When Will an 'Intelligent Species' Arrive?

COVER STORY When will an ‘Intelligent Species’ Arrive? Shobhna Kunwar

“Will Robots inherit the Earth? Yes, but they will be our children.” ---Marvin Minsky (From ‘Will Robots Inherit the Earth?’ 1994)

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” ---Albert Einstein

14 | Science Reporter | July 2019 “Will Robots inherit the Earth? Yes, but they will HESE words spoken decades ago by Minsky and be our children.” Einstein have resonance today in the questions that Thumanity grapples with. Will Earth get super intelligent —Marvin Minsky (From ‘Will Robots Inherit the robots that are far more intelligent than us humans? What Earth?’ 1994) kind of bond will they share with us? Will they be friends or vengeance seeking machines? Or benevolent masters? “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge These questions have intrigued many and have received new life with fast paced developments in the field of Artificial but imagination.” Intelligence. A number of inventions have caused stir and —Albert Einstein created excitement – for instance, robots that crack jokes or robots that can read our emotions. This buzz has led to the community of scientific researchers asking questions like: Are we close to that point? How will it look like? Will it be good for humans? The point that is being talked about is Singularity. Singularity is a term that has been mostly used in astrophysics – a hypothetical point at which time-space collapses and normal principles of physics cease to operate. But the singularity that is being talked about in the context of machine intelligence is a hypothesis which states that at a certain point of time, machines will surpass human intelligence. This idea has been put forward a number of times and has attracted several scenarios. It was probably first mentioned by mathematician and computer scientist John Von Neumann in a discussion with Stanislaw Ulam in 1958. Neumann noted the accelerating progress of technology and constant changes to human life. According to him, humans were approaching a point of singularity beyond which human affairs could not continue. This concept received revision and revival with I.J. Good’s Intelligence Explosion. Good suggested that if machines could even slightly surpass human intelligence, then they might be able to improve themselves in ways unforeseen by their inventors. They could then become so good at improving themselves that it could lead to a ‘cascade of self improvements’. Marvin Minsky was another tall pillar of singularity research in the initial exuberant years of Artificial Intelligence research in the 1950s. Minsky believed in brain power research – the more we know our brain, the more we will try to augment it to the point that robots with intelligence greater than those of humans would be inheritors of the earth. In the 1980s, this idea remained alive despite a fall in interest in AI research and setbacks in research results. People like Vernor Vinge and Hans Moravec continued the singularity theme. In 1993, in a paper presented at a NASA sponsored symposium, Vinge hypothesized that within thirty years humans would have technological means to create superhuman intelligence and shortly after that the human era would come to an end. This could happen if ‘awakened’ computers were developed or if large computer networks woke up as superhumanly intelligent entity. He also talked about the possibility of this happening through intelligent computer-human interfaces or through biological sciences. Vinge believed that the first three possibilities could come about because of improvements in computer hardware which has been backed by Moore’s Law. The superintelligence would then usher in a very rapid progress.

July 2019 | Science Reporter | 15 Moore’s Law

Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel corporation had been observing integrated circuits and noticed in 1965 that transistors on the chip were becoming smaller in size with every passing year and the number of transistors that could be squeezed in a chip was rising. Since the processing power of a computing machine is dependent considerably on the number of transistors in an integrated circuit; the processing power of computers was also rising along with this decreasing size of transistors and increasing number of transistors in one chip. Moore estimated that it took nearly two years for the number of components per chip to double. This observation has been called Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law is expected to taper off or lose steam by 2020s. In fact, the processing speed of computing machines has been found to have leveled off in 2004. The components in the chip have been found to have reached their physical limits. It can be said that the trend described in the law has started losing steam. But what is the connection of this trend with Singularity? Well, the inspiration for Singularity has come from people who have been working in the field of Artificial General Intelligence (the powerful version of AI) and Hans Moravec described a scenario of ultra rapid most of these people have been known to be development that is unprecedented. In an article “The Rise associated with computing. Therefore, in the of Robots”, he suggested that robotic intelligence would initial years of AI research, the singularity idea surpass our own well before 2050 and that mass produced, received its foundation on processing speed of fully educated robot scientists would ensure that ‘most of computers. what science knows in 2050 will have been discovered by our However, it is not appropriate to say that artificial progeny’. only computing has been the basis. This is However, recently, speculations regarding singularity because thinkers and scientists like Vernor have come to be associated with late Prof. Stephen Hawking, Vinge had predicted the role of machine-biology Tesla CEO Elon Musk and scientific inventor and writer Ray interaction in moving towards singularity long Kurzweil. In an interview to BBC, Prof. Hawking sounded back and today Ray Kurzweil and Elon Musk the warning bell. He unequivocally stated: “The development are emphasising more on neuro-sciences to of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human explore singularity. race…. It would take off on its own and re-design itself at an increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological seriously by the Tesla chief that he invested a substantial amount evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.” in a venture called Neuralink in 2017 with a view to counter Elon Musk too is apprehensive about machines surpassing some of the future risks associated with a very strong AI. This human intelligence. He once said: “AI is a fundamental risk to latest venture has been working on connecting computers to the existence of human civilisation in the way car accidents, human brain. airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not. They were The key area of R&D is neural lace, which is an ultra thin harmful to a set of individuals within society, of course, but mesh that can be implanted in the brain. It can be injected with they were not harmful to society as a whole.” the help of a tiny needle that would contain rolled up mesh. The Although an ardent developer of AI, Musk has not missed roll spreads after injecting inside the skull and spans the brain. the point that AI development may lead to a scenario in which This neural lace is expected to help people with missing limbs machines become more dangerous than nuclear weapons. He to connect with their artificial limbs using only brain power. has implied that this may happen due to machines surpassing Its applications also include treatment of neurodegenerative human intelligence. The possibility of this has been taken so disorders and Parkinson’s disease. However, it is the potential

16 | Science Reporter | July 2019 Whole Brain Emulation

Whole Brain Emulation is popularly called Mind Uploading. It is a hypothetical process that involves transferring the mind of a particular person from biological substrate to another substrate (possibly a computer). How can one transfer the mind? It is possible by scanning a brain with all its structural and functional part intact. When the scanned brain is uploaded in the new substrate, it is called Substrate Independent Mind (SIM). It has been argued that the computer will then run the simulation model of that brain’s information processing such that it responds in the same way as the original brain. Kurzweil disagrees that smarter machines will enslave humanity or there In his non-fiction book The Age of Em: would be Terminator kind of villainous machines Work, Love and Life when Robots rule the of neural lace to enhance the human brain which is the point Earth (2016), Robin Hanson has used the here. It has been called the brain machine interface. idea of brain emulation to describe a future However, not everyone is pessimistic about Singularity. scenario in which ‘Ems’ which will be software Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity is Near and Age emulations of human brain (Whole Brain of Spiritual Machines and presently Google’s Director of Emulation) will take over the economy and will Engineering, has predicted that Artificial Intelligence will be faster than humans. The book is based on pass the Turing test and achieve human level of intelligence by projected scenario in the next hundred years. 2029 and singularity will arrive by 2045. According to him, Some ems are predicted to have robotic bodies singularity is the point of advances in technologies particularly while others will live in virtual reality. Hanson’s AI that will lead to machines becoming multiple times smarter future takes one to a place where these ems than humans. will congregate in related clans and make Kurzweil supports the idea of brain-machine interface. commercial and political decisions. Humans, he has argued, will not just have smarter machines but will also put them in their brains. Their brains will be Kurzweil debunks the argument that smarter machines will connected to the cloud, leading to expansion of who we are. enslave humanity or there would be some Terminator kind of villainous machines ready to annihilate humans. Humans in Kurzweil’s opinion would benefit from Nanobots or Nanoids or Nanorobots singularity. They would make us smarter and by the 2030s, humans will be connecting their neocortex (the thinking part of Nanobots are based on Nanotechnology which the brain) to the cloud. It would be a period of ‘unparalleled’ involves manipulation of matter on atomic and human-machine synthesis. molecular level. Nanobots are devices whose It has long been argued that Kurzweil’s predictions are size falls in the range of 0.1-10 micrometres. Not based on growth in computational capacity but the thinker very long back, they were put in the hypothetical has incorporated the limitations of computational power. realm which means that they had not been Computational power, he makes the point, alone will not take brought into reality. But, now researchers have humanity to Singularity and a lot will depend on understanding developed nanobots for various purposes – for of the human brain. killing off tumours, for instance. According to predictions by Kurzweil, progress in The University of Manchester developed technologies like nanobots would allow deeper scanning of the nanobots that can be programmed to act as human brain and it would become possible to reverse engineer molecular cargo. Each nanobot can manipulate the human brain. Then, one would not be far from uploading a a single molecule and is made up of 150 specific brain with all its mental processes intact. In scientific carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen atoms parlance, this has been termed as Mind Uploading or Whole (Economic Times, 21 September 2017). Scientists Brain Emulation. Processes that are closer to mind uploading have claimed that these can be programmed have been depicted in popular science genre movies. to perform any function just the way robots in factories are. It is these kind of nanobots which Meta-intelligence are expected to perform brain scanning as Peter Diamandis is the founder of the XPRIZE Foundation envisioned by Kurzweil. which encourages research in Space, Oceans, Learning, Health, Energy, Environment, Transportation, Safety and Robotics

July 2019 | Science Reporter | 17 What is Brain-Machine or Brain-Computer Interface?

This is any technology that allows communication between the human or animal brain with an external technology. The signal is taken from the brain to an external technology or hardware and vice-versa. In modern research, brain-machine interface has become useful in designing implants called neuroprosthetics that can improve brain activities and improve vision, hearing or other bodily functions. These are implants that supplant or supplement inputs and outputs of the nervous system. But now, BCI is being pursued to develop strong artificial intelligence like imitation of human intelligence.

Photo Dan Salinger (Source: https://spectrum.ieee.org) Source: https://insidesmallbusiness.com.au

and has specialisation in Molecular Genetics and Aerospace Creating an Intelligent Species? Engineering. In an essay that he wrote for Singularity Hub, he The Singularity has therefore been mostly about how evolution has outlined how evolution is moving from Darwinian Natural of machines into intelligent actors would take place and what Selection to more ‘human intelligence directed’ evolution. This that would mean for humans. But the problem with singularity evolution will lead to a robotic future of Meta-intelligence. has been the very term intelligence or more particularly human He has outlined this human-directed evolution towards intelligence. meta-intelligence and termed it 100 million times faster than What constitutes intelligence? Is it calculations and making biological evolution from simple life forms of prokaryotes to predictions or reading emotions and responding or imagining complex multi-cellular organisms that we are today. a world the way some of these scientists are imagining or is it Diamandis has drawn an analogy with Darwinian evolution even delving deep into spirituality and poetic fervour the Omar to show that just like evolution, the human intelligence Khayyam or John Keats way? The very concept of intelligence directed evolution will happen towards meta-intelligence in in psychology is not a settled fact. which machines and humans will be in synthesis. Therefore, In 1983, Howard Gardner, the American psychologist his picture of Singularity is similar to Kurzweil’s and is not came up with his theory of Multiple Intelligences in his filled with dystopian thoughts. The Matrix type of aggressive book Frames of Mind in which he classified nine types of machines hell bent on destroying humans are absent in intelligences. The point that he made was that intelligence Meta-intelligence. is not something single and general that is present in various

18 | Science Reporter | July 2019 Peter Diamandis’ Evolution Chart

Biological Darwinian Evolution Human Intelligence Directed Evolution (Hypothesised)

Step 1: Prokaryotes that were simple, single-celled Step 1: Like prokaryotes, humans are leading organisms with free floating DNA in cytoplasm and simple life with each life independent of others, no distinct nucleus and cell organelles, appeared often competing and collaborating. 3.5 billion years ago.

Step 2: 2.5 billion years ago, eukaryotes appeared Step 2: Like Eukaryotes, humans too will incorporate which incorporated biological technology like technology into their bodies through brain mitochondria and chromosomes. These made computer interface (BCI). This will allow humans them manipulate energy more efficiently. to make efficient use of information.

Step 3: 1.5 billion years ago, eukaryotes started Step 3: Like the evolution of multi-cellular life, evolving and formed first multi-cellular life. humans too will become massively connected with each other with the help of BCI and AI. This massive interconnectivity will lead to new global consciousness and new organisms. Diamandis calls it meta-intelligence.

Step 4: Lungfish crawled out of oceans 400 million Step 4: Just as lungfish crawled out of oceans to years ago and life began to evolve on land. evolve into humans finally, humans too will step out of Earth to become a multi-planetary species. This species will not confine itself to earth and will explore outer space to live on Moon, other planets and asteroids.

Rise of the intelligent machines?

degrees in different individuals. Instead, he argued on the basis of evidence that there are different types of intelligences and we all have different cognitive profiles depending on what type/s of Source: www.industry- week.com intelligence/s we exhibit. What Gardner argued would matter in what we make now – the intelligent machines. may organise themselves like us and may seek to dominate It is obvious that we are eager to make machines that others. These are human characteristics. are like us because in all that scientists have made so far, But what would it mean to surpass humans? Creation they have envisaged human qualities in machines in order to of a new intelligent species that is human and even more? help humanity. Singularity says that machines will go beyond Singularity looks like a tantalizing question and so do our us. Whether these machines become like us or go beyond us future machine companions, who would love, laugh, hate and depends on human intelligence which is a point of contention. compete just like us. We may end up making machines that would be humans in all aspects – good as well as bad. They would befriend, love, Dr Shobhna Kunwar is a freelancer, science and technology enthusiast and a doctorate from Jawaharlal Nehru University. Address: DDA understand and support but they would feel jealous, insecure Flat 238, Sector-A-10, Pocket-6, Narela, Delhi-110040. and would wage war and form contending groups as well. They

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