Can machines surpass humans in general AI?
What happens when machines surpass humans in general AI? Will AI algorithms save or destroy humanity? Picking up a a gadget that accompanies you through life is not just an easy choice.
Consider a smartphone (an Android or iOS). Which one of the two? On top of that, more choices have to be made like the preferred apps.
Let us lay out a foundation for understanding the future of humanity and intelligent life with the help of digital gadgets.
As you know all the animals including human being have brains from biological perspective.
Good intentions are in order. However, the human brain has so many capabilities than the brains of all other animals.
Actually, it’s due to such characteristics that humanity owes its dominant position in the animal kingdom.
Let us look at how our species (Homo sapiens), has evolved as a result of inventing technological tools. An anthropologist at the University of Bradford, Mr. Timothy Taylor, was inclined to believe that humans evolved from tool-using proto-human primates. He said such an evolutionary path resulted in a “survival of the weakest.” Furthermore, he said that
technology has allowed humanity to accumulate biological deficits. For example; we lost our sharp fingernails due to invented cutting tools, we lost our heavy jaw musculature due to invented stone tools.
As such the changes reduced humanity basic aggression, increased the skillset in performing tasks, especially with the hands and lastly, made males and females more similar. Those biological deficits continues till now.
Unlike other animals in the animal kingdom, we don’t adapt to environments, but rather we adapt environments to us. We are about to have more people on the planet living in the urban than in the rural areas.
As humanity, we are extended through our technology. It could be, we as humans are illogically technological by nature. The author of the book, How Cooking Made Us Human, Richard Wrangham argued that “fire was the human tech invention to cook food.” Moreover, cooked food was easier to digest, less likely to cause diseases and it allowed for a smaller digestive tract to provide the “massive amounts of energy needed by our bigger brains.” Both Taylor and Wrangham could have speculated humanity correctly. Humanity could be a species born of technology. More on a bit of that shortly.
On the other side, human inventions have made things technology become natural. Machines and other digital gadgets have also become a natural product of emerging technologies. If we are reaching a stage where we are worried about machine brains surpassing the human brains in general intelligence; then new outcome; call it superintelligence if you like could become extremely powerful. Could such power be beyond humanity control? No one knows. Imagine the fate of gorillas now which depends more on humanity rather than on itself! Should the fate of humankind depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence? The only advantage we have is free will.
We get to make the first move ourselves. Is it possible to design an initial condition that make superartificial intelligence explosion survivable? How could humanity achieve a controlled detonation?
That is the essential task of our time. The good news is that futurists who concern themselves with the possibility of artificial general intelligence still often believe that intelligent machines will become a reality when you see your computer talking to your printer without your intervention.
