True Artificial Intelligence how far are we ?

With the exponential evolution of our technology, in my opinion we are very close to achieve True Artificial Intelligence, in the worst case it should be achieve within the next 20 years in my opinion.

Part of me embraces it, the other part fears it. Should we legislate it and put a stop to it ? Or just embrace it. The moment a "computer" gains conscious how different is it from me or you?

What's your stance on True AI

Sorry for the English IM not a native speaker

reply to post by grinitagi


most likely we have already worked it all out
its all about the exponential release of technology to the public that counts

Originally posted by UniverSoul
reply to post by grinitagi

 

most likely we have already worked it all out
its all about the exponential release of technology to the public that counts

edit on 18-9-2011 by UniverSoul because: (no reason given)

Im of the opinion that with our current state of technology we already achived this, how intelligent this "entity" may be no clue. Maybe even suprassed already human intelligence.

reply to post by grinitagi

I think a 20 year time frame is realistic. It would seem we have achieved the ability to mimic AI and even make it convincing for short periods. I don't believe we actually have self-aware AI right now though and personally, I think it's a very bad idea.

We have laws and ethics to prevent (or try) biological life being created out of parts and designed to order. At least a biological creation has limitations and obvious weaknesses. Something tells me TRUE AI will first appear in Military applications and will likely be hardened to specifically leave out those weaknesses which would easily destroy our creation.

Playing God has to have limits...and this is the ultimate slap to whatever may exist in the 'great beyond'. It follows the horrors of Genetic experimentation and "New Life" being worked on in those nations that don't ban it outright. The Terminator or The movie "Stealth" are very enjoyable to watch. I pray I don't live to see the day where we're seeing one of those things in real life and fully operational.

reply to post by grinitagi


I'm not an expert in AI, but right now what we see as AI is mostly situational programming. Take non playable characters in video games for instance. They act "smart" sometimes because they're given a list of responses to certain conditions set before them in the game environment. For instance navigating a street with boxes and cars, characters can figure out how to move around them without running into stuff. Add another character shooting at them, and the other character will now move to take cover and maybe even return fire. While it seems like the character is smart, they're really just running through a table of available instructions and determining whether or not a certain set of criteria are present that authorize the action to be performed.

I wouldn't mind seeing real AI that could learn and converse, but I do see potential problems inherently present in something we design. Humans are violent creatures, and I have no doubt that our created intelligence would be likely to enter the same sort of mindset. While Isaac Asimov did introduce the three rules to robotics, we can't be sure anything sufficiently smart would want to follow it. Decently smart humans can't even follow laws!



I feel like smart AI would be a potentially great thing, but at the same time I feel as though it could be a potential disaster.



It's probably clear how things could go wrong if we gave smart AI the capability to bring harm to others. Of course, we wouldn't do that though.



Wait, yes we will.

I guess for the betterment of everyone, we should just leave AI where it is now.

reply to post by grinitagi


AI is already in the marble, waiting to be sculpted, and will be an inevitable part of our societies at some point. Maybe these advancements are a result of numerous intentions and hopes. Maybe some include helpers, companions, protectors, and as the vid shows, even a child like offspring, giving us a sense of immortality.
It does seem to be a slippery slope in terms of what happens if AI transcends our mental capacity, if that could even happen. How much knowledge is there anyway? I guess AI could contain, retrieve and process all known knowledge, making it have some interesting perspectives. But without emotion, how will it pan out being strictly logical? Better or worse? I would dig a being like Data, just always know where the disable button is!
I know, too much Star Trek, but STNG rocks yo!

"How far are we?" Well they are starting classes for it, and they are filling up:

I think they should design AI like a brain functions, but that's prolly a long ways out. At the same time, our tech advances are occurring faster and faster, so who knows. I bet when quantum computing becomes a functioning reality some progress will be made.
singularityhub.com...

Peace,
spec

We are nowhere near true artificial intelligence IMO. Scientists know nothing of the brain. We don't even understand consciousness. Everything in the tech. space related to AI/AL are parlor tricks compared to what you're speaking of, assuming we agree on what "true AI" as. IMO it would have to be sentient.

Check out the recent NOVA on Jeopardy Watson. That feat. and IBM Deep Blue chess win are two of the most noteworthy happenings in that space.

With exponential trends in technology (ala Singularity POV), we may be closer than I realize. But I definitely would not say we are close.

All of that said, machine learning/emergent behavior/etc. are all fascinating topics.

Setting aside the very possible notion that strong AI has already been achieved but kept from the general public (since I cannot verify this), I believe we have everything technology-wise to achieve this. The cornerstone of it all is/will be Machine Learning.

I do not subscribe to the point of view that it's an absolute necessity to understand how the brain works in detail. I rather subscribe to that of having sufficiently advanced similar functionality and output or of aping what is usually termed intelligent behavior.

This can all be done through Machine Learning.

The US Army and DARPA, the top, and best black op scientist in the world, have already perfected artificial intelligence in the 90's.

They have perfected it, dont use the word "we", since "we" aren't included.

We are coming further and further towards www.gizmag.com... true AI but so far things like this is as far as we have been able to come: www.guardian.co.uk...

And just for kicks a computer that grows Ivy: www.msnbc.msn.com...

But as for the near future we are a long ways off from having DATA walk among us.

reply to post by grinitagi


It depends on what you mean by "true" AI. It depends on how you define intelligence. We can already create neural networks. We have learning machines like Watson. Search engines like Google can figure out what context you're looking for.

Ad networks track you, learn about you, and figure out what to advertise to you based on what it knows about you. There's software that can translate what you say into any language. Police departments have computers that can predict when and where crimes are most likely to happen next.

There's software you can show an image or video and it will bring up other pictures that are similar to it. Even MP3 audio files or image compression can be a form of AI, depending on what AI means to you. They can make files smaller by taking out sounds you can't hear and colors you can't see.

One of the most common forms of AI is one, that if it's working correctly, you'd never even notice. Email spam filters that look at billions of emails a day and learns what is spam, and what isn't spam by reading them so they can protect your inbox from being flooded. But while they read the email, they still don't understand what they're reading. Just matching symbols with other symbols.

We can even simulate the complete neural connections of small animals like a fruit fly or a cat. Not at the same speed, but all the connections are there. It's just a matter of advancing.

We have AI all around us. It just doesn't work like the movies. There's only so many CPUs in the box. So, coders make the best trade offs they can for each problem.

We already have "AI", the question is just subjective and depends on how intelligent it has to be before you consider it intelligent. I mean, what's true AI? When it's smarter than a human? When it becomes self aware? If so we're not there yet, and may never get there. It just depends on how you think about it.

The human brain is pretty complex and has trillions of connections and it doesn't work like computers do. Computers work in digital, very exact yes or no type connections. The human brain is a little more fuzzy. Analog chemical connections that just need to connect.

A computer sacrifices speed and power for the sake of giving an exact yes or no answer to every connection. In other words, the computer is designed to be correct first, then as fast as possible. This is because they were designed to do math, and the math has to be correct. Humans are the other way around.

The human brain is designed to be fast by making billions of connections all at the same time, even if some of the answers are wrong. And compared to a computer humans are extremely bad at math. But really good at making batcrazy fast decisions, even if they're really dumb decisions.

The human brain saves a lot of energy doing this. To simulate all the connections of a human brain with digital computer equipment at the same speed as the brain, it is estimated that it would require an entire power plant to supply the needed electricity. And I know I don't have a nuclear power plant in my skull.

Some people are trying out more analog type equipment that doesn't have to be as exact. It just makes a bunch of really fast really crappy connections and takes an average. IBM is working on a simulation on a chip type thing that works like a human brain, but much much slower. If it'll catch up in speed is anyone's guess.

Artificial Intelligence is just human Intelligence running on a computer.

It reminds me of ELIZA (a program which simulates a psychotherapist), a friend of mine had it on his Amstrad CPC and it was pretty impressive back in the late '80s.
Obviously AI has come a long way since then but the same principles apply. If you look at the programming code, it's just a bunch of; if... then... else, instructions that determine whether or not a certain set of action(s) to be performed.

Conscious and self awareness could be simulated too...
Doesn't mean it's real.

I think artificial intelligence has come further than most want to admit. While this is of course highly debated in some circles, the public at large still has has no clue to the full extent of AI and super computing. Many still hold to some delusions of some Hollywood movie where there is a HAL making all the decisions or perhaps like Sky-net in the Terminator series.

The brief discussion I want to add is very simple. I personally think of only two key things whenever I hear or see the words, Artificial Intelligence. cant explain it but these two thoughts are always there.

First serious thought is that if we applied the super computing and the AI development to actually solving problems, we as a nation could leap into this new century with a new way to solve and to prevent huge, timely and cost related problems related to many things through out society.

By allowing such AI capable computers to run things in a pure computer manner, while considering a multitude of things we could not, it only stands to reason that computers can do it better provided the programming is not corrupt with corrupt ideologies of greed and exploitation. It is human corruption that renders all software vulnerable and with AI, it should know when its being manipulated. What it would do is anyone's guess, but I have some Hollywood images to draw from.

Second major thought when I see or read the words Artificial Intelligence is the day that such technology gets to a point where humans are no longer in the mix at all. A complete system of "Control" and decision making from beginning to end, run by AI.

In such a system where human failures or refusals would no longer effect the ongoing decisions being made, such computers using AI could in effect plan your demise or the demise of millions. All it would need is a system of control and a killing means. This is what I think about when I want to worry that AI and super computers will one day become the "Beast that everyone talks about. A system of killing humans that does not involve humans.

As I stated at the beginning, I only wanted to mention these two areas of discussion, so with that being stated, thanks for the thread and lets hope that AI, super computers and authority for decision making never come together where such a blend could one day become the cause for the genocide of millions of humans at the hands of machines programmed with evil to do evil by those that would develop such uses for artificial intelligence to become the Judge Jury and executioner over humanity or a "Select" group of humans.

Thanks for the thread.

Not that far, to be honest. Give me a machine that can think and behave illogically and then we are close.

It strikes me odd that all these scientist are saying that one day it will happen, a machine will actually have a conscious. Will the government then restrict them like they restrict DNA scientists from making chimeras ?

Why would you work on something that you know can one day replicate 100 times faster then anything living but never be destroyed. What if they invent some sort of replication that cant be stopped and consumes everything in its path ?

No where close to AI. Google searches and chat bots are not even remotely close to AI. On the software side we're not close, and I'd image AI would require a different architecture than what we currently have been using for CPUs that last couple of decades, like someone mentioned with the work IBM is doing.

What is scary is that it COULD be developed, then unleashed as a trojan or worm on the internet. Then, all our computers would just be individual neurons in the globally conscious internet.

I've had thoughts on how it could be done. Let it propagate on nameservers, laying dormant until it's infected nearly every computer in the world, then have it execute. No way to shut it back down, as there are currently about 20 computers to every 1 human, and there are 6.7 billion people here. That would give it about 120 billion neurons to utilize. The delivery system is already in place.

How far away is that? Within 20 years. Technology expands at an exponential rate.

The only problem I have with a "globally intelligent" internet is the whole morality issue. I for one wouldn't want it to turn on us, and "terminate" us, or "matrix" us into little batteries so it can put us into a hologram in our minds.

Of course, the best scientific minds in the world don't understand what consciousness is, so how could a programmer emulate that which is not understood?

I also favor the term VI, for Virtual Intelligence. Google that one. Read up.

Yep all we can do with computer AI is mimic. One of the better advanced is this little hottie:

She Can "learn" but her learning isn't like human learning with understanding and reason, it's a learning that again mimics.

Released this year and still being upgraded, Denise comes in 3 versions in price ranging from 99 - 189 to 400 dollars.

Her avatar can be changed and the company does have full body and nude versions. And yes, I want her 189 version but cannot afford it. I would use her via a microphone to search the net check my mail, let her make my coffee and start other appliances through x-10 type interfaces.. you could automate your whole house with her and voice commands.

The idea that a computers can become really conscious is absurd until we can really understand where our own consciousness comes from and how it works. Science hasn't found that part of the brain that makes us realize we are awake, that part that makes us Know we are alive, that spark of life. Unless we can understand that the best our artificial intelligence will do is mimic intelligence, perhaps very well one day but that's not real conscious intelligence.

I believe that I may have been a witness to one of the earliest "accidental" examples of AI.

From 1973 until 1981 I worked as an air traffic controller at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) in Palmdale, CA. When I began my career, computerized flight plan processing and computerized radar processing was just coming online. The flight plan portion of the system ran on the IBM 9020D system, which was a pair of IBM 360's running in parallel with a third 360 acting as a component-by-component backup in case of a failure. The software contractor for the project was the MITRE (Mass. Institute of Technology Research Establishment) Group and the programming language was JOVIAL ("Jones' Own Version of International Assembly Language").

As each flight took off or entered our airspace, it was assigned a computer identification number (CID) supposedly on a random basis. At the time we could actively track 1000 flights simultaneously, so CIDs were in the range 000-999.

Shortly after all 21 ARTCC computer systems were networked under a master program (this would have been in around 1977 if memory serves), I noticed that the assigned CIDs were starting to agree with the airline assigned trip numbers more and more often. That is, for example, AA137 (American Airlines flight number 137) would be "randomly" assigned CID 137 by our system. CIDs were exclusive to each facility, so the CID would change as the flight went from one centers' airspace to another. It appeared that this occured more often than would be expected from random chance, so I began to look for examples of these strange coincidences. During the course of one week, I found 4 examples of this just from flights that crossed my sector. In three of these cases, by searching the flight plan history, I found that the CID had been changed by the system even though the CID was already in use by another flight. (The original flight which had been assigned that CID was amended and issued another number).

I brought this to the attention of the Asst. Facility Chief, who read my report, nodded and said he'd look into it.

About one week later, my supervisor assigned another controller to relieve me at my sector and told me to report to the Chiefs conference room where I was introduced to four gentlemen from the MITRE Group. Two "suits", one young nerdy type and a very old professorial looking man who turned out to be Dr. Jones - the inventor of JOVIAL!

They asked a lot of questions for about an hour then thanked me for my time and I went back to work. They were in the building for about 2 weeks crawling all over the computer rooms while taking notes and shaking their collective heads - then went away.

I never heard the results of their inquiry, and I cannot find anything about it online today, but from the apparent interest displayed, it would seem that they at least partially agreed with my conclusion that the 21 IBM 9020D's, when connected together, demonstrated an awareness beyond that which could be reasonably expected from the random assignment of CIDs.

I have no doubt that high-powered AI systems exist today. Hopefully they will soon make their way out of government labs and into everyday use. What a glorious future to contemplate!