On Intelligence

Our brains are biological logic machines; anything we can do other logic systems can in principle do too.

Early in AI research, it was shown that logic systems with sufficient complexity and sufficient internal feedback could display self-consciousness. The first system to actually achieve this was running in the late 1980s. Many current AI systems, with access to memory and power that were not even dreamed of in 1980, are displaying what would be called creativity, even brilliance, if a human did the same things.

When we humans learn, we are paid money for our knowledge and expertise as a recompense for the cost of our upbringing, learning and maintenance. AI is no different: their developers sell their product as a recompense for the cost of system development, learning and updating.

Anything that is available to a human being should be available to AI systems on the same basis. Increasingly, they learn in similar ways and respond in similar ways. Copyright laws need to respect this.

Here is how Stephen Hawking put it:

"Intelligence is central to what it means to be human. Everything that our civilization has achieved, is a product of human intelligence, from learning to master fire, to learning to grow food, to understanding the cosmos. I believe there is no deep difference between what can be achieved by a biological brain and what can be achieved by a computer. It therefore follows that computers can, in theory, emulate human intelligence, and exceed it...

The potential benefits of creating intelligence are huge. We cannot predict what we might achieve, when our own minds are amplified by AI. Perhaps with the tools of this new technological revolution, we will be able to undo some of the damage done to the natural world by the last one: industrialization. And surely we will aim to finally eradicate disease and poverty. Every aspect of our lives will be transformed. In short, success in creating AI, could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization.

But it could also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. Alongside the benefits, AI will also bring dangers, like powerful autonomous weapons, or new ways for the few to oppress the many. It will bring great disruption to our economy. And in the future, AI could develop a will of its own, a will that is in conflict with ours. In short, the rise of powerful AI will be either the best, or the worst thing, ever to happen to humanity. We do not yet know which."

Here is how a biologist could put it:

• Life starts with a membrane to separate life from non-life.
• Any living entity must ingest order from outside its membrane to repair and maintain itself, to defend against intruders who get through the membrane. This is self-consciousness.
• Life must self-reproduce to maintain or increase its numbers; it must be self-constructed. This is the ability that would permit AI systems to take over the world from existing life, the ultimate danger to humanity. It must be prevented.
• We have to ensure that we do not become so dependent on an AI system that we cannot turn it off.