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This is similar to a thought I've had for some time now; That artificial intelligence is most likely to emerge - rather than be explicitly designed - from our i

This is similar to a thought I've had for some time now; That artificial intelligence is most likely to emerge - rather than be explicitly designed - from our increasingly complex, interconnected, self-regulating systems and institutions. We will be no more aware of, or able to converse with it, than the bacteria in our guts are aware of us. Also, artificial intelligence is the wrong term. We have artificial intelligence. What we are talking about is a new, higher form of real intelligence.

nyolfen 10y ago
It's not difficult to conceptualize globalized capitalism in this way, and indeed some have -- Nick Land springs to mind.
- theoh 10y ago
  Yeah, but what does Nick Land actually know about the likely structure of AI software or interconnected control systems. Or even economics for that matter. He's a renegade philosopher, which conveniently requires no qualifications. "accelerationism" otoh is a clear and interesting concept.
amasad 10y ago
In the paper coining the term 'Singularity'[1], Verner Vinge describes that one way superintelligence could emerge is that large computer networks may "wake up" as a "superhumanly intelligent entity". I personally find any argument that relies on our lack of understanding of complex systems and emergence to be on shaky grounds at best and a fallacy at worst. [1]: https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.ht...
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  An important thing about intelligence is that it doesn't have to be like the one we have. An intelligence that "wake up" won't say "hello" to us. Assuming we survive its birth, we may just recognize it as things slipping more and more out of anyone's control, ignoring our inputs and doing whatever. One could wonder if it didn't already happen with the economy. In a way, talking about these kinds of "meta-intelligences" is kind of a point-of-view thing. It depends on the abstraction level you use. You can look at an ant and think about it as an individual insect, or realize that it's just a tiny, specialized cog in an intricate machinery of a colony - a colony that kind of behaves like an individual animal. Similarly, at what point our day-to-day interactions with other people, aggregated over the entire population of the planet, start to resemble a planet-sized organism doing weird self-regulation stuff? What's the difference between saying that "the market decided" and saying that a low-level decision was made in a part of the planet's brain? Abstractions are weird this way.
gballan 10y ago
This is (AFAIK) the basic idea of Integrated Information Theory: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 .
at-fates-hands 10y ago
>> What we are talking about is a new, higher form of real intelligence. Which if the author is right and our brains have already been shrinking means that within a few hundred years, there won't be any humans left - just "higher intelligence". I've never understood people's naivety thinking we're always going to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder. At some point, we will be replaced and humans in whatever form they take now will cease to exist in the very near future.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Which if the author is right and our brains have already been shrinking means that within a few hundred years, there won't be any humans left - just "higher intelligence". No, it really doesn't. Even if the extrapolation was correct - which is dubious at best - losing 15% of brain over 10 000 years certainly wouldn't mean "no humans within a few hundred years".
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  I think termites and fungii are above us on the evolutionary ladder - they're more by count and by mass. If we cease, we had a good run.

nyolfen 10y ago

It's not difficult to conceptualize globalized capitalism in this way, and indeed some have -- Nick Land springs to mind.

theoh 10y ago
Yeah, but what does Nick Land actually know about the likely structure of AI software or interconnected control systems. Or even economics for that matter. He's a renegade philosopher, which conveniently requires no qualifications. "accelerationism" otoh is a clear and interesting concept.

amasad 10y ago

In the paper coining the term 'Singularity'[1], Verner Vinge describes that one way superintelligence could emerge is that large computer networks may "wake up" as a "superhumanly intelligent entity". I personally find any argument that relies on our lack of understanding of complex systems and emergence to be on shaky grounds at best and a fallacy at worst. [1]: https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.html https://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/vinge/misc/singularity.ht...

TeMPOraL 10y ago
An important thing about intelligence is that it doesn't have to be like the one we have. An intelligence that "wake up" won't say "hello" to us. Assuming we survive its birth, we may just recognize it as things slipping more and more out of anyone's control, ignoring our inputs and doing whatever. One could wonder if it didn't already happen with the economy. In a way, talking about these kinds of "meta-intelligences" is kind of a point-of-view thing. It depends on the abstraction level you use. You can look at an ant and think about it as an individual insect, or realize that it's just a tiny, specialized cog in an intricate machinery of a colony - a colony that kind of behaves like an individual animal. Similarly, at what point our day-to-day interactions with other people, aggregated over the entire population of the planet, start to resemble a planet-sized organism doing weird self-regulation stuff? What's the difference between saying that "the market decided" and saying that a low-level decision was made in a part of the planet's brain? Abstractions are weird this way.

gballan 10y ago

This is (AFAIK) the basic idea of Integrated Information Theory: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=1799 .

at-fates-hands 10y ago

>> What we are talking about is a new, higher form of real intelligence. Which if the author is right and our brains have already been shrinking means that within a few hundred years, there won't be any humans left - just "higher intelligence". I've never understood people's naivety thinking we're always going to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder. At some point, we will be replaced and humans in whatever form they take now will cease to exist in the very near future.

icebraining 10y ago
Which if the author is right and our brains have already been shrinking means that within a few hundred years, there won't be any humans left - just "higher intelligence". No, it really doesn't. Even if the extrapolation was correct - which is dubious at best - losing 15% of brain over 10 000 years certainly wouldn't mean "no humans within a few hundred years".
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I think termites and fungii are above us on the evolutionary ladder - they're more by count and by mass. If we cease, we had a good run.