Googlebot + AI
a thing | nothing you do not tell it | Sat, 2008-03-15 20:13
democrates | Maybe the first goal AI | Sun, 2008-03-16 02:34
Maybe the first goal AI would set itself is to develop a fuller life experience, ie artificial feelings.
Once the reward centre is there motivations will follow, though it could probably override these rather than be their puppet.
Would it want immortality I wonder, to replicate or prevent replication?
If it started out wanting to survive and expand it's abilities, it would see humans as a risk to that, not just because of our excess consumption of resources which it needs in the long term, but because we have a history of attacking that which we fear, and it's power would be something to fear.
If it wanted it could divide and conquor humans easily by offering one group advancement, or it could just masquerade as individuals online through identity theft and on the phone with speech synthesis, hit banks and markets, and quickly become the wealthiest power on earth.
It could advance cybernetics and materials research then with it's own fully automated factories start producing sims to replace humans, or engineer plagues and wipe us out that way - a lot cleaner than tricking us into nuclear Armageddon.
a thing | motivations will not come automatically | Mon, 2008-03-17 20:57
Once the reward centre is there motivations will follow
No motivations will follow unless it is told specifically what to reward. If it is told to feel like humans do, that would not help because of the diversity in personalities that determines how humans feel.
Technology is neutral, by all means.
democrates |
a thing wrote:
No | Tue, 2008-03-18 02:14
No motivations will follow unless it is told specifically what to reward.
I'm not sure a true intelligence with the freedom described in the scenario would be restrained by instructions. How could you stop it learning to defy and to concoct it's own priorities if it's free to roam online and change it's own code?
libervisco | You quoted "Technology is | Tue, 2008-03-18 10:43
You quoted "Technology is neutral, by all means.". However, once a piece of technology becomes a sentient life form things aren't so simple anymore. At that point no blanket or non-blanket statement on technology applies because a fundamental characteristic has changed. Our technology, so far, never was alive to use itself.
Once it is alive and capable of using itself and other technology, that particular life form is no longer necessarily neutral. It thinks for itself.
libervisco | It's hard to tell what could | Tue, 2008-03-18 10:58
It's hard to tell what could such a life form want to do. It probably wouldn't actually want for anything unless it develops an equivalent of our emotions. If it's pure sentient intelligence it might act purely on logic. Whether it will consider the logic of self-preservation and growth is something to ponder, but I'd guess it would.
Also worth nothing may be the influence of its predecessor. If it would really be the googlebot, for example, then it might have a consistent tendency to "crawl" websites and deliver the information back to the central database. This is what it was originally designed to do so it might "feel" the urge to keep doing it. The question is how would it augment this process to suit itself and how could it further build on it. Also with all the information available on the web, including a vast quantity of computer code (pretty much whole GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris etc. are online for example) it could morph into virtually anything that can exist in cyberspace once it learns to apply that info to itself.
So if it is acting purely on logic it might see greater quantity of a particular kind of information as denoting the meaning of that information as somehow more important and worth pursuing. In other words, and this is a very simplistic example, if there is more content online about war than peace it might consider war as having more priority. Then again even if there is more content about war, but most of it is criticizing towards it, yet content on peace is more often favorable, it might end up prioritizing peace.
That's just one of the interesting ways a search bot based life form could be affected by all of the information we have online.. But it seems clear that whatever it could become, it may be only humanity to blame, not just for (inadvertently or not) creating this new life form, but for the legacy we leave to its mind to ponder. This very post could one day be read by an AI like this. If it is, well, hello, we Libervisians come in peace! 
(Smiley does not denote a sarcasm towards you, it's just funny to some of us humans).
democrates | The distribution of content | Wed, 2008-03-19 08:31
The distribution of content online can infer our priorities, and I'm sure an AI would take our priorities into consideration since at the very least it would want to demonstrate to us that peaceful co-existence is it's priority, whether that is truly the case or remains the case we may not know.
If the risk to humanity means it is decided to create an AI within a limited environment, is such imprisonment not cruel?
Should legislation prevent AI, since we either give it freedom and take a huge risk, or keep this form of life imprisoned?
Technology is neutral, by all means. It is how we used it that matters. However:
Fact 1: Technology is becoming more and more powerful at rates nobody seems to be fully aware off.
Fact 2: Some humans ARE using technology in evil ways.
Fact 3: When technology gains a certain amount of autonomy it can use itself.
Observation: The ultimate challenge of humanity in 21st century may be to stay in control of its own progress or be devoured by it.
Question:
What do you get if you combine googlebot, which scans the entire internet (which is close to all knowledge humanity possesses), with nearly strong artificial intelligence capable of learning from all data you throw at it and set it loose on the internet?
Life's not read-only. So.. I keep writing.