A lecture I gave on Aritifical consciousness/intelligence

[FreeThinker]

Artificial consciousness/intelligence

 

 

Artificial Intelligence is a field of science that is focused on creating machines that humans consider intelligent. But just what is intelligence? The present day computer is able to exchange data, learn of other computers, do extremely fast calculations and other functions which we might be consider intelligent. However, this is not sufficient. For a computer to be truly intelligent, in the human sense of the word, it will need to be self aware, conscious. I will argue that conscious is not a “thing” but a process of the brain, and that extreme complexity leads to consciousness. I will attempt to show that animals have a degree of self consciousness and that it is not entirely a human experience. I will show that currently our Artificial Intelligence is at the level of some animals and that continues progress in this direction will eventually lead to human type consciousness in computers.

 

Since beginning of time human being have attempted to copy nature. Our progress in science continues to amaze us, and what seems improbable today, becomes possible tomorrow. As a species we are often sceptical about our ability to understand, and manipulate, the world around us. Imagine being a caveman and being shown the camera. Imagine being your great grandfather and being shown the mobile phone. Now imagine a self learning, conscious, machine.

 

What is consciousness?

 

When Hydrogen, Oxygen and Carbon are combined into a particular formation they form sugar, sugar has a sweet flavour. However, we can not attribute that flavour to any of the three atoms; it is the result of the combination. The same principle applies to conciseness; it is not the effect of a single component of the brain, it is the result of an extremely complex combination of components and the chemical reactions that happen within the brain.

 

Brain is a complex machine, unimaginably complex. The brain is made up of around a 100 billion nerve cells - same as the number of trees in the Amazon rainforest. Each one of those cells is connected to 10,000 others. The total number of connection in a human brain is 1000 trillion- same as the number of leaves in the entire Amazon.

 

How do we know that by copying the complexity of the human brain, that computers will become conciseness? Is there a soul or is consciousness just part of the brain process? Through the evidence of Altering Conciseness and the Conciseness of Animals I will argue that consciousness is the outcome of extreme complexity, and that the different levels of consciousness are relative to brain complexity.

 

Altering Conciseness

 

By taking drugs we alter our consciousness. We can compare this to the car engine. When all the engine components (brain) are in working condition the car moves ( consciousness). The actually movement of the car can not be attributed to any special part of the engine; it is the result of the combination of parts. Now if we take out the air filter, the car performance (consciousness) will be altered. When we take drugs we alter our consciousness, the same way that taking out the air filter alters the performance of the car.

 

Phineas Cage was a foreman of a railway construction company. He was a young, kind and responsible man. One day at work a crowbar sized metal rod passed through his cheek through his brain. Remarkably he survived. After he recovered from the accident, Phineas changed from the kind young man to a foul mouthed, rude outcast. His co- workers said that he wasn’t the same person anymore, literally.

 

The Cage incident shows that consciousness is a function of the brain, and that damage to the brain can cause a shift of consciousness. If consciousness was the result of a “soul” or an “external” force, we shouldn’t expect brain damage to have any impact on consciousness.

 

Conciseness of Animals

 

Observing consciousness in other species is a difficult task. We have a hard time defining the consciousness of other people, yet alone animals. Even so, cases of animals showing signs of consciousness have been observed in the wild and I will show two examples:

 

Baboons will respond and interact with other baboons according to their hierarchy. This tells us that the baboon is at some level self aware of his position within the group.

 

A more striking example has been observed in chimpanzees. An experiment was conducted where one chimp knew the location of food. Another chimp would follow the knowledgeable chimp sensing that he knew something that he didn’t. The knowledgeable Chimp would purposely try and deceive the following chimp by leading the follower to areas where there was no food.

 

The two examples show that the subjects were, at least, partially concessus. To be able to discriminate and lie is the indication that in both examples the animal was aware of its actions. Animals probably don’t have the sort of self awareness as humans, but that is probably due to the size of our brains and the invention of sophisticated language.

 

 

Current Artificial Intelligence

 

At present our computers have speed, but show no signs of intelligence. In fact, our present computers are outsmarted by the common earthworm. But our technology is still extremely primitive. Nature took more than a billion years to develop bacteria; it took humans less than 60 to create the artificial equivalents. According to Moors Law the speed and complexity of computers will double every eighteen months, but this obviously can not continue indefinitely. Many people think that computers can never be as intelligent as humans. But if complex order of organic molecules can operate in humans to produce consciousness, why shouldn’t equally complex electronic circuits make computers equally intelligent?

 

 

Conclusion

 

We underestimate the future because we overestimate the present. When the Wright brothers flew for 12 seconds, no one could predict that one day we would fly over the ocean in a couple of hours. The invention of the first wheel, around 5 thousand year ago, was the foundation of the present day car, yet we could forgive the inventor for not predicting it. The telegraph was the ancestor of the mobile phone and our current computer technology is the foundation for the development of artificial intelligence.

 

To get our technology to the level of the human brain we can not start from the top. You don’t build a house from top down, you build the foundation first. If currently our A.I is at the level of bacteria, our next aim should be to try and replicate the brain of a worm. The important point is that we have the foundation. Will computers ever become conscious? It is not a question of “if”, it’s a question of “when”.