In Other Words

Internal Scurry

On my scurry through the internet this morning I discovered an essay that might well be one of the best I’ve read this year. The reason I stumbled across it is because of I robot (surprisingly enough) which has brought AI back up for reexamination. I clicked through a couple of blogs that discussed it, but was not too impressed by their ideas and then I followed a link to the Singularity Institute of Artificial Intelligence and more specifically to an essay called Beyond anthropomorphism which discussed artificial intelligence in a way that finally made me realise how hollywoodish my personal view of AI was.

I guess that’s to be expected of a site that specialises in AI, but it just showed me how we are so stuck in our own mode of thinking. We have grown to interpret AI purely from our own perspective and remain unable to step outside that and understand AI for what it is. The threats and dangers of AI are pretty much completely different from how we understand them. We’re just grafting our own shortcomings and prejudices onto robotic bodies. What is portrayed up there on the screen has little to nothing to do with probable reality.

The essay didn’t just open my eyes about AIs though. It also opened my eyes about humanity. Apparently by studying something inhuman AI scientists get a different look at what makes us human. The writer of the essay (who is unfortunately not named) takes that view and manages to convey it to lay people like myself.

Basically, you have to read it. I’m not going to try to reformulate any of the arguments here as I would do them complete injustice. Unfortunately the piece is rather long (about twenty pages) and might require a bit of a social science background. I’m pretty sure that helped me out a whole lot. When I get home I’m going to reread the entire bugger and print it out. Seriously read it. AI will be a part of our lives at one point and it wouldn’t do to maintain the horribly inaccurate and woefully inadequate views of ‘the unwashed masses’.

Interesting fact: An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells. A human brain has 10,000 million so a colony of 40,000 ants has a collective brain mass equal to a human.

posted by Symbol @ 6.8.04