The Incomplete Humachine

Recently, I was pondering about my journey with multi-experience, conversational user interfaces over the past decade. The way my company UIB thinks about these multimodal experiences of existence could be — less philosophically as follows — simply summed up in the following slide:

The term “H2M” means Human-to-Machine and “CUX” means “Conversational User Experiences,” indicating an element of human to human or human to machine interaction, whereas:

1. Humans experience the world through five senses: taste, smell, vision, hearing, and touch (there is even a “sixth sense,” called proprioception, which allows us to keep track of where our body parts are in space).
2. We can think, feel, and converse by mere micro-expressions and looks alone, too. Actual verbal, written, or gestured conversations are not necessarily required to make a statement or signal consent, disagreement, disgust, joy, etc.

This raises the question, how constantly evolving machines and algorithms fit into the communication habits of modern times and opportunities.

There is a general trend in which humans are becoming more like robots, bending to the algorithms which rule their daily private and working lives, while robots are being equipped with technology to start feeling.

The Internet of Things (IoT) plays the connecting role here. While humans experience the world through their senses, not all machines necessarily have them built-in. To “sense” something, machines must be equipped with sensors, which are connected by IoT with the central nervous system (the internet) of Artificial Intelligence (AI) — the brain. Such sensors are increasingly becoming more sophisticated, as this example of a “digital nose” shows:

Combining AI and IoT for machines could even be compared to humans using their brains and senses to learn, apply, and develop capabilities which — just a few years ago — would have seemed impossible for a machine to fathom.

With robotics, machines get a physical body 

with AI, they have some form of intelligence and 

with IoT, they have connected senses to "experience" a 3D world.

What’s missing for a machine to eventually be “complete”?

That depends. We as humans, collectively, haven’t even understood our minds. From a machine’s perspective — if brains are the hardware, our minds are the software. But it’s important to note that “mind” is more than a collection of mere algorithms a machine could all too easily compare it to — that perhaps would be more like psychology. 

However, recently I dived into the world of Virtual Reality (VR) and found it to be fascinating. I could imagine if we’d be living in virtual reality just long enough, that at one point, it would be hard to distinguish between the two. In fact, the deeper we’d go down this rabbit hole, we might wonder how many more realities are there, and eventually, perhaps, we’d question what reality itself even means. But don’t take my word for it, see this TED talk on the subject for yourself:

VR may just be the catalyst for machines to evolve to a point from where they could acquire a sense of “mind,” by being confronted with its algorithms from within multiple realities.

To summarize, the Human-Machine comparison to date:

• Mind = Virtual Reality
• Brain = Artificial Intelligence
• Senses = Internet of Things 
• Physical Body = Robots

With this comparison, I would like to provide a wider context for the trends we’re currently seeing emerge. My advice to individuals seeking a career in technology or to students who don’t know what the future will bring would be to try and spot opportunities at the intersection of any of the aforesaid subjects, whereas the value is captured at the overlap of such technology. Rather than being a narrow expert in one domain, we will require individuals with strong skill sets in understanding the nature between the different systems of being — whether human or machine.

A word of caution

Even if the network of computation-capable, solid-state systems (electronics or “machines”) engineered by humans would develop into an autonomous “bioform,” it is critical to comprehend, that the optimal survival conditions for this bioform (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those which humans need (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply). 

Today we fight for our planet in terms of climate change, for allocating its vast resources globally in a fair, ethical manner and, for certain, equality in terms of educational and technological opportunities. However, if machines were to become as complete as humans in their ability to sense, think, and be, a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence could arise (ref: Solid State Intelligence, The Scientist, John C. Lilly, 1978).

Of course, this may all change again quickly with the advent of the photonic age.

An outlook to think about

Perhaps it’s this process of creation of another form of intelligence that allows us to finally tap into and unveil some of our mysteries, deeply buried in our hearts and minds. Beyond self-expression and the desire for existence, humans have always strived towards some form of self-realization. This is vastly different from an ego-type of realization which machines would most likely first evolve to and which would still lack human values and concepts such as consciousness, spirit, and perhaps our ancient culture-universal appreciation of “souls.”

René Descartes’ famous lines:

ego cogito ergo sum

I think, therefore I am

may not be enough when the rise of machines has truly begun. 

Other forms of intelligence, such as machines, are evolving. Will we humans be able to overcome our limitations beyond thinking, to develop beyond our current, limited understanding of consciousness?