Artificial Intelligence: Knocking on the doors of Creation

[Republished from my personal blog https://harshreality-harshal.blogspot.in/]

Since the later half of 20th century, the world has witnessed an explosion in information technology. Internet, cellular phones, semiconductor microprocessors, smartphones, supercomputers... One big wave after another, technological innovation spread like wildfire, pushing the boundaries of human experience to more and more alien territories. (1) Off late, the disruption has been driven by cloud storage, blockchain, cryptocurrencies, artificial intelligence, machine learning & even quantum computing. The boundaries between real & virtual, natural & artificial are blurring rapidly. And now we are at the cusp of creating new autonomous entities that can learn on their own & think for themselves. The fiction of Nueromancer, Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy & Star trek is about to become the reality. What an exciting time to be alive!

But not everyone shares this excitement. There has been plenty of fear-mongering, negative media coverage and controversial headlines about employees being replaced with robots. Some prominent scientists- the likes of Stephan Hawking, Nick Bostrom, Bill Bibbard- and leading innovators including Elon Musk, Peter Norwig have expressed their concern over the pace of AI development and its potential societal impact. (2)

Without a doubt, the potential applications & benefits of AI are enormous. Throughout our evolutionary journey, we have added a huge value to life through our intelligence & curiosity. But we cannot realistically predict what miracles we might achieve when our intelligence is supplemented by AI tools. And perhaps, the problems that are currently beyond human understanding or capacity can only be solved with a helping hand of a super-intelligent system. So, let me briefly make a case for AI.

Science works on the principles of repetition and agreement. What one scientist discovers is validated by another by repeating the experiment in various conditions. But our understanding may be implicitly biased or flawed as we -through our human bodies- perceive the universe in a particular way, which is limited by and filtered through our senses. So our perception of reality is just our point of view; it may not be the reality of the universe. That's why we need other beings to build more consensus on reality. And due to the present lack of other intelligent civilizations, the only option we have is to 'create' something intelligent and give it its own will and sensory assets- an Artifical Intelligence. Once such an intelligent system becomes autonomous and starts running the same scientific experiments as us, it can actively participate in the scientific process of hypotheses testing. And perhaps then we may get closer to the truth.

Like it or not, AI is here to stay & it will have an unprecedented impact on human civilization. It may very well turn out to be our greatest discovery, or our final one. Therefore, we cannot ignore the pitfalls that come with it - remember how nuclear research in min-twentieth century quickly escalated into a nuclear war? History tells us that everything that rises too quickly falls even faster. The same technology that can cure cancer, solve world hunger and eradicate poverty can lead us to a dark dystopic future. So we better watch out! Because if we don't, this famous quote from Neuromancer may haunt us forever.

"I'm the matrix, Case."

Case laughed. "Where's that get you?"

"Nowhere. Everywhere. I'm the sum total of the works, the whole show."

Foot Notes:

1. The disruption is elegantly captured in Moore’s law
2. Read Research Priorities for Robust and Beneficial Artificial Intelligence: an Open Letter