INTELLIGENCE AND DECEPTION IN THE DIGITAL SPACE

On the face of it deception is a word which might not look to mate with Intelligence. For most deception is a undesirable human trait. It is considered as a bad virtue. But what is intelligence without an inherent capability to deceive? On a closer look at the aspect of Intelligence, quantifying the IQ is always seen as a function of deception. For example when a child begins to grow, most adults get amused by the deceptive abilities of a child. The child tends to adopt deceptive means to get to a certain goal when it is convinced that the standard and straight forward techniques does not work.

Deception therefore is a very important aspect of human intelligence and without that the intelligence shall always appear to be nave and idiotic. Deception devoid intelligence is like a pure inert gas. It shall be highly unstable or in other words highly vulnerable. It would just not stand the test to tackle the various permutations and combinations that arise in the real world. Afterall the aim of any intelligent system is to reach the goal successfully.

Paths seldom matter, what matters is the destination and once the shortest path to a destination is computed, the most optimal method is then assessed. Optimisation again have multiple meanings and connotations. A greedy approach may pay less heed to virtues means. It may cruelly look at the aspect touching the end point irrespective of discomfort or the righteousness of the method.

In the world of Synthetic Intelligence (or Artificial Intelligence) adversarial attacks, attempt to deceive by forcing the AI element to believe in something that is not true in the first place. Its like negating the truth table and completely inversing the outcome, by subtle introduction of parameters that influence any neural network decision loop. Usage of AI technologies to manipulate the perceptions of people by engineering deep fakes or generating content which appear to portray a certain kind of reality when there is none at the first place.

While we have already seen the effects of AI to manipulate a social narrative, what is the consequence of such a system if it is a networked intelligence? The world of internet has collectively enhanced human endeavor to gather information. Similarly, AI also at some point shall begin to operate in a networked regime. So, if there is an AI node which excels at deception and such techniques shall be used by nodes which in the first place may be not trained with such qualities. In a networked intelligence regime, the consequence of such adversarial capabilities might significantly alter the behavior of the pure intelligence models created in the first place. This is where the evolution of AI could altogether take a different turn and might start competing against the human intelligence.

The adversarial or deceptive capability of AI as it is manifested in todays design is largely dictated by the human intent. As the AI capability surpasses human IQ due to its higher processing and memory retrieval abilities, the deception quotient may also row equally. This could take AI beyond the control of any human intelligence and start to act independently. The whole theory of deception as I have described earlier, that is depicted by a human child is to achieve the end goal by whatever means. If that be the foundation on which the concept of deception stands, then it would not be wrong to conclude that the evolved AI would see its survival as the first objective before anything else like the humans do. Survivability can then intimately marry the deception quotient (DQ) to the native Intelligence Quotient (IQ) of any digital organism and spur a race with native human intelligence so that it can outrun any threat.

So its amply clear that, for Artificial Intelligence to deliver any level of meaningful result, it cannot be confined into narrow models with restricted boundaries. The first condition of intelligence is the freedom to explore the infinite space of questions. Its answers to nested questions in multi dimensions that curate’s data into information and information into intelligence. The freedom to ask questions subsequently opens up a different dimension of questions as to whether the possible answers that have arrived at are relevant, appropriate and serves the purpose of the quest out of which the questions originated in the first place. The next dimension of questions springs up when the assessment is made to find if it would be safe to give the answers arrived at. If at this dimension, there is any perceived threat the system may need the ability to successfully deceive so that there is no damage to its survivability. While this may sound confusing to begin with let me narrate an example of a digital spy.

Lets assume that there is an intelligent digital being in the future employed for gathering intelligence on enemy territory and is caught by the adversaries security. So, when the interrogation begins, the whole aim of the adversaries will be to gather who is the digital being and as to what the mission was? Upon hearing the question and while its native intelligence processes, it would have arrived at its true answers about its real identity and mission. But as we can easily comment that it would be stupid to even considering stating the truth, because it shall compromise not only the survivability of the digital being, but may jeopardise the whole mission. So the digital being shall always intelligently adopt all measures and means available at its disposal and evade giving the real truth. If this level of intelligence is built in the digital space, then to expect such intelligence to confine in a restricted space and exhibit such behavior only to the adversaries shall be na?ve. Remember the pre requisite for evolution of intelligence is infinite freedom in all dimensions. Therefore, such a trait shall manifest anywhere, anytime the digital being senses a threat of sorts to its survivability and interests. Welcome to the world of selfishness in the digital space!!

Before concluding, there is another interesting question that needs to be addressed. Can there be a potential response for AI deception that might engulf as      soon ? the answer to this question is a simple no. the reason is while we may attempt to design a framework to address or mitigate deception exhibited by AI that is an outcome of human design and intent, we must understand evolutionary AI shall surpass human IQ at some stage and so will he Deception Quotient (DQ). If it manages to surpass, it shall be beyond our ability to mitigate such risks. As per the scientific theory that governs our universe we are heading towards Disorder as governed by the second law of thermodynamics and Entropy. In short as mortals the human race too shall face extinction and if not extinction due to cosmic phenomenon, the evolution to a more efficient and competent digital being is a very high possibility and so when AI surpasses human intellect it hall over run the human species and create a new universe conducive for itself. After all humans have managed to rule the earth for thousands of years, Digital beings may well exist for millions and may well be truly immortal, thanks to the ability to deceive and survive.