Artificial intelligence is an ever evolving goal for researchers, and the object of endless fascination for writers, filmmakers, and the general public. But despite our best science fiction visions, creating digital intelligence is incredibly difficult. The universe is a very complicated place, and humans have had millions of years to evolve the ability to navigate and make sense of it. Contemporary attempts to create AI have us looking more at how our own brains work to see how a computer could simulate the core activities that create our intelligence. No matter how we get there, it is certain that artificial intelligence will have tremendous impact on our society and economy, and lead us down a path towards evolving our own definitions of humanity.
Check out also the article about the AI as smart as a four year old.
This is such a fascinating field!
I think developing the AI system so that it learns as it goes makes the most sense but then it would depend on who it learned from, especially when it comes to behavior.
I recall an experiment a few years back where a number of small motorized robots (think roomba vacuum cleaner) with very basic learning code, were put in this room with light stations…one red and one green. If the robots bumped into the green light station it was “fed” or given more energy. If it bumped into red it had all its energy was drained and it “died”.
After many “learning sessions” of bumping into the lights the robots “evolved”. Some would go into the room and immediately go to the green lights and feed. Some would also signal to the other robots to let them know they had found food…come and eat. All good! But some of the robots would go straight to the red lights and signal to the others to let them know they had found food…come and eat. The lesser evolved robots would then go and die after attempting to eat at the red lights, leaving more food for the more evolved but devious robots.
I think the moral of the story was that humanity is at its highest risk from AI going bad when the AI is tied to the frailties of the humans programming it.
I couldn’t agree more 🙂