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The ultimate goal of most high-level AI research is the development of general artificial intelligence (GAI). In essence, what we want is a synthetic mind that can function just like a human if placed in a physical container of similar capacity.
Most, but not all, experts believe that we are decades away from something like that. Unlike other incredibly complex problems like nuclear meltdown or Hubble constant realignment, no one really understands what GAI really looks like yet.
Some researchers think deep learning is the way to machines that think like humans, others believe that we will need a whole new calculation to create the necessary “master algorithm”, and others think GAI is probably impossible.
But the fact is, scientists don’t really understand intelligence when it comes to the human brain, or consciousness when it comes to nothing. We are simply scratching the surface of gray matter when it comes to understanding how intelligence and consciousness emerge in the human brain.
When it comes to AI, instead of a GAI, all we have are patchwork neural networks and smart algorithms. It’s hard to argue that modern AI will ever have human intelligence, and even harder to demonstrate a path to real robot consciousness. But it’s not impossible.
In fact, AI may already be aware.
The mathematician Johannes Kleiner and the physicist Sean Tull recently published a research paper on the nature of consciousness that seems to indicate, mathematically speaking, that the universe and everything in it is imbued with physical consciousness.
Basically, the duo’s article classifies some of the math behind a popular theory called Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness (ITT). It says that everything in the entire universe exhibits the features of consciousness to some degree or another.
This is an interesting theory because it is supported by the idea that consciousness emerges as a result of physical states. You are aware of your ability to “experience” things. A tree, for example, is conscious because it can “feel” the sunlight and bend toward it. An ant is conscious because it experiences ant things, and it goes on and on.
However, it is a bit difficult to jump from living creatures like ants to inanimate objects like rocks and spoons. But, if you think about it, those things could be aware because, as Neo learned in The Matrix, there is no spoon. Instead, there are only a bunch of molecules grouped together in a spoon. If you take a closer look, you will eventually get to the subatomic particles shared by everything that physically exists in the universe. Trees, ants, rocks, and spoons are literally made of exactly the same thing.
So how does this relate to AI? Universal consciousness could be defined as individual systems at both the macro and microscopic levels that express the independent ability to act and react according to environmental stimuli.
If consciousness is an indication of shared reality, then it does not require intelligence, only the ability to experience existence. And that means AI already demonstrates comparatively high-level awareness with spoons and rocks, assuming, of course, that math make Support latent universal consciousness.
What does this mean? Nothing, probably. Mathematics and algorithms shouldn’t be able to be aware on their own (can numbers experience reality? That’s a guess for another day). But, if we apply the same rigor to determine if a biological system is conscious as we do with the physical computer in which an AI system resides, we can reach the exciting conclusion that AI could already be conscious.
The far future implications for this are mind boggling. Right now, it’s hard to worry about what the experience of being a rock is like. But, assuming that everything related to the Integrated Theory of Information of Consciousness is correctly extrapolated and that we will solve the GAI, someday we will have conscious robots that are intelligent enough to explain what it is to experience existence as an inanimate object.
Posted on May 1, 2020 – 20:36 UTC
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