18AR23-12

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AR 23:12 - Taming "technological overreach"

In this issue:

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - will artificial intelligence and robotics achieve a peaceful coexistence?

+ or, shall we find that "controlling such godlike entities will be almost impossible"

BIG DATA - "among the best of the recent critiques of technological overreach"

Apologia Report 23:12 (1,378)

April 4, 2018

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, by Byron Reese [1] -- said by the publisher to have "fascinating insight into AI, robotics, and their extraordinary implications for our species. In The Fourth Age, Byron Reese <byronreese.com> makes the case that technology has reshaped humanity just three times in history: - 100,000 years ago, we harnessed fire, which led to language. - 10,000 years ago, we developed agriculture, which led to cities and warfare. - 5,000 years ago, we invented the wheel and writing, which led to the nation state. We are now on the doorstep of a fourth change brought about by two technologies: AI and robotics. The Fourth Age provides extraordinary background information on how we got to this point, and how - rather than what - we should think about the topics we'll soon all be facing: machine consciousness, automation, employment, creative computers, radical life extension, artificial life, AI ethics, the future of warfare, superintelligence, and the implications of extreme prosperity."

Booklist (Mar 1 '18) adds: "In this quite readable book, a technology entrepreneur deconstructs 'the core beliefs that undergird the various views on robots, jobs, AI, and consciousness.' ... A 'fourth age,' he believes, is upon us, and, as it unfolds, we will see that, finally, human beings and such advanced technologies as artificial intelligence and robotics can achieve a peaceful coexistence. Overall, this is a timely, highly informative, and certainly optimistic book. Most readers will share that optimism, though there are moments - as Reese delineates the stumbling blocks to be overcome - that readers holding more traditional core beliefs may find themselves shuddering just a bit."

Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark <www.goo.gl/v8jvvr> [2] -- the publisher explains: "The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology - and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial. ...

"This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn't shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues - from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos."

Booklist (Jul 1 '17) notes that Tegmark thinks "superhuman" artificial intelligence is "the most important issue of our time. ... Tegmark's brainstorming survey opens with a sci-fi-like scenario in which a computer intelligence named Prometheus takes over the world. Tegmark then summarizes the opinions of researchers about whether such a thing is possible or desirable. Assuring readers that it could happen, Tegmark sketches 12 conceivable types of superhuman intelligence that might arise, bestowing such names as 'libertarian utopia,' 'benevolent dictator,' and 'conqueror,' the latter an AI that destroys humanity. How to safely control an AI is thus critical to the future, and apparently, this is a common topic of discussion among scientists and tech-industry moguls, given Tegmark's accounts of conferences he has attended or organized. Stretching the superhuman AI idea to intergalactic proportions by envisioning its colonization of the universe, Tegmark enthusiastically lays out concepts of AI, to the delight or disturbance of readers."

For some reason, Kirkus (Jul 1 '17) uses the term "artificial general intelligence" (AGI) in its description of "this expert but often wildly speculative rumination." At present, "computers don't yet think, but the contingent of researchers who believe that they will never be smarter than humans is steadily shrinking." Tegmark "dismisses tabloid scenarios of rampaging robots but warns, 'we might create societies that flourish like never before ... or a Kafkasque global surveillance state so powerful that it could never be toppled.' ... Since computers are improving faster than brains, superhuman AGI will happen, and a beneficial outcome is not guaranteed. ... In the early chapters, Tegmark portrays near futures that range from Utopian to Orwellian. Later in the book, he delivers a vision of the far future: a universe filled with the products of superintelligence, with organic Homo sapiens a distant memory. Throughout, the author lays out his ideas in precisely detailed scenarios. Many read like science fiction; others, such as a fine chapter on the nature of consciousness, are simply good popular science. Prophecies have a dreadful record, but they are also endlessly fascinating. Readers may balk now and then - Tegmark's solutions to inevitable mass unemployment are a stretch - but most will find the narrative irresistible."

Library Journal's (Sep 15 '17) unique contribution is merely to caution that the "technical and scientific [content] is not for the casual reader."

Last, Publishers Weekly (Jul 10 '17) concludes: "Tegmark's future will strike many as one in which, at best, humans are dependent on AI-powered technology and, at worst, are extinct. His call for strong controls on AI systems sits awkwardly beside his acknowledgment that controlling such godlike entities will be almost impossible."

For more on AI in our back issues, see <www.goo.gl/eQ4iGq>

POSTSCRIPT, Apr 14 '18: Charles Edward White's review in Christian Research Journal (41:1 - 2018, pp54-5) notes: "Tegmark does not deal with the implications of Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem that led Alan Turing to see that since all mathematical systems are incomplete, the machines that implement those systems must also be incomplete as well. Turing showed that even a 'Turning Machine,' an imaginary computer of infinite speed and capacity, that ran forever would not be able to solve some problems that people easily could solve. Oxford professors John Lucas and Roger Pennrose applied Turing's conclusions to the study of the human mind and proved that the human mind is not a computer. They also demonstrated that computers will never be able to think the way people do. while Tegmark mentions Turning several times, he never treats this aspect of his thought, nor does he discuss the findings of Lucas and Penrose."

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BIG DATA

The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can't Do, by Edward Tenner [3] -- from the publisher: "Algorithms, multitasking, the sharing economy, life hacks: our culture can't get enough of efficiency. One of the great promises of the Internet and big data revolutions is the idea that we can improve the processes and routines of our work and personal lives to get more done in less time than we ever have before. There is no doubt that we're performing at higher levels and moving at unprecedented speed, but what if we're headed in the wrong direction? Melding the long-term history of technology with the latest headlines and findings of computer science and social science, The Efficiency Paradox questions our ingrained assumptions about efficiency, persuasively showing how relying on the algorithms of digital platforms can in fact lead to wasted efforts, missed opportunities, and above all an inability to break out of established patterns. Edward Tenner <www.edwardtenner.com> offers a smarter way of thinking about efficiency, revealing what we and our institutions, when equipped with an astute combination of artificial intelligence and trained intuition, can learn from the random and unexpected."

Kirkus (Feb 15 '18) observes: "The author's overarching point is that the constant quest for efficiency leads to a kind of intellectual and social impoverishment. By Tenner's definition, at its best, efficiency should mean with the least waste possible; in practice, it often means with the least human intervention and the widest use of [technology. He] strongly advocates for human messiness in the place of machinelike efficiency. For instance, web search engines may deliver near-instantaneous results, but those results may not be the best possible nor yield the answers we are really seeking. That split-second quality speaks to the constant need for gratification and an industry well set up to serve that end, such that 'consumers don't learn the benefits of deferred enjoyment, and vendors have no incentive to teach them.' That may be a little utopian, or at any rate counterdystopian, but as Tenner ranges among case studies from Uber to e-books and platform revolutions, he is a clear champion not of the robot but of the human mind behind its creation, a mind far richer than any algorithm - for the time being, at least. Of a piece with recent critiques of technological overreach, and among the best of them."

POSTSCRIPT (Jul 4 '18, p74): Also consider "Truth, all the truth - and statistics," a review of Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are, by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. Mentions that "Some results are both disturbing and perplexing, such as the prevalence of searches on pornographic sites for videos depicting sexual violence against women, and the fact that women themselves seek out these scenes at least twice as often as men do." (Hmm. I wonder how/if the related study's gender determination criteria is confirmed. How often do people intentionally misrepresent their gender in surveys? - RP) Also included is the announcement that "the web will revolutionize social science just as the microscope and telescope transformed the natural sciences."

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SOURCES: Monographs

1 - The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity, by Byron Reese (Atria, 2018, hardcover, 336 pages) <www.goo.gl/YWr32G>

2 - Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, by Max Tegmark (Knopf, 2017, hardcover, 384 pages) <www.goo.gl/jJWS48>

3 - The Efficiency Paradox: What Big Data Can't Do, by Edward Tenner (Knopf, 2018, hardcover, 320 pages) <www.goo.gl/SsNfnZ>

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