What do you think is the future of AI?
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Today’s daily writing prompt is “What do you think is the future of AI?”. My answer is that “The Future of AI is Superintelligence”. Artificial Intelligence has been very useful for robotics and automation in the past, but the future of AI holds something very different, at least if you look far ahead enough. I’ve spent most of my working life using AI for at least some of my work related projects since the 1990’s. However, the Artificial Intelligence we see today is likely extremely primitive compared to the Artificial Intelligence of tomorrow. In the future it will be very different.
Artificial Intelligence could evolve into intellects that greatly exceed the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest, meaning it could render humans essentially useless. Moreover, the Artificial Intelligence of the future is likely to be autonomous, able to make its own decisions, have imagination, agency, and as you will see later in this post, as much “autonomy” as a human. This is not automation in a normal sense. I think it will evolve into something we may not be able to understand.
This is an opinion and not a fact and thus not a super-fact. To explain, most of my posts on this blog are what I refer to as super facts. Facts on important topics that we know are true and yet surprising, mind-blowing, or controversial (but should not be). Therefore, a lot of the super facts are about myth busting. However, as I said, this post is an opinion and a response to the daily writing prompt and not a fact and not a super fact.
The first time I came across Artificial Intelligence was in college, in 1987. In one of my Artificial Intelligence classes I was introduced to a new algorithm, the Rumelhart backpropagation algorithm for neural network learning. David Rumelhart, Geoffrey Hinton, and Ronald Williams introduced it in their 1986 paper, “Learning representations by back-propagating errors”. This is the algorithm that is making modern LLMs, such as Gemini and ChatGPT possible. In 2024 Geoffrey Hinton was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, and his co-authorship of the famous 1986 backpropagation paper was a core part of the neural network research cited by the Nobel Committee. You can read more about it here.
I should say that back in 1987 we used the Rumelhart backpropagation algorithm for Optical Character Recognition, that is finding and recognizing characters in an image of text. However, our simulated neural network only had a few hundred parameters. Today’s LLMs (Large Language Models, such as Gemini and ChatGPT) have hundreds of billions or even trillions of parameters. Since then, I’ve continued using various forms of Artificial Intelligence. First in my robotics research as a PhD student and later in my professional career. I’ve seen it becoming increasingly sophisticated and capable.
It should be noted that the Artificial Intelligence is not new. The history of artificial intelligence (AI) began in antiquity, with stories of artificial beings. The first artificial neural network model was created in 1943. The Turing test was created in 1950. The field of “Artificial Intelligence Research” was founded as an academic discipline in 1956. The first trainable (able to learn) neural network was demonstrated in 1957.
It is obvious that today’s popular large language models, such as Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, etc., are just very primitive precursors of what will come. If Moore’s law continues to hold, the artificial neural networks of the future will have a lot more than a trillion connections. They will have trillions-times-quadrillions of connections. In other words, we have seen nothing yet. Artificial intelligence is already more capable than humans in many fields, and they it is quickly catching up to humans in virtually all categories.
Superintelligence
In September of 2014 there was a book published with the title “Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies” published. The author was Oxford professor Nick Bostrom. He has expertise in neuroscience, artificial intelligence and philosophy. His book was a New York Times bestseller that sent shockwaves around the world. He defined Superintelligence as “any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest”. Nick Bostrom was not the first one to use the term Superintelligence, but he popularized it. And no, our President did not come up with that expression, and he is also misusing it.
In the book the author described possible pathways to the creation of what he calls a full brain simulation. A full brain simulation is the creation of a computer system that replicates the complete physical architecture, neural pathways, and synaptic connections of a biological brain. A robot, or AI system, featuring a full brain simulation would be able to replicate, or exceed, any human capability, including imagination, independent thinking and initiative, and what we call consciousness. Unless you believe that some sort of immaterial spirit is necessary for our mind, the possibility of this is undeniable. He discussed the potential dangers of this and explained why AI exceeding human capabilities could be dangerous. Robots and AI systems taking every job in existence is just one potential problem.
What if Artificial Intelligence evolve into Superintelligence? What if Artificial Intelligent decides to get rid of humans? After all they would be competing with us for resources. Like the fate of animals depends on us, the fate of humankind would depend on the actions of the machine superintelligence. We are already in an Artificial Intelligence arms race with China (and other countries). Could we end up with a big unpleasant surprise as the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence keep growing exponentially?
A great movie about AI breaking out of their testing environment is Ex-Machina. Have you seen it?
AI Robots in the Future
What would future AI be capable of? How about robot electricians, plumbers, authors, teachers, poets, artists, therapists, soldiers, robot husbands and wives, robot politicians, robot astronauts, robotic musicians, and robotic philosophers?
Note: I generated the images above with the help of ChatGPT.
My Blog Posts Related to Artificial Intelligence
- The Nobel Prize in Physics and Neural Networks
- Artificial Intelligence is Not New
- Large Language Models is just One Branch of Artificial Intelligence
- The Dark Side of Artificial Intelligence
- Transistors per Microchip Increased by More than 50 million Times in 50 Years
- AI is Already More Capable Than Humans in Many Areas
- A Typical AI Query Use Less Energy Than Using a Laptop One Minute
