From Artificial Intelligence to Singularity and Artificial Consciousness

Stephen Hawking once said, “Every aspect of our lives will be transformed by AI,” and it could be “the biggest event in the history of our civilization.”

Before proceeding further let’s find out what Artificial Intelligence (AI) means. Try googling ‘what is artificial intelligence’ and you’ll find very little of a concrete definition. The question to ask here is that if we don’t know what the technology is and how it presents itself, how do we expect its potential effects to be judged?

My own take on Artificial Intelligence is that it is an artificial creation of human-like intelligence that can learn, reason, plan, perceive, or process natural language. Today AI is capable of understanding human speech, compete at highest level in strategic games, autonomously operate cars, give military solutions, predict stock prices, diseases, and a lot more. 

We are at a stage where AI has made it possible to do a lot of things that were once outside the realm of a normal human capacity and hence we stand at this hypothetical future point of singularity where it is said that AI will enter a ‘runway reaction’ of self-improvement cycles, with each new and smarter generation appearing faster and faster, ultimately leading to an  explosion of intelligence and resulting in a powerful super-intelligence that surpasses all human intelligence – thus creating a world where human beings are no longer the apex species. Wikipedia talks about singularity being the point when technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.

Uncontrollable? Irreversible? Sounds pretty scary if you ask me. But this also leads us to a very interesting question - are we missing anything over here, or is AI missing anything? And why does this sound scary, how could we be assured that this technology won’t overpower us and make those Sci-Fi movies a reality where robots are controlling us humans. 

The only thing that could stop this nightmare, or assure us something like this won’t happen is if AI had a consciousness and could feel the experiences the way we humans feel. A super-intelligent machine that could take in and process huge amount of data in real time and is simultaneously endowed with awareness about the self and its surroundings. It could be put to innumerable uses from performing household chores and giving company to undertaking unchartered missions.

But is this possible? Can a synthetic consciousness or machine consciousness be created? The views on this differ widely.

Most computer scientists think that consciousness is a characteristic that will emerge as technology develops. Holding a belief that consciousness comprises taking in information, storing and retrieving it, many computer scientists think that consciousness will emerge with the development of technology wherein through cognitive processing all the information will translate into perceptions and actions. If that be the case one day super machines are sure to have consciousness. Opposing this view are the physicists and philosophers who believe that everything in the human behaviour is not based on logic and calculations and hence, can not be computed. 

Neuroscience believes that consciousness is created by the inter-operations of different parts of the brain, called Neural Correlates of Consciousness (NCC). NCC is the minimal brain activity required for a particular type of conscious experience. One theory that comes out of this is that if we can collect a data set of certain frequencies, rhythms and synchronizations between different types of brain activities in different neurons we can come up with a definite answer as to how consciousness is generated. But till then, its one of the greatest mysteries that how this three-pound piece can give us all our subjective experiences, thoughts, and emotions. 

To be clear, we are no where near machines achieving artificial consciousness, or if this is even possible- it still is a debate. But what is clear is that Artificial Consciousness can help bridge the gap in understanding how an AI is making decision and reaching conclusions, especially in applications where it could mean the difference between life and death. There are already applications that could save lives but are not being used because of trust issues, these trust issues can be addressed by Artificial Consciousness. 

Till the time we know that an Artificial Intelligence has consciousness, Singularity is delayed, because even if singularity does not lead to our immediate destruction, it still appears as an ominous prospect.