that “the human brain is structurally too defective to allow the passage to a superior level”. That claim is completely false. I only say that it seems likely that AI will cross the line into superintelligence before intelligence amplification (IA) does, for various reasons that are listed in the article. I absolutely do think that the structure of the human brain is amenable to intelligence enhancement, but it seems like enhancing the incredibly complex biological brain is a difficult challenge that would be most easily and safely approached with the assistance of strong AI.

I would further like to add that I believe there is a very strong bias that leads people to exaggerate the potential of IA over AI in their minds, because IA is 1) more personal, 2) has greater positive affect, 3) is more easily imaginable, 4) more flattering to humanity, and 5) featured more heavily in science fiction, to name a few reasons. I consider it possible that IA will lead to superintelligence before AI, and I am in favor of ethically cautious IA research, but it seems (to me, anyway) like seed AI is more likely to lead to strong superintelligence before any IA technologies.

Let me also point out, though, that there may be people in favor of IA over AI that have successfully sidestepped the above biases. Such people should feel free to share their arguments.

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Read R.U. Sirius’ recent analysis, “Was Michael Jackson a Transhumanist?”

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I wrote a post at George Dvorsky’s called “Dismiss Gaianism”, where I cantankerously dismiss naive environmentalism and go on a bit about what I think would actually help the environment. I had an excuse to post an image of the Mana Tree, which is always awesome. I am in a rainforest obsession phase.

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Go here to see Shawn Thuris’ summary of the recent NYC Transhumanist Meetup that I mentioned.

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Decision Theory for Humans from Jeriaska on Vimeo.

For a funny part, see 27:00.

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Here’s the press release. This is “despite the fact that most of the adult population worldwide actually abstains from drinking alcohol.” Take it easy with that bottle!

It seems like the humanitarian need for anti-addiction pills is greater than ever.

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Bruce Klein put out a press release on the summer class. I hope to visit the University soon and check it out.

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Nick Bostrom, SIAI advisor, philosopher at the University of Oxford, and Director of the Future of Humanity Institute, has this to say in Forbes:

Whether abrupt and singular or more gradual and multipolar, the transition from human-level to superintelligence would be of pivotal significance. Superintelligence would be the last invention biological man would ever need to make, since, by definition, it would be much better at inventing than we are. All sorts of theoretically possible technologies could be developed quickly by superintelligence — advanced molecular manufacturing, medical nanotechnology, human-enhancement technologies, uploading, weapons of all kinds, lifelike virtual realities, self-replicating space-colonizing robotic probes and more. It would also be effective at creating plans and strategies, working out philosophical problems, persuading and manipulating.

It is an open question whether the consequences would be for the better or the worse. The potential upside is clearly enormous, but the downside includes existential risk. Humanity’s future might one day depend on the initial conditions we create–in particular, on whether we successfully design the system (e.g., the seed AI’s goal architecture) in such a way as to make it “human-friendly,” in the best possible interpretation of that term.

Consider donating to SIAI, the only group I am aware of that makes such a big deal about the human-friendliness issue and has made actual progress on the question.

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COSMOS magazine’s current print edition features the Singularity — many of the articles are online.

We’ve gotten to a tipping point of Singularity coverage where it is just ubiquitous. There have been articles in The New York Times, Forbes, Newsweek, and COSMOS, all in the last month. There was also Jamais Cascio’s great article in The Atlantic on intelligence enhancement.

Note how the “Singularity” meme is also eclipsing the transhumanism meme in terms of coverage. Not a dig at transhumanism, just stating an interesting fact. One trying to present transhumanist ideas in the mainstream is likely to be hit with the phrase, “you mean the Singularity?”

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