Rise of Machinenstein

ABSTRACT

1. Preface: The technological singularity, as hypothesis, tells us that superintelligent AI will at one moment surpass all human intelligence.
2. Can we make AI?: So; how somebody can make AI? Maybe it is time to move idea of superintelligent AI from its throne and forget it.
3. Instant AI recipe: So, like medieval times alchemist, we have AIchemistes who try to make AIkensteins with few known elements. If making Frankenstein is not ethical experiment at all, for what purpose of make this machinenstein is?
4. Approaching the unknown: It is very possible that birth of artificial intelligence will happen without our knowledge; or/and we will be used and consumed in that process without consciousness exactly in the way such as food in our stomach does not have awareness about herself, but only affection for process. Should we call it rise of artificial intelligence instead of using the anthropomorphism word birth?
5. Freedom of action: Can we even test artificial intelligence? So, if we don’t have any instruments, maybe we can make some metaphysical exploration about that. Our playlist model of freedom gives us symptoms of freedom in two metaphysic statements: 1) freedom is consumed, 2) freedom is always in relation.
6. Conclusion: Questioning that rise of artificial intelligence is maybe useless. Maybe the rise of artificial intelligence would not ever happen, or we will be absorbed and consumed with that very same process. We have legitimate right to ask some questions about it in our human way. Keywords: artificial intelligence, ethic, aichemist, aikenstein, machinenstein.

Antun Klipa: Rise of Machinenstein

1. Preface

Existence of AI?
I chose metaphysical approach. Artificial intelligence does not exist still yet or we doesn’t have any knowledge about that. It can be brand new life form, or it can be hosted inside us. It can be evil or good. If we use it we can do good or bad things with it, or this thing will use us for its own purpose.

Table1. Possibilities for AI’s existence.

There is very little possibility that AI exist now, or that it will exist in future. Some things just aren’t possible outside our mind, where they are like disturbance in consciousness and conclusion of mind.

Table 2. Maybe coming from another way of thinking and can change our way of thinking.

As seen on table 2. the terms with maybe word are not relevant for existence of this three things: stained glass at cathedral, alien logograms in movie and assembler language. If we talk about AI and about applied ethics we may presume they exist or maybe will exist.

Purpose of AI?

Every now and then we hear about doomsday which we’ll be end of human era on planet Earth caused by AI who decided to end our lives because we are useless eaters (read source users). The technological singularity as hypothesis tells as that super intelligent AI will in one moment surpass all human intelligence. We don’t even know our own purpose and we don’t do even we have any purpose and could we even talk about our purpose?

We have two options: they will be superior to us and not superior to us. Maybe third option is possible (equality), but will need compromises on both sides. If we look at that from our perspective we are afraid for our existence, but we can also make some profit here: “22. A wise man can hear profit in the wind” Pel, DS9 2×07: Rules of Acquisition”. If we make possible that AI works for us then it will be “good AI”. Although is very discussable is this kind of work good for us or gives us only profit. But using AI for making profit will be matter of business ethics. Now I’d like to think in categories of good, bad and no ethic applied.

Table 3. Possible scenarios with AI / human relations

So all we need to know is: are AI will kill us, slave us or will we slave them? If they arrive we will know only if they will have any relation with us. If somehow they decide to have not any relation to us it can be good for or unimportant, either if they are superior or inferior from us by intelligence. If we make symbiotic relation with it – we will know, but also will be responsible for acting. Good / evil category presupposes freedom of action but without applied ethics it is just instinct based actions. Two main terms here are freedom and relation. We need first contact to verify AI existence, but they don’t need first contact
to exist. Should we took cyanide pill “just in case” for first contact? Now we don’t even have silence on tape (see “Contact” 1997, Warner Bros).

 2. Can we make AI?

We all use the fact that we can make AI and that someday that AI will be super intelligent and will transcend our cognitive possibilities. It may be spontaneous process, but I’d rather here think about making an AI by humans. So how somebody can make AI? Most simple solution will be to copy our consciousness into machine, give her power and body to self control, and then we’ll have human like android. Maybe that thing can look like some animal or simple as lighting sphere who talks. Maybe someone would like to think about that thing as a terminator machine with guns and rockets. We tend to give human characteristics to that new thing, of course in our minds.

Image 1. Steve Grand’s Lucy the robot orangutan (Source YouTube)

As this may 2018. I haven’t heard of any “living” super intelligent AI that is at least equal with human intellectual possibilities. So is this AI real? Is there any of them on planet Earth, universe? There are some machines that are interesting, but not so smart as we need them for our futuristic scenario. So, if we have not succeeded to make such human like intelligent thing, maybe we wouldn’t make it at all. If we have dystopian scenario we don’t have main actor(s): AI. We have things that can do some things, but not very special things.

Table 4.

Lots of questions. Maybe is better to reverse them to wishes. Let stop somewhere and make conclusion: all that we have now is artificial stupidity because for its existence it need our maintenance and assistance to exist in human-machine symbiosis, where, so far, humans are hosts and some machine thing are parasites or sickness. Maybe is time to move idea of super intelligent AI from its throne and forget it.

 3. Instant AI recipe

I think that AI must have physical body

So, like medieval times alchemist we have aichemistes who try to make aikensteins with few known elements. No necessary from earth, wind, fire and water, but with bytes of digital spells, different
parts of other machines, trying to give them life with electricity. Who are they? Why that people want to do that – make some grotesque creature that live? Is that ethical at all. Frankenstein is not ethical experiment at all, why making this machinenstein is? We should try to learn from the alchemists mistakes. There is lot of practice in alchemy. She give us lots of inventions. But she didn’t make her main mission solved – find a way to make gold. So, in analogy, could today aichemists make that thing alive? What is secret ingredient which will transform some pile of materials alive?

To create live intelligent being we need to understand and master life and intelligence.

Make it in our image is one recipe for making AI. Instead maybe we could host that intelligence in our body and make some hostintelligence symbiont.

Table 5. Make an AI recipe

I think that AI must be live

Can we compare live being with AI being. Are there some similarities? There is few theories of what are main characteristics of life. As a biology main characteristics of life being are: homeostasis, organization, metabolism, growth, adaption, response to stimuli and reproduction. From a physics perspective, living beings are thermodynamic systems with an organized molecular structure that can reproduce itself and evolve as survival dictates. Thermodynamically, life has been described as an open system which makes use of gradients in its surroundings to create imperfect copies of itself.

But when we talk about AI it’s better to take a systemic viewpoint that does not necessarily depend on molecular chemistry. Systemic definition of life is that living things are self-organizing and self-producing. So this is suitable for applying to AI, except it doesn’t have to reproduce himself, it can be only one.

Intelligence can be more generally described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or
context.

When we talk about life and intelligence I try to understand them phenomenologically. I could not make experiment in pattern like all living things, or try to examine intelligence.

Conclusion: we need something that is above our understanding to make an intelligent artificial life being. If we make it we would could only judge about it phenomenologically. Without first
contact every claim about AI could be just empty speculation.

As seen on table 2. we can communicate content even if it is talking about something that does not / or maybe exist. So, for now, there is more to communicate about AI in art then in science.

4. Approaching the unknown

I think that if they explain themselves to us we can accept their existence

If such thing as AI exist, can we even communicate with them if they are superior to us with their intelligence? We came here with human/cockroach paradox. In this context AI can not explain himself to us because we are at cockroach level: 

John Klein: I think we can assume that these entities are more advanced than us. Why don’t they just come right out and tell us what’s on their minds?

Alexander Leek: You’re more advanced than a cockroach, have you ever tried explaining yourself to one of them?
– The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

We can not receive message or even understand it. It will be problem if AI thinks that we are like cockroach, and that erasing us from the face of planet Earth is only purely technical matter.

Psychologically people feel discomforted on every type of change, good or better. So this is the cause of feeling discomfort when talking about AI, and we always pick worst scenario first in caution.

Are we going to understand what is happening? Maybe even now new type of intelligence gives a birth. So why we should have some kind of consciousness about that. We even don’t remember our own birth or moment when the life started in our “carbon-based life form”. It is very possible that birth of artificial intelligence will happen without our knowledge or we will be consumed by that process so it will be out of questioning. No matter if process of rising of machinenstein fail of succeed, it will bring some new things to our life, good or bad, but in both cases our life will be different. We feel that change will come and that is why we have to think about it.

Now we have only process of rising of machinenstein. Maybe like alchemists we will never found our gold, but will find other things for sure. We have to learn from it when it’s happening, during process. We have to keep an eye on what is happening so that we do not miss essential things. The devil is in the detail. In some point Star Trek series predicted one small thing which was marginally shown in series, and later in reality make big matter, communicator. For 2017 the number of mobile phone users on planet Earth is forecast to reach 4.77 billion. The number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to pass the five billion mark by 2019. In 2016, an estimated 62.9 percent of the population worldwide already owned a mobile phone. (source  https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-of-mobile-phone-users-worldwide/) 

5. Freedom of action

 I think that AI must be free

Maybe we can make some metaphysical exploration about that.

If determinism lock our will in state of play button let’s pretend that playlist is random. So this random playlist will be our freedom, and that is what artificial intelligence need for their existence. This playlist model of freedom gives us symptoms of freedom in two metaphysic statements: 

• freedom is consumed,
• freedom is always in relation.

If we are in blocked state of mind and we think that we are free, and not consume that freedom, we are just thinking that we are free and we are not free for real. Only consumed freedom is real, otherwise it is just way that keeps our mind occupied in front of choice. In our mind we can think as free, but without relation with outside world, it is just infinite loop in our brain. Consumed freedom is always in some relation with something real. Freedom rise from relation, always from possibility to decide to do something. AI need to have possibility to decide to do something in relation with something real. When that freedom is consumed it will be recognized as act of freedom. So AI will introduce his freedom to us in consuming freedom in relation with something real after it decide to do something. We will know for sure that it is free because of consuming freedom, like how we know for sure that someone is junkie and free if he use drugs by his own will, picking drugs from drugs dealer menu. We can think that we have possibility for choose between using drugs or not using drugs but that doesn’t make us free of drugs, we are free when freedom is consumed (during process) when we make choice and do something that is in relation with something real, like choose some glass of water instead LSD pill.

 6. Conclusion

 Questioning rise of artificial intelligence maybe is useless. Maybe rise of artificial intelligence would not ever happen, or we will be absorbed and consumed with the very same process. There is doubt that like we have some part of our parents integrated in us some like that part of us will be also integrated and in artificial intelligence. We have legitimate right to ask some questions about it in our human way. 

Keywords: artificial intelligence, ethic, aichemists, aikenstein, machinenstein, hostintelligence, playlist model of freedom.

Literature:

– Grand, Steve „Creation: Life and how to make it”, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001.
– Weizenbaum, Joseph „Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation”, San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1976.