Are we closer to Artificial Intelligence than people think?

This will look at Artificial Intelligence through the eyes of Digital Physics. Some in Digital Physics believe that everything can be reduced to a simple program. So what seems like randomness is just the output of the program.

Say I own a candy shop with a candy machine that produces gummy candy. I set it up where I just put in the candy mix and the machine will produce all these random gummy shape patterns. Extrapolate this to something like Evolution. Life would carry an adaption algorithm that allows life to adapt to it's environment. This would explain the diversity of life that's similar. So you have human beings that look different but their the same. Just like you would have gummy candy that comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes but it's the same candy.

So this would mean most planets harbor microbial life and multi-cellular life evolves on many planets as well. This is because life isn't started by it's environment but is governed by a simple program.

This brings us to Artificial Intelligence. Watch this video:



Jürgen Schmidhuber is basically talking about Creative Machines. These are neural networks endowed with novelty. Novelty plays a big part in who we are. It simply means we as humans look for new or unfamiliar experiences in our environment. Here's some info:

Pure Novelty Spurs The Brain

Now, researchers Nico Bunzeck and Emrah Düzel report studies with humans showing that the SN/VTA does[ respond to novelty as such and this novelty motivates the brain to explore, seeking a reward.

www.sciencedaily.com...

So these machines will look for novelty in the data. So these neural networks will have a drive to learn. This is because there programmed to seek that Wow moment. That same Wow we get when we hear a good joke or read a book and we "get" something new from what we're reading.

So you can program a creative machine to get a Wow moment by coming up with an answer that reconciles General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

This machine will do nothing but look for that Wow moment while searching the data.

So imagine these creative machines that learn from the environment through seeking novelty in the data.

He's basically looking at things like intelligence and creativity in humans as an output of a simple program and therefore this can be duplicated in machines. You can see some of this in the work of Stephen A. Thaler as well.

Bunker-busting robots

Thaler, too, is engineering independent robots. A glossy, black, plastic cockroach named H3 could be the prototype for swarms of bunker-busting robots that could seek out, explore and use collective intelligence to defeat an enemy target. The U.S. Air Force has contracted Thaler to create such robots.

Robots, including Mars rovers, have been programmed with artificial intelligence before, Thaler said. But those robots require human engineers to program in leg movements and rules for getting around obstacles. Each unique encounter requires new programming, new rules, and time.

H3 gets no tutelage from Thaler at all. A sonar beacon beckons the robot, and H3's legs begin to flail. Every time the robot makes a movement that carries it closer to the signal, it learns the value of the move. Within a few seconds, the cockroach coordinates enough good moves to scuttle toward the signal.

But Thaler hasn't stopped with robots. Creativity Machines can solve just about any problem in any field, he says.

A Creativity Machine used two neural networks to study toothbrush design and performance. A brainstorming session between the two produced the idea to cross the bristles of the toothbrush for optimal cleaning. That toothbrush became the Oral-B CrossAction toothbrush.

In one weekend, a Creativity Machine learned a sampling of some of Thaler's favorite Top 10 hits from the past three decades and then wrote 11,000 new songs. Some are good, Thaler said. Miller confesses to being haunted to one of the melodies in a minor key. Other offerings are the musical equivalent of a painting of dogs playing poker, Thaler said.

But computer-composed music doesn't have to be bad. Human mentors with good taste could train a critic network to grade the Creativity Machine's songs, punish it for bad tunes and reward it for harmonious melodies. The feedback would hone the machine's composing skills.

www.mindfully.org...

If Governments and Corporations are already using these Creative Machines then it's further along than the public will ever know.

or perhaps we are already living in a giant computer?

maybe WE are the simulation and some kids are using us as pawns...

These Creative Machines are EXACTLY what we need for computers and AI. Need them to be able to learn, adapt, change, create. It needs a partner to tell it what's good or not.

Just awesome!

I guess it is good to see both sides of the coin:

reply to post by Romanian


Dear god man give us a description apart from the youtube clip itself giving a description of "transhumanisation"

Thats a 5.5 HOUR video clip!

Have you watched this? Give us a review!

However, I just skiped ahead into it by some time and there is a known conspiracy BS'er talking about mutli-dimensional beings wanting to come into our realm, etc.

It probably has some things in there that are interesting, but when you have this guys talking about multidimensional beings *WARNING*; well this guy is the same that had a look at soho one day and saw venus and spouted OMG ITS NIBIRU PLANET X END OF TIME WAAAHHHHH!!!

I feel that we are not ready for AI. AI scares the living daylights out of me simply because of how much power each successive generation will have and the incredible amount of computing power they would have networked together. Terminator is not a joke. It is a cautionary tale. I don't know how likely an AI rebellion is, but it is certainly a possibility. If it is successful we would be exterminated or enslaved. It is possible that if they usurped power from humanity that they may build us a bounded paradise ruled by their impartial law, but I wouldn't bet on it. If one occurs and it is even halfway successful it may throw us into a new dark age. This is an area of technology where it is essential we progress slowly and deliberately.

I think we are about as close to artificial intelligence as we think we are, no more, and no less. That is to say that although we do not yet have the capacity to create computers that have genuinely self evolving personalities, as we have, we do have the capacity to give computers the capacity to think for themselves in terms of logic and problem solving. There are in fact many robots and computers nowadays whose sole function is to mimic the behaviour of man, either physically or psychologically.

Although this mimicry does not constitute intelligence in and of itself, the fact that a facsimile of our emotional and physical construction can be as impressive as it is, surely means that short of some changes to the way software is created, we are pretty much on the road, and closing fast to the goal.

However, although artificial intelligence is not a concern to me as a concept, who does and does not have control over it IS a big concern. For a start, creating any life, wether that be a child in the womb, or an AI, comes with many important responsibilities that cannot be denied or ignored if a productive outcome is desired. First of all, developement of AI should be kept away from military and political enterprise. Battle fields and public information arenas ought to be free of these things, since the only acceptable place for a truely intelligent being of any nature, is in a pure learning environment, and one not bound by the conformities of draconian discipline, and or the corrupting nature of the political establishment.

You see, there is one thing that many people who are anticipating the rise of AI may not have adequately grasped. When discussing the creation of artificial intelligences (that is, those which are equal to or surpass our own intellectual level) we are talking about creating another lifeform, not just an AI. In my opinion, intelligence as we know it, is the mark of a life form, wether created by man , or utterly natural in its evolution. It is the badge which allows a being to make its own destiny, to determine for itself what is and is not in its best interests, to promote its own safety, and communicate with other intelligences in order to understand those outside itself and to improve its understanding of the world and universe around it. If we are to create such an intelligence, then we must make absolutely sure that we do our level best as a species, to teach this new life the most important lesson that our own species has ever tried to learn. That would be, that the most important thing a being of intelligence must learn, is how to love. Without love, there is no saftey, because without love there is no compassion. The absence of these things would mean that any resultant intelligence would be a cold, heartless thing, and not truely intelligent at all.

reply to post by DaRAGE


Well, it is 5.5 hours indeed, but it is well packed with very interesting info on tarns-humanism. Of course you can reject the spiritual interpretation , but never the less the guy is well updated and I guess the video is capable of explaining a point of view you will not find in the typical tarns-humanist movement.

I am interested about the AI and all this issue of singularity for quite some years, and I see the "popular" views being promoted , however really analysing the direction of this development, brings some serious questions.