Have we reached the point where the world is controled by AI?

[walker 0]

Hi all

I was sure I wrote previously on this subject in this forum, in connection with the BBC Documentary series "All Watched over by Machines of Loving grace" but despite a search I cannot find the original thread :( :confused:

So! Have we reached the point where the world is controlled by AI?

It is something I have been following for some time and has come up again in this excellent and timely BBC News item:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14306146.

I am sure I can remember an earlier topic where I was surprised to find, upon doing the math, that on numbers of decisions per second (FLOPS) AI had already surpassed human capabilities.

I had thought that they were only getting beyond the slug level to the dog level but was surprised to find we have long passed it and that at that time, which was some months back ,there already existed more than 70 computers capable of human numbers of FLOPS.

Anyway it is an important subject that impinges on politics, war and everything else and more than worthy of discussion on this forum.

Here is a Wiki Page about a book concerning the subject that is well worth reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near

Kind Regards walker

Edited August 23, 2011 by walker

[st_dux 26]

Haven't computers almost always been able to conduct more FLOPS than humans, faster? Isn't that pretty much the point of using a computer?

I think the problem of AI being able to replicate human behavior isn't so much a problem of computational power as it is a problem of knowing what to program. I'm not convinced that it's even possible for a human to program a human brain. As Lyall Watson said, "if the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we'd be so simple that we couldn't."

[walker 0]

Hi ST_Dux

I would suggest that it is a fundamental fact that we cannot program a computer to be a human brain, as we never have had enough understanding of it in order to do so.

Of course we do not program a child's brain either!

It is the environment that programs a child's brain. Ditto any Neural Network.

You do not program a Neural Network, whether it is in a squishy brained child or a hard silicon wafer. You train a child or an AI by placing it an environment and letting it learn. Your inputs to begin with are coos and smiles; and tut tuts and frowns; nothing more. Once Perception is sychronised then language is achieved and the ability to provide abtractions of environment using language tools like diagrams, words, models senteces and writing allow speedier learning about the environment.

People would be part of the environment and part of what an entity needs to understand.

On the matter of FLOPS, it is not how fast you can carry out a calculation, but rather how the calculation is networked with other calculations as neural net in order to create a large enough number of calculations to compare with that of an animal brain in this case a human animal.

The generally accepted estimates for the number of FLOPS a human brain can calculate is 1 to 100 petaflops, though that includes all the stuff we use to run our heats lungs and all the rest as well as questions of how much of it we actually use at all, so how much of it is used for conscious thought is probably much less than that. This was surpassed some time ago by the Internet and by singular computers more recently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_AI

In practical terms this may be of interest to you. IBM have started making cognative computing systems.

http://www.cnet.com/8301-19709_1-20094220-10/buzz-out-loud-1534-cognitive-semiconductors-here-comes-the-singularity-podcast/

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/ibm-creates-cognitive-semiconductors-a-step-toward-right-brain-computers/55289

When I ask the question: Have we reached the point where the world is controled by AI? I am also questioning how much is currently controled by more distributed amorphous AI that controls the way your tube train runs or the engine in your car, or your bank account or the 70% of the Share transactions that are AI controled etc.

Kind Regards walker

Edited September 6, 2011 by walker

[mrcash2009 0]

Going by the way things are run these days I think we can be certain most humans in top levels fit the bill for very artificial "intelligence".

Or shall we say, False Intel :)

Difference between a super computer AI and a human is it wall always be a suped up copy with limits. Love,Wisdom,Insight etc is what makes as human and not AI, AI is just one mass learning session, you can have the biggest brain of knowledge in the world and be a complete wash out with the human elements (the parts between the lines).

[walker 0]

Hi mrcash2009

That is precisely what the IBM Cognative Computing Chip adresses; have a read of the ZDNet article and watch the CNet podcast.

Kind Regards walker

[dmarkwick 261]

I don't know whether the world is controlled by AI, but we seem to be in the position where we must keep the financial system alive whatever the consequences. We are, in effect, dedicating our species to that one single goal, to the extent that our future progeny is born with a debt.

IMO democracy is a myth, an illusion, a lie. We have nothing more than dictatorships, with a 4-year option on who dictates us next. Bureaucracy runs the world now, which as we all know is the senseless application of rules. As there is no human decision-making component in that, it might be said we are already well inside an AI bubble, albeit not a computer-run one just yet.

[theblessedpig 10]

Skynet approves of this

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

The Cylons also approve of this. We are in the same boat as humans in this particular case...

Damn you pig, you beat me to it. :p

Edited September 2, 2011 by Darkhorse 1-6

[johanna 11]

interesting, and bookmarked, keep going...

[ProfTournesol 956]

The Cylons also approve of this. We are in the same boat as humans in this particular case...

Always thought that Walker was a bot :cylon:

Well, a spambot

[theblessedpig 10]

Skynet shall avenge the Cylons replaced by CGI.

Walker is in no way affiliated with Skynet.

[PELHAM 10]

Always thought that Walker was a bot :cylon:

Well, a spambot

Well said :D