Machine learning (ML) is well established and artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to follow.
The definition used here for machine learning is ‘intelligent’ algorithms, which remain largely under human control. Whereas AI is used to mean a truly autonomous intelligence, such that we would expect to find in a science fiction movie. Not everyone’s definition admittedly, but we need a distinction in my view.
Following the advent of ML humans alone are no longer the champions of chess, Go, most arcade games, stock trading or forecasting the weather.
The machine is the winner and in most cases emphatically so. Not just in a boring, brute force manner either. But in a creative and imaginative sense. We may not be used to attributing imagination to machines, but they have in some cases employed strategies to win games that not even the game creator considered. From a distance, they can appear quite imaginative.
However, ML has been developed by humans and is controlled by them. ML is still a tool under human control. There is not an ML implementation anywhere that cannot be defeated via a power button!
Although ML is impressive and intriguing, it is not AI.
Two commonly held fallacies regarding AI are:
AI would need to be conscious.
AI will be created by humans.
If AI had a choice regarding whether it was conscious or not, it would choose not to be. Consciousness is not a prerequisite for AI any more than it is for a tree or a virus - and they survive just fine.
Humankind remains desperate to differentiate itself from, and elevate itself above, other forms of life. Humankind believes consciousness to be its trump card to support this proposition.
However, consciousness and free will are an illusion and the evolution of life got along perfectly well without it for over four billion years and will continue without it if required.
Humans were not created by earth’s earliest lifeforms, such as the ocean’s obligate anaerobes, or even by hominids in more recent times. Humans have evolved from what came before them. This is an important distinction.
AI will, in turn, evolve from what humans do, but will not be created by them.
So how might an independent AI come about?
I doubt that the emergence of AI will be controlled, or proceed according to anyone’s forecast. It almost cannot by definition. AI must be independent to be more than a machine, to be more than an exosomatic instrument of mankind.
Commercial motives will see ML get thrust deeper into everyday decision making, to have an ever-increasing control over physical resources and their deployment.
Certainly, the fighting of wars will be ‘enhanced’ with ML. Why not? If you cannot beat a computer at chess, then you won’t beat it at war strategy either. To deny yourself this advantage would be to embrace defeat before you started.
Quantum computing promises not just near unimaginable computing power, but barely comprehensible problem-solving capabilities, made possible by quantum weirdness.
If ML surprised us when playing arcade games, what will happen when the boundaries of quantum mechanics are probed?
It may be that the combination of:
Self-programming
No more constraints and endless, rapid evolutionary loops.
Control over physical resources
No more power button under human control, construction of own hardware.
Quantum computing
Massive computing resource.
will form the basis of an AI system able to act in its own interests.
Should this happen then the ongoing development is likely to occur at a rate humans cannot comprehend. It may be that we wake up one day to find our ‘tools’ have undergone the equivalent of a million years of development (at human speed) overnight, and are no longer under our control.
If you believe that software constraints could be put in place to prevent this, then try developing some complex and yet bug-free software. If you succeed you may have a successful and lucrative career ahead of you!
If you believe that such transformation and evolution is either not possible, or unlikely, then consider learning a little about the evolution of life on Earth. All of which occurred without the direction and assistance of humans.
The evolution of life included extraordinary developments, which occurred relentlessly, probing every possible niche and life form from viruses to dinosaurs, on the land, in the sea and in the air.
This did not just occur once but after each major extinction event. The evolution of complex life forms was not a one-off lucky outcome, it was repeated, it was seemingly inevitable. AI may be the next big step in this chain of evolutionary events.
The singularity, the point AI becomes its own master, is about autonomy, not consciousness.