AI vs the Human Computer
“A more perfect analogy would be if you consider nuclear research, with its potential for a very dangerous weapon. Releasing the energy is easy; containing that energy safely is very difficult. And so I think the right emphasis for AI research is on AI safety.” – Elon Musk (1)
“We have a general purpose learning algorithm that evolution has endowed us with, and it’s running in an extremely slow computer. Very limited memory size, ability to send data to other computers, we have to use this funny mouth thing here…Whenever we build a new one it starts over and it doesn’t know how to walk…as soon as this algorithm [points to head], taking experience and turning it into knowledge, which is so amazing and which we have not done in software, as soon as you do that, it’s not clear you’ll even know when you’re just at the human level…So I try not to get too exercised about this but when people say it’s not a problem, then I really start to [shakes head] get to a point of disagreement. How can they not see what a huge challenge this is?” – Bill Gates (1)
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There is an instinctive reaction to hearing someone, who is vastly superior to your own intellect, express fear or doubt about a new technology that evokes mild episodes of internal terror, calmed somewhat by the assurance that this eventuality will likely take place shortly after your expected lifetime.
(1) http://lukemuehlhauser.com/musk-and-gates-on-superintelligence-and-fast-takeoff/
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There are also strong counter arguments based on the scale of difference between actual human brain complexity and that of current AI systems.
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“Amoebae hunt. Amoebae remember the places they’ve found food. Amoebae choose which direction to propel themselves with their flagella. All of those suggest that amoebae do far more information processing than the simulated neurons used in current research. If a single celled micro-organism is more complex than our simulations of neurons, that makes me suspect that our simulations aren’t yet right.”(2)
